Disciples must quit the Name of Deists and set up in the open Defence of Atheism Or he must bring upon the Stage an unthinking ignorant or deceitful Deity that told his Servants a parcel of Idle Contradictory and Lying Stories to amuse the world with a Noise of Divine Truths whereas they were in reality nothing else but the Erroneous conceptions of fanciful Men. But if on the other hand he Acknowledge nothing at all of Divinity in those whom we receive as inspired Authors he must then shew his Reader how the Prophesies and Miracles of those Men are reconcilable with the ordinary Course and Power of Nature S. He does shew you in his 4th Chapter that there neither is nor can be any such thing as a Miracle L. We will discourse that point more narrowly some other time but at present I will onely urge one instance more that utterly overthrows your Authors sandy Foundation We read in the 2d Chapter of the Acts that when the Apostles were all with one accord in one place there appeared unto them Cloven Tongues and sate upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other Tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Now I would feign learn from your Author who some say was a School Master and therefore ought to be well versed in the Didacticks whether there be any way in Nature to teach any one Man much less a Number of Men the Words and Idioms of many Foreign and unknown Languages in a moment or instant of time S. I must confess I cannot well conceive how such a thing could be done without the assistance of some invisible Power but still this only proves an infused knowledge of words but not of things L. If you grant an infused knowledge of words it is the greatest Folly in the World to deny the possibility of an infused knowledge of things For it is much more easy to conceive that God can declare his will to some chosen Persons and leave the manner of expressing it to their natural and acquired Abilities than that he should infuse simul semel in one instant of time the knowledge of several Languages into the minds of unlearned Men. S. I for my part am resolved never to be a Bigot in speculative Matters and since he speaks so much for Morality in all parts of his Book I cannot choose but have a good Opinion of him L. Morality and Mathematical Demonstration serve many times for canting terms to be specious covers to Wickedness and Non-sense He grants the Prophets had clear Perceptions of Morality for so may all Mankind besides but that we are not bound to believe them in any thing that is speculative that is we may Lawfully reject all the Credenda of the Mosaick or the Christian Religion As for Example according to his way of arguing when the Scripture tells You must Love the Lord your God with all your Heart with all your Soul It onely teaches you that you should be Pious but you are not bound to believe from thence that there is a God or that he Governs the World or that he alone is to be Worshipped for these according to his Hypothesis are speculative Opinions concerning which the Prophets had contrary and repugnant Notions And thus your Author would plant abundance of Piety but not one grain of the Knowledge of God in the World After the same manner when the Apostle says 2 Thes 1. 7. That the Lord Jesus Christ shall be reveal'd from Heaven with his mighty Angels v. 8. in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ v. 9. Who shall be punished with Everlasting Destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his Power We are to Learn that we are to obey the Gospel in being Just and Charitable but we must not thence infer that those who are unjust and uncharitable Shall certainly be Punished with Flaming Fire or with an Everlasting Destruction from the Face of the Lord And I will now leave it to your Judgment what Friend he can be to Piety Justice or Charity who divests them of the certainty of a future reward and leaves them no other Encouragement than what arises from the Government of the passions in this Life which tho it be a considerable part yet it cannot be the whole of humane Happiness Or whether he is not an Encourager of Impiety Injustice and Oppression and all manner of known and unknown Vices who takes away from wicked Men the Terror of being tormented with the Devil and his Angels For tho our Saviour says Mat. 12. 16. If Satan cast out Satan he is divided against himself his Kingdom cannot stand He will have this Argument only adapted to the Opinion of the Pharisees but no proof that there is a Devil or any Kingdom of malicious Spirits and so good night to your Author's Morality S. When you read his 4th Chap. you will see how earnestly he Pleads for Virtue L. If you will bring me what he says another time I will gladly admit all that is true and oppose nothing but notorious Falshoods Conference III. S. WEll Sir according to my promise I have read over the 4th Chap. of my Author passing by his third because it chiefly concerns the Jews wherein I find him to be a very zealous Advocate of true Virtue and Goodness which I value more than any Speculative Opinion so much contended for by the Sons of the Clergy L. If obedience and submission to God is the principal Law of Nature then it is as much our Duty to believe a Truth when revealed as it is to obey a Commandment when it is promulged and then it follows that what he calls Speculation is neither more nor less than a practical necessary Duty S. Your error proceeds from your false Apprehensions of a true notion of a Law He shews you in his 43d Page that the word Law absolutely taken signifies that according to which every individual or some of the same species do all or some one thing by a certain and determinate Reason and that it depends either upon the necessity of Nature or the consent or authority of Men. L. Then farewel at once to all Divine Laws but those which he fancys depend upon the necessary motions of matter or are confined by the Authority of the Civil Magistrate or receive their strength from the mutual consent of some determinate Society of Men. S. I hope you will not deny that Corporeal Necessity is a Law when all Authors speak in the same Dialect does not Cartes make mention of the Laws of Motion L. Cartes and other Philosophers have the liberty to Transfer words from their proper Signification to denote such things as are best understood by a metaphorical Expression And hence it is that those Observations which ingenious Men make of the necessary rest of motion of
Notions of the usual Effects of Good and of Evil Spirits The Jews were very sensible that one Evil Spirit might by Collusion give place or at least seem to give place to another and thence maliciously concluded That our Saviour cast out Devils by Belzebub the Prince of Devils But our Saviours Answer is sufficient Viz. If Satan be divided against himself how shall Mat. 4. his Kingdom stand because ye say that I cast out Devils by Belzebub i. e. If I who teach the true Worship of the true God cast out Devils by Satan then Satan is his own Enemy and Industriously destroys his own Idolatrous Kingdom which with so much pains he has planted in the World S. If there was so much force in Miracles p. 73. as you do pretend methinks the Miraculous Age of Moses should have been most Religious of all others but your own Bibles shew That the Israelites fell immediately into the Idolatrous Worship of the Golden Calf Notwithstanding the Number of Moses ' s pretended Miracles L. The Jews living in the midst of Idolatrous Nations and Newly Emancipated from Egyptian Slavery might be tempted to Act contrary to their reason in complyance to the corrupt customes of those who liv'd round about them But I do not think that thereby they thought to relinquish the Worship of the true God but rather to change the manner of it Or if they did yet they were quickly recalled by Moses to the true Worship of God And this must be granted by your Author to be very much for the honour of Reveal'd Religion That the Worship of one God was not the Legal Religion of any one Nation but that of the Jews only S. I still fear that the Scriptures by Gods doing a thing do mean no more than his permitting it to be done by the ordinary Course of Nature For Sam. 1. 9. Chap. 15. 16. verses God is said to tell Samuel in his Ear that he would send Saul unto him and yet it appears that Saul came to him as led by Natural Motives Viz. to seek his Fathers Asses In the 105 Ps 24th Verse It is said God turned the hearts of the Egyptians to hate his People in the first of Exodus a Natural cause is render'd of that aversion p. 75. L. Suppose you should hear a poor man that has receiv'd an Alms of a stranger say to himself God has sent me relief Could you from hence conclude that this Poor Man believ'd That God never was the Author of a Miracle but always wrought by Natural causes S. I must confess I see no reason for such a conclusion L. No more ought your Author ridiculously to conclude that because the Scripture speaks of some Natural things as done by God therefore God never works in a Supernatural manner For tho Saul seems to be led to Samuel by Natural causes yet the prediction to Samuel that Saul should certainly come to him that he should be King of Israel must needs be ascribed to a Supernatural Power The Heart of the Egyptians was turned against the Children of Israel because they feared their Numbers But Exod. 1. what natural reason can be given of all those other Signs and Wonders which are reckoned up in the same Psalm S. I must confess ingenuously that if all things were done by Moses and our Saviour in that exact manner according to which they are related it is impossible to give a solution of them by Natural causes especially if Natural causes do always work in a fixt and unmoveable order But my Author very judiciously shews that there are many Circumstances in a Miracle which the Scriptures do omit especially when they are Sung in a Poetic Stile which if they were expressed would plainly shew that what we now admire as Supernatural was only an effect of Natural causes And not only so but many Circumstances of the Miracles recorded do shew that they required Natural causes to bring them to perfection See Exod. 9. v. 10. Moses could not bring boyls upon the Egyptians without first throwing up Ashes in the Air. And Exod. 14. 21. We read That the Red Sea was divided by a strong East Wind. Elisha lay upon the Child that was supposed to be Dead and so reviv'd him by the heat of his Body In short if any thing is reported in Scripture that is directly repugnant to the Laws of Nature or cannot follow from them my Authors opinion is that it is added by some Sacrilegious Persons who design'd to impose a Fable upon the World L. A tedious relation of impertinent Circumstances is avoided by all Judicious and Faithful Historians But to omit Circumstances that are material and the Knowledge of which alters the very Nature and Denomination of an Action is a Trick only of knaves and impostors If therefore Moses and the Evangelists in those Books which are plainly Historical did designedly omit those Circumstances of Action which would have convinced the world that those were only the Works of Nature which they would make the world believe were the very immediate Works of God whatever credit their Writings might have met with in After-Ages they could have found none in their own For the Jews that saw what was done by Moses would have known by the Circumstances of the Actions that were designedly omitted that whatever he might pretend there was nothing in them but what was effected by the sole Power of Nature And how then could he have perswaded the Jews of his own Age that he was sent from God Or how could he have made so many false Revelations publick in the sight of the whole Nation And why should they be such Fools as to erect a Government in Church and State upon a Foundation which they of that Age must needs have known to be too weak to support it With what Face could our Saviour tell the Jews of his Age that his works testify'd of him if there was nothing in them Miraculous but what was made so to appear by the partial and the unfaithful Relation of his own Friends and Disciples It is a false Insinuation of your Author that Miracles are for the most part Sung in a Poetick manner for they are historically related as motives to the credibility of reveal'd Religion and tho some of them are recited in the Psalms yet the very Poetick Stile of David does not render them more wonderful than the plain Historical Account of Moses But with what impudence if not affected ignorance does your Author Affirm that the Circumstances of some Actions recorded as Miracles in Scripture do shew that they were effected by Natural Causes When Moses brought a Boyl upon the Egyptians by throwing up Ashes into the Air the Action was as Miraculous as if without throwing up the Ashes he had only in the Name of God commanded the Boyl to seize upon the Bodies of the Egyptians Exod. 9. 10. v. Unless your Author can Philosophically prove that according to the
so stark mad as to build an Ark and take all manner of Beasts and Fouls into it out of a fantastical Fear that he should be drowned upon the dry-land you must confess he did it by virtue of a Supernatural Revelation S. Have you any other instance of the like nature L. Yes more than I shall at present take pains to enumerate but however I will gratifie your curiosity with two or three which will abundantly shew the falsity of your A s so much boasted Proposition We read in the 18th Chap. of Gen. that Sarah was informed by the Angels 10th ver That she should have a Son But who except Spinosa will say that this Prediction was accomodated to the capacity of Sarah or her Lord Abraham when Moses tells us in the 11 th and 12 th ver That Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of Women Therefore Sarah laughed within herself saying After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure my Lord being old also S. A Woman might easily imagin what she earnestly desired L. If you except against a Woman let us consider the Revelation made unto Moses which you will find to be directly contrary to the Apprehensions and above the Natural Conceptions of that mighty Prophet I would feign learn how it was at all agreeable to the natural Conception of Moses that the lifting up his Rod should be able to work all those Signs and Wonders which it did in the Land of Egypt S. Tho it was not a Conception agreeable to reason yet it might be to his Fancy and we all know the strength of Fancy in producing wonders L. Imagination without doubt has very great force upon the imagining Person but that it should be able to have force upon Objects placed without him so as to work any visible effect upon them is to me till I am better inform'd a very absurd supposition I know some of the Ancients have been possessed with an Opinion that the very Eyes of an Envious Person do dart a Kind of Poyson upon those who are in a Great Station And the Poets presum'd they had the same or like effect upon other Animals Nescio quis Teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos And my Lord Bacon says something to solve this Phaenomenon by the Effluviums of the Animal Spirits And if the matter of it were true which I do very much question his Lordships solution of it would be the best that could be given But supposing it true yet such weak Effluvia's as are engendered by the strength of imagination whatever impression they can make on the tender parts of humane Bodies yet you cannot without Madness suppose them able to turn Aarons Rod into a Serpent or to make it more like a Living Creature or turn a whole River into Blood to divide the Red Sea slay all the first Born of Egypt and do works of the like stupendious Nature S. Did not Pharaohs Magicians do something very like it L. All you can infer from thence is only this viz. that they were assisted by some invisible Powers which is more than Men of your Principles are willing to grant who deny their existence or at least their intermedling with humane Affairs S. But suppose such things done as you Divines call it by invisible Powers how shall a Man know whether those Powers are Good or Evil. L. God being the Fountain of all Goodness no Revelation is made or confirmed by him that is repugnant to the immutable Law of Nature which consists in unfeigned Love to God and to our Neighbour The Pagan Priests made great pretences to Prophesie and Miracles but it was to confirm a superstition contrary to Natural Light and therefore those seeming Signs and Wonders are justly ascribed to the Operation of Lying and Deceitful Spirits For these are known Maxims that Good cannot proceed from Evil and that a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand and we may as well conceive that light can be the Fruitful Mother of Darkness as that Satan can be the Author Abetter or Confirmer of the Precepts of the Decalogue or the most Holy Rules of Practice deliver'd by our Blessed Saviour S. Does not your own Apostle say that Satan can transform himself into an Angel of Light L. We don't say that Evil Spirits do never Encourage a seeming Sanctity that is gross Wickedness in a Religious dress but that they can't be Abetters or Promulgers of that real and genuine Sanctity which is prescribed by the Mosaick and Christian Religion and of the excellence of which we have as clear Perception as we have of the Truth of any Mathematical Proposition But to pass by Moses and descend to the other Prophets What Pre-conception by Nature could Isaiah have that Cyrus should be King of Persia that Jerusalem should be destroyed by the Chaldeans and that that very Cyrus See Isa 44. 28. Should rebuild the Temple saying to Jerusalem thou shalt be built and to the Temple thy Foundation shall be laid If Revelation was adapted only to the Capacity of the Prophet certainly Isaiah was a Person of the largest Natural Capacity that ever yet was Born into the World or as I believe ever will be Born hereafter S. You keep to instances in the Old Testament it would be more to my satisfaction to hear something of this Nature to be alledged out of the New L. What think you of the Doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God and of the Holy Trinity which are founded upon Divine Revelation These could not be adapted to the Capacity or Opinions of any one inspired Author since they are above the conception of all Mankind S. I fear you mistake this Author His meaning is not that nothing is taught in Scripture which exceeds humane conception for as he shews p. 28. The Prophets were ignorant of speculative things and were of contrary Opinions amongst themselves and therefore they might give Vent to some odd Opinions which are altogether irreconcilable to the reasonable conceptions of other Men. L. I have already examined all those places of Scripture upon which he would ground this wild assertion and I hope have plainly shewed that no such thing can be deduced from them But to come closer to the purpose Your Author must Acknowledge either that the Prophets as he calls all Divinely inspired Authors were assisted and taught by God or that they were guided by their Natural Fancy Reason and Judgment If Prophecy does come from God and if it be according to his own Definition in the very first Words of his Book the certain Knowledge of some things reveal'd to Men by God he cannot overthrow the certainty of it in Speculations as well as Practicks untill he can destroy the very Idea which all rational Men do entertain of God He must suppose him either to be nothing else but the settled course and order of Nature and then he and his