dies where the Fire that burns is never to be quenched nor the Body that is burning never consumed THE Third Question Q. What art thou now doing Answer I hope through God's great Goodness and Mercy That one Thing necessary For having wandred up and down and made many weary steps in the wide Wilderness of a vain and sinfull World I was at last very desirous to return home to my self but must freely confess some Truths which to my Readers at first sight may seem Paradoxes or Riddles viz. I could never truly get into my self before I was got out of and had wholly left my self My wavering Mind was never rightly composed till it was extreamly disturbed I had no ease till I was in pain nor Peace and quietness till I was in trouble and distress I could enjoy nothing till I was dispossest of all things I was unable to stand up till I was fallen down to make the least progress till I was struck with Lameness or to see my Way till I had lost both my Eyes Ejaculation and Prayer Father of Mercies I do sincerely and with all my Soul bless and praise Thee for all the Changes and Chances the Disgrace and Misfortunes the Crosses and Disappointments and the bodily pains and Torments that have followed one another like Job's messengers and so closely attended this last Scene of my Life and Evening of my Days As really believing that they were all Marks and Tokens of thy favour and loving Kindness and that the great Physician of Soul and Body never does administer those bitter Pills to his Sick Patients but for blessed Ends and Purposes Lord I believe all this help my unbelief and graciously grant that thy poor distressed Servant may at last come out of the Furnace of Affliction and Troubles like Gold and Silver that has been tried in the fire and purified seven times Let others imbarque and hazard their immortal Souls in what false Bottoms they please Let the Ambitious-Man glory in his Honors and Preferments Let the Covetous Man's trust and confidence be his worldly Wealth and Mammon of Unrighteousness Let the Voluptuous Man's Paradise be his Dalilahs and sensual Pleasures But Christian Reader let you and I in this our Day and while we have Time and Opportunity make Provision for Eternity In order to this there are some things which we either do or may know by the Light of Nature and those Principles which we brought into the World with us the visible things of the Creation naturally leading us to the knowledge of one God Almighty Maker and Governor of all things and the Law of Nature that is written in our hearts prompting us to worship that God to be just in our Dealings to honour our Parents and the like And when on the one hand we faithfully perform or on the other hand do any thing contrary to what the Light of Nature dictates to us we have Consciences within us that do either accuse or else excuse our Actions and Behaviours and thus far go the Heathens But now there are other things which more nearly concern us Christians and these are revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures which Scriptures we are to esteem and reverence as undoubted and unquestionable Truths both as to the historical part of them and also the Precepts Promises and Threats contained in them and that for the Reasons alledged in a foregoing part of this Treatise 1. In these Scriptures we are taught and commanded to acknowledge the Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity Three Persons and one God who is an infinitely glorious Spirit that was from Everlasting without Beginning and shall be to Everlasting without End That he is no bodily Substance such as our Eyes behold but Spiritual and Invisible whom no Man hath seen or can see who comprehends all things and is only Immense not to be comprehended by any who can never be defined by any Words nor conceived by the Mind That He is infinitely Great and Excellent beyond all that we can possibly imagine That He has received his Being from none and gives Being to all things 2. To acknowledge His Divine excellencies and glorious Attributes as namely His All-sufficiency and admirable Providence in Disposing Governing and preserving all things his Omnipotence Omniscience and Omnipresence his Eternal Truth and Justice his transcendent Purity and Holiness and his infinite Mercy and Goodness 3. To love this God with all our Hearts and Souls as He is the Fountain of all Goodness and Excellency in himself and as He is infinitely kind and merciful towards us both in respect of our Souls and Bodies in giving us a Being in the World in forming and framing us wonderfully in our Mother's wombs in breathing into us the Breath of Life and enduing us with reasonable Souls after his own Image and Likeness in giving us our Birth within the Pale of the Church and not among Heathens Turks or Infidels in leaving us so many pious Examples of the blessed Patriarchs Prophets Apostles and Martyrs who are gone before us and with their own Blood have traced out for us the true way to Life and Happiness But above all that unparallell'd Pattern of Piety and Goodness in the Life of the Holy Jesus who so freely gave up himself as an Offering to save lost Sinners and to open the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers in giving us Food and Rayment and all the good Things of this Life and preserving us from sudden Deaths and Dangers ever since we hung upon our Mother's breasts To answer all which Love and Kindness of God to us we must express our Love to him by our hearty and honest Endeavours to please him in all things which we can never do without a sincere Repentance and a firm Resolution to amend our Lives and never to harbour in our Bosoms any secret Lust or live in any known Sin or Sins as likewise by taking all Opportunities of conversing with him as well in our private Closets as in the publick Assemblies by Prayer Fasting and Meditation by reading and hearing his Word and receiving the blessed Sacrament and lastly by our earnest and longing Desire whenever we shall put off these fleshly Tabernacles to enjoy him by Beatifick Vision amongst blessed Saints and Angels in the highest Heavens 4. To fear him not only with an awful fear from the consideration of his Power and Justice he being a God of purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity and also when provoked by our Impieties able to cast both Body and Soul into everlasting Flames which is infinitely more than either Men or Devils can do against us but also with a Filial fear as an obedient and dutiful Child truly fears to offend or displease a loving and tender Father 5. To trust in Him and to depend upon Him at all times and in all Conditions as well in regard of our Spiritual as our Temporal Concerns If we are assaulted by Temptations we are to rely upon him either
retire a while into your private Closets and there make use of that reason and those Principles which were born with your Souls These would soon furnish you with sufficient Proofs and evincing Arguments Mark I beseech you in what significant Terms a heathen Philosopher rebukes you Mentiuntur qui dicunt non esse Deum etiamsi enim interdiu negant noctu tamen et sibi dubitant Which is hardly to be turn'd into English without losing a great part of its emphasis They lie who say there is no God! for though in the day time they deny him yet in the Night and being alone they doubt concerning Him How is it possible that it should ever enter into the thoughts of Men of Reason and common Understanding That those glorious Bodies of the Sun Moon and Planets together with that Numberless number of fixed Stars and those of such prodigious Magnitudes should all be produced by meer Fortune or Chance Vain man would fain be wise but which of your Leaders who darken their Counsels by words without knowledge can tell me how the great Bodies before-mentioned of the Sun Moon and the other Planets are suspended in the vast Expanse and by what extrinsick or intrinsick Powers they have performed their several and respective Motions and served for Signs and for Seasons and Measured time for so many thousand Years Is there any of you who knows the Ordinances of Heaven or can set the dominion thereof in the Earth Which of you can bind the sweet Influences of Pleiades or loose the Bands of Orion Or to come nearer to our own Terrestial Globe Who is he that gathers and holds the Wind in his fists Who is he that has bound the Waters in a Garment Who is that has established all the ends of the Earth What is his Name and what is his Son's Name if you can tell me Which of you can give a clear Account of those black and grisly Clouds when they seem to be rent and torn by the Thunder-Claps as if their substance were of molten Brass or the Lightning that shoots through the Hemisphere and in its passage tears and rends one sturdy Oak and leaves another untouch't Passes by one stately Edifice and takes away part of another and how it should pull out massy Barrs of Iron and again strike them into Stone walls to the Depth of many Inches with other prodigious Effects Of which I am sure you can give but very slender Reasons No more than of the Treasure of the Snow the Hail or Hoary Frost Or of Hurricanes Deluges or Earthquakes Alas poor dull Philosophers the wisest of you all know not how any grass pile or the least hair of your heads grows and yet are so presumptuous to dispute and question Divine Providence O foolish and perverse Atheists who hath bewitch't you to make mock of Moses and the Prophets to divide our blessed Saviour and his Apostles and to make the Holy Scriptures a meer Humane Artifice for Soveraign Princes to keep their Subjects in Obedience and to preserve to Ecclesiastick Prelates their vast Revenues and to Inferior Priests their Tythes and Maintenance In the first place we are as well assur'd that the Books of the New Testament were writ by the first Divulgers of Christianity which were soon afterwards Translated into Latin Syriac and other Languages and Copies thereof dispersed and publickly preach't in most parts of the habitable World and so transmitted to us without any notorious depravations as we are sure that in our Statute Books are faithfully Recorded the several Laws which have been Enacted in all the King 's and Queen's Reigns from William the Conqueror to this present Age and much more sure then you or any private Man can be of the Conveyances Hands or Seals of his Ancestors from time to time whereby he holds his Lands and Possessions We have no more reason to doubt that there was a Jesus born in Bethelem than that there was at that time a Herod at Jerusalem or an Augustus Caesar at Rome The wonderful Star that appear'd at Christ's birth is mentioned by Macrobius And a great Enemy to Christianity speaks of the coming of the Magi from the East to Jerusalem and Julian the Apostate Confesses the appearing of a New Star though he trifles about the manner of its appearing The Ecclipse at Christ's Passion was left upon Record among the Heathen As for the Writings of Moses and the Prophets and for their being most carefully preserved through-out all Ages till the coming of our Saviour Jesus at which time they were publickly read in all the Synagogues we need no better Evidence than the universal Consent of his Implacable Enemies the Jews We read in the 31st of Deuteronomy that when Moses had made an end of writing the Words of the Law in a Book untill they were finished That He commanded the Levites which bore the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD saying Take this Book of the Law and put it in the side of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God And we may reasonably judge that the rest of the Canonical Books when written were also here laid up Besides the King was to keep a Copy for his own use 17. Deut. 18. And the Priests that were to expound the Law must needs have Copies of it themselves So in an ordinary way it might be preserved by multitudes of Copies some of which might escape in the hands of good and pious Men in Idolatrous Times Whence it will follow That we have no reason to think that the Book of the Law which was lost for a great while and after the Captivity found by Hilkiah and by him given to Saphan the Scribe who carried it to King Josiah was the only Copy of the Law that was preserved 2 Kings 22. 8. During the Captivity those Books which were already written were undoubtedly in the hands of the Prophets and Priests some of whom as Jeremiah and Gedaliah staid in their own Land others as Daniel and his Companions were carried away Captives And we are sure that Daniel had these Books and out of them gathered the number of Years the Captivity was to last 9 Dan. 2. where it is thus written viz. In the first Year of Darius the Son of Ahasuerus of the Seed of the Medes c. I Daniel understood by Books the number of Years whereof the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the Prophet that he would accomplish Seventy Years in the Desolations of Jerusalem Josephus saith That Cyrus was moved to restore the Jews by reading the Prophesy of Isaiah where it is foretold 210 Years before his time that he should be raised up for that Work After the Captivity these Books were kept in a great number of Copies of which every Synagogue had one at least In this interval Ptolomy Philadelphus procured the Translation of the Seventy the authentick Edition of which was kept in the famous Alexandrian Library about the Year of
that it was but to Sow in the Morning and Reap at Night That the same Angel taught Adam to plant and sow and all other necessary Sciences Moreover That the same Angel made the Seven lower Spheres the least whereof reaches to the Center of the World in the same manner as the Heavens do all continued one within another and that all these Spheres are of different Mettals That next the Center of Iron the Second of Lead the Third of Brass the Fourth of Laten the Fifth of Silver the Sixth of Gold and the Seventh of Earth which contains all the rest They believe that over every Heaven there is Water and that the Sun swims in a Ship upon that Water and that the Mast of that Ship is a Cross and that there are a great number of Boys and Girls to guide the Ships of both Sun and Moon Besides they have the picture of a Bark which they say belonged to the Angel Bachan whom God sends to visit the Sun and Moon to see whether they move exactly and keep close to their Duty In reference to the other World and Life to come They believe there is no other World but where Angels and Divels together with the Souls of Good and Bad reside That in that World there are Cities Houses and Churches and likewise that the Evil Spirits have their Churches where they pray singing and rejoycing upon Instruments and feasting as in this World That when any one lies at the point of Death three hundred and sixty Demons come and carry his Soul to a place full of Serpents Dogs Lions Tigers and Devils who if it be the Soul of a wicked Man tear it in pieces but if it be the Soul of a just Man it creeps under the Bellies of those Creatures into the presence of God who sits in his Seat of Majesty to judge the World That there are also Angels who weigh the Souls of Men in a Ballance and those who are thought worthy are immediately admitted into Glory That Angels and Devils are Male and Female and beget Children and that the Angel Gabriel has a Daughter called Sâ—â—ret who has two Sons That the Angel Gabriel has several Legions of Demons under him who are instead of Souldiers and others that are his Officers of Justice whom he sends from Town to Town and from City to City to punish the wicked They hold that Christ left 12 Apostles to preach to the Nations That the Virgin Mary is not dead but lives somewhere in the World though no body knows where and that next to her St. John is to be the chiefest Saint in Heaven and next to them Zacharias and Elizabeth of whom they recount several Miracles and Apocryphal Tales That when St. John came to be of Age his Father and Mother married him and also that he had four Sons which he begat upon the Waters of Jordan and not upon the Body of his Wife That he died a natural Death but commanded his Disciples to Crucify him after his death that he might be like Christ and lastly that he died in the City of Fuster and was buried in a chrystal Tomb brought to that City by a Miracle and that this Sepulchre was in a certain House near the River Jordan They highly adore the Cross because say they we have a Book wherein it is written That every Day early in the Morning the Angels take the Cross and put it in the middle of the Sun which receives its Light from it as the Moon does also hers And that without these Crosses neither Sunnor Moon would give any Light and the Ships they were in would suffer Shipwrack Their Festivals are Three the one is in Winter that lasts three Days in memory of our First Parent and the Creation of the World The Second in August and called the Feast of St John The Third lasts five Days in June during which time they are all Re-baptized On Sunday they do no work They neither Fast nor do any Penance They have no Canonical Books but a great number of others that treat of nothing but Witchcraft in which they believe their Priests to be very crafty and that the Devils are at their beck They suffer no Women to go to Church nor any of the Laity to kill a Hen or any Fowl They eat of nothing drest by the Turks and after a Turk has drunk in one of their Cups they break it to pieces and picture Mahomet and four of his Parents as shut up in Hell and say That all Turks are carried to the same place to be devoured by wild Beasts They all pretend to Salvation by a Promise made by God to Gabriel on their behalf when he framed the World They have a great Antipathy against the blew Colour called Indigo which they will not so much as touch For say they certain Jews dreaming that their Laws should be abolished by St. John told it their Country-men which they understanding and seeing that St. John prepared to baptize Christ in a great rage fetch a vast quantity of Indigo in their Language Nill and flung it into Jordan which continued unclean for some time and had hindred the Baptism of Christ had not God sent his Angels with a large Vessel of Water which he caused them to fill out of Jordan before the Jews had defiled it with Indigo and that for the foresaid bold Attempt to defile the River God particularly cursed that Colour Ejaculation How long O Lord Holy and True wilt thou cease to be avenged of that Prince of Darkness for tyrannizing and triumphing over the poor Heathens and beguiling them with his Sorceries Witchcrafts and Enchantments for so many thousand Years How long wilt thou suffer that Enemy of Souls secretly to divert and please himself by seeing such vast numbers of his Slaves and Vassals to take more pains undergo more hardships and to endure more exquisite bodily Torments in travelling along the Broad way and passing through the wide Gate that leads to endless Woes and Miseries than thou sufferest a great number of thine own Elect and chosen Servants to meet with in the Narrow Way and in their passage through the straight Gate that leads to Eternal Life But to return to my Observations of the Devil's practices When God had covenanted with Abraham that his Seed should be multiplied as the Stars of Heaven and inherit the Promised Land What Stone did Satan leave unturn'd Or what Opportunities did he ever lose of attempting to frustrate God's gracious Designs His first Atchievement was to exasperate Esaâ— to murder his Brother Jacob upon whose individual Person his aged Father had so lately fixt a Blessing and out of whose Loyns were to come forth 12 Tribes whose Posterity were to be as innumerable as the Sands of the Sea hoping that he being once removed the blessed Effects of all God's promises would be utterly vacated and disappointed When Jacob's Family were kindly received by K. Pharaoh and the Egyptians How
of what he teaches he commits a Crime and may be justly punished for the same now this Lobster-like-argument of his being artificially thrown forward does again naturally crawl backwards His meaning is as he has too plainly exprest in many places That if a Man go from hence and preach a New Doctrine in Africa he commits a Crime and consequently St. Jude did very ill after Christ's Resurrection to take a Journey from Jerusalem into Persia and there to take upon him to rebuke the Superstition of the Magi and to preach a New Doctrine and so was put to death deservedly The like may be said of St. Paul for his making a Mutiny and Uproar at Athens and disturbing the Worship of the great Goddess Diana of the Ephesians And in fine both he and all the Apostles committed great Crimes in presuming to preach New Doctrine amongst all Nations where Idolatry was Established and owned by publick Authority for says the same Author page 152. To maintain a Doctrine contrary to the Religion Established is a greater Fault in an authorized Preacher than in a private Person And therefore they all suffered condign Punishments and were accessary to their own cruel Deaths But now this reflects more severely upon our blessed Saviour who gave his Disciples their Commissions Matth. 28. 19. Go yee and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost And which is yet more it reflects upon God the Father who sent his Son into the World for that end and purpose and also the Holy Spirit which was sent down from Heaven after our Saviour's Resurrection to inspire those Apostles with diversity of Tongues and such other miraculous Gifts as might rightly qualify them for the preaching the Gospel throughout all the Nations of the World So that this last Assertion is in effect Blasphemy against the Three Persons of the sacred Trinity Our blessed Saviour 10 Matth. 33. Says Whosoever shall deny me before Men him will I also deny before my Father which is in Heaven And in another place By your Words you shall be justified and by your Words condemned So that to deny Christ before Men is our Saviour's sense in a Crime that excludes and shuts a Man out of Heaven But this Author affirms positively page 271. That the denying of Christ before an Infidel Prince is not a Christian's Act but his Soveraign's Act and consequently no Sin And so he plainly gives the Son of God the Lye Our blessed Saviour when he sent out his Disciples 10 Matth. 15. Tells them That into whatsoever City they entred and were not received it should be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for that City That is to say the refusing to receive and hear the Doctrine of Christ's Disciples was a greater Sin then that of Sodom But this Author tells us page 286. That those who refused so to hear and receive them did not Sin in so doing And here we see again the Arrogance and Impudence of the same Author in giving the Lye to the Lord Jesus Our Hebrew Masters do indeed teach us to read the Words and Sentences of part of the Scriptures but this politick Pedagogue would instruct us to read not only the Words and Sentences but the true Sense and Meaning of them backwards Our Saviour Christ in divers places owns his casting out Devils and unclean Spirits and sometimes these unclean Spirits owned him to be the Son of the most high God as did the Legion of Devils with which the Man was possessed in the Country of the Gadarenes 5 Mark 7. and divers others And the Pharisees the worst and most malicious of his Enemies acknowledged his casting out Devils Yet notwithstanding the composer of this Treatise had the Confidence to affirm page 354. That no Man was ever possessed with any other Spirit than that by which his Body was naturally moved And so gives the Lye not only to our Saviour but to all the Four Evangelists who have left upon Record most remarkable Instances of those Miracles In page 62 63 and 64. this Author tells us That Man by Nature is in a State of War every Man against every Man and every Man has a right to every thing over the Goods and Body of his Neighbour And yet in his next Chapter which is not above eight pages further he sets down Ten Laws of Nature which Laws of Nature are immutable and eternal and stamped upon Men's Souls and every of them tends to Peace and Quietness Love and Kindness Gratitude and doing to others as we would be willing they should do to us and these two Assertions are as contrary one to the other as Light is to Darkness however it is much more modest to give himself the Lye then to give it so often as he has done to the Saviour of the World and the second Person of the Trinity In page 88. he acquaints us That by the People assembled are transferr'd all their Right on him whom they chose their Soveraign which Soveraign can do no Injustice though at his pleasure he take away any of their Lives And yet page 152. he asserts That no Man in the institution of their Soveraign can be supposed to give away the Right of preserving his own Body And page 112. If an Assembly meet and agree together they may rebel and make War against their Soveraign And I affirm that no Man of Sense or Reason can be supposed to defend the Authors reputation in so notorious a Contradiction In page 285. and divers other places he affirms That Christ's Kingdom not being of this World he left the Jews to the Law of Moses and other Nations to their respective Soveraigns and yet page 106. he plainly affirms That Christ acted in this World as King of the Jews and by his Soveraign Power and Authority sent two of his Disciples to untie and bring away the She-ass and her Colt on which he was to ride into Jerusalem Page 62. He affirms That the Desires and Passions of Man are no Sin though it be an absolute Breach of the Tenth Commandment Our Saviour forbids swearing by Heaven Earth Jerusalem or a Man 's own head 5 Matth. 34 35 36. but this Author asserts page 71. That such kind of Oaths is no swearing and so makes our Saviour guilty of Lying Page 152. he says That every man is supposed to know the Law of Nature it being so plain and yet pag. 141. he avers That the Law of Nature is of all Laws the most obscure Pag. 261. he says Christ s death did not satisfy God 's justice and yet pag. 356. he acknowledges That the Passion of Christ is a full Ransom for all manner of Sins Pag. 272. he affirms That there were no true Martyrs but those who conversed with our Saviour while he was here upon Earth and that he who is no Minister can be no Martyr Now if so all other Martyrs have
thrown away their Lives and were accessary to their own Deaths Pag. 60. he says That Contempt is the Immobility of the Heart But this cannot be for when the Pulse ceases to beat the Man can no longer live and consequently this Author contemning all sorts of Laws Learning and Religion could never have lived to finish his Leviathan Our Saviour acknowledges that if he had not done such Miracles as no Man else could do the Scribes and Pharisees might have had for their Unbelief some just pretence But this Author avers pag. 148. That Miracles are not at all sufficient to give evidence But sure I am that this bold Assertion of his which is a Wonder though not a Miracle gives the whole World a sufficient Evidence of his great Arrogance and Impudence Our Saviour says That the Reprobates shall go into everlasting Punishment And St. Paul says That this Mortal must put on Immortality but this Author says p. 345. That the Reprobates Bodies shall not be immortal And pag 245. That no individual Person shall be punished with Torment Eternal Pag. 360. he says That to pray to the King for fair Weather is Idolatry But if the King command a Man to do so and he do it it is no Idolatry Pag. 360. he tells us That if a Man who is no Pastor worships an Idol and others follow him this is no Scandal given However I wonder he should not think this to be a very scandalous Doctrine If the Author were yet living I should take the boldness to give him this civil Item oportet mendacem esse memorem especially since he asserts pag. 60. That Imagination and Memory are the same thing For if so I greatly wonder how he could imagine so many Falsities and Contradictions and yet at the same time not remember them For my part I must confess I do not apprehend Imagination and Memory to be the same thing and if it were practicable I should thus reason the Case with him Sir Your Leviathan is a product of meer Imagination for never any such thing yet was But of that which never yet was you could have no Remembrance Egregie magister ergo falleris I cannot here omit his positive Assertion in the same page That all Men have equal Faculties of Body and Mind but God forbid it should be true for then every Man equal to him as to Education and acquired Learning would write and publish a Leviathan and by that means all Booksellers shops would soon be fill'd with impious and pernicious Books What other Men may judge of this his positive Assertion I know not For my part I am not of that Opinion That a Marius Dioclesian Julius Caesar or Tamberlane had not Gifts and Endowments of Nature far above a Plebeian or Common Souldier or that every Pesant or Country Thatcher had equal parts to compare with Jack Straw or Wat Tyler I must needs confess That if all other Men were like the Author of this Leviathan I should then conclude That all Men are indeed both by Nature and Art in a State of War It 's too plain That he was in War with the whole World and its great pitty the whole World was not in War with him when he first published his accursed Leviathan He was in War with Man's Creation and in War with his Redemption in War with the Law of Moses and in War with the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles in War with the Subsistence of Departed Souls and in War with that of Angels and Spirits and yet I have heard it reported of him that he was afraid to be alone in a dark Room in War with the marvellous Act and Deeds of the Old Prophets and in War with our blessed Saviour's Miracles in War with those Heavenly Mansions which the holy Jesus is gone before to prepare for his blessed Saints and Martyrs and in War with the place of Eternal Torments prepared for the Devil and his Angels or else if it be true what is commonly said of him when his Man was rubbing his Body in a Morning he would never have adventured to pronounce such Words in raillery as Rub you Rogue for Eternity in War with all civil Common Wealths and Established Laws and in War with all Church Governments and Gospel Ordinances in War with all Moral Honesty and Rules of Sobriety and in War with Religion and all its Fundamentals in War with the Works of Aristotle and the Heathen Philosophers and in War with Euclid's Elements and Mathematical Demonstrations in War with Schools and Universities and in War with all the Liberal Sciences in War with his own Definitions and in War with his own pernicious Principles between many of which there is a much greater Contrariety and Distance than he allows at the Resurrection between the Saints and Reprobates making all both Good and Bad to stand at the last Day upon the Earth's superficies pag. 242. And making the Punishment of the one to consist only in beholding for a short time the Glory and Happiness of the other How they must be placed I do not well understand some few of the Reprobates I confess might look over the shoulders of others but they being so exceeding numerous the Saints Antecii and Perecii must certainly have great difficulty to see them plainly But how to find Expedients or how to make Spectacles for the eyes of their Antipodes would have been past the Author 's little Skill in Geometry or Opticks As to the Design in general of this impious Discourse I am willing to believe that the Author 's Res Angusta Domi and personal Vain-glory might move him in such a juncture as that was to fish in troubled waters in hopes to advance his Fortune and get himself a Name But Satan who stood behind the Curtain and prompted him to this Undertaking had undoubtedly a further and deeper Design namely to encourage all Persons whatever to follow the Devices and Desires of their own hearts without the least fear or dread of burning Lakes or endless Torments by shamefully distorting and wresting the plain Texts of the holy Scriptures by searching for Errours in the Books of Moses by undervaluing and lessening our Saviour's Miracles and so endeavouring to overthrow the Fundamentals of Christian Faith by calling in question the Subsistence of blessed Angels Unclean Spirits and Departed Souls by turning heavenly Mansions and the place of Eternal Torments into meer Metaphors And lastly by setting up a New Common-Wealth and a Soveraign who by an incomprehensible Law of Nature must have the absolute Command not only of the Estates and Bodies but also of the Souls and Consciences of all his Subjects though it be to deny the Doctrine of Christ and his and to Worships Idols and Sacrifice to Devils This Arch Enemy of Souls is alas too well acquainted with Humane Frailties which are in truth the effects of his beguiling our First Parents and knows That Quicquid volumus facile credimus that very slender