say that this is only some remarkable saying of Abraham and is therefore in the Jewish Phrase called the word of the Lord. For here is no room for any such kind of Metaphor Here is a particular Dialogue of God and Abraham God said Fear not Abram I am thy shield and thy exceeding great Reward And Abram said Lord God what wilt thou give me seeing I go childless and the Steward of my House is this Eliezer of Damascus Then v. 4. is related the reply of God Almighty And behold the word of the Lord came unto him saying This shall not be thy Heir but he that shall come forth out of thine own Bowels c. Now what can be more positive and express of Abraham's immediate Revelation and Intercourse with God than this Relation So again Exod. 2.5 The Revelation made to Moses is related as expresly God called unto him out of the midst of the bush and said Moses Moses Then follows the answer of Moses and Moses said here am I. And the Lord said I have surely seen the affliction of my people c. Come now therefore and I will send thee unto Paraoh And Moses said unto God Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Children of Israel out of Aegypt And God said Certainly I will be with thee c. And after this rate the Dialogue continues the full length of the Chapter Now if this be not a relation of an Intercourse with God and a Revelation from him there is no sense to be put upon any words though never so plain there must be no assent given to the literal narrations of Thucydides or Livy but the credit of both those Histories may as well be criticized away as this So again as for the other Prophets when we are particularly told that the word of the Lord came unto them at such a time in such a manner in such a particular Year of such a King's Reign what can possibly be meant less than that God revealed this to them When they are commanded to take rolls and to write as Is 8 1. and Jer. 36.2 and the Prophecies so commanded to be written are there recorded when every Prophecy begins with the word of the Lord or thus saith the Lord when in some of them are particular Interlocutions between God and the Prophet if this be not Revelation the Prophets who wrote these Writings must be the greatest Cheats and Impostours in the World in so often pretending to it when they had not the least share of it But it vexes one to spend time to answer so simple an Objection which is worth no ones notice but that the great Spinosa has taken so much pains in it and other retailing Infidels after him would seem to do some great matter with it 3. Nor are your Criticisms upon the Hebrew Ruach or Spirit more solid Spirit of God in Scripture signifies Revelation by which you would pretend that word does not signify Revelation or Inspiration but only Wind Life temper of Mind and the like But what an unreasonable mistake is this I do not deny but that word in Hebrew has many significations as several other words have in that narrow Language But then on the other side there are a great many places in the Bible in which it can signify only Inspiration or Revelation what think you of Gen. 41.38 Where Pharaoh says of Joseph after he had interpreted his Dream and prophesied of the Years of Plenty and Famine Can we find such an one as this is a man in whom the Spirit of God is Certainly by the Spirit of God here is meant the Inspiration of God or there is no sense at all in it And so again Numb 27.18 The Lord said unto Moses Take thee Joshua the Son of Nun a Man in whom is the Spirit and lay thy hand upon him where by Spirit the Chaldee Paraphrase interprets Prophecy And what else can be meant by that Spirit of the Lord 1 Kings 18.12 which carried Eliah from place to place by which he did such mighty Miracles and so undauntedly uttered his Prophecies but only a supernatural power of God which did continually attend him And so Isa 59.21 God tells the Prophet that it was his Spirit that inspired him with the words that he spoke Saith the Lord My Spirit which is upon thee and the words which I have put into thy mouth c. And so several times in Ezechiel The Spirit of the Lord fell upon me Ezek. 11.5 and the Spirit entered into me Chap. 3.24 And often in the Book of Daniel the Spirit of the holy Gods is said to be in him Dan. 4.8 and 9 5.11 and 14. In short divine Revelation is all over the Old Testament called by the name of Spirit and even that extraordinary Inspiration which was foretold by the Prophet Joel to prevail under the Gospel is called so likewise I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophesie your Old Men shall dream dreams and your Young Men shall see Visions Joel 2.28 Where you may particularly observe that the word Spirit is joyned with Prophecy and Revelation And upon this account the Holy Ghost which was the giver of these Prophetick Gifts is in the New Testament called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holy Spirit And so is divine Revelation among the Heathens called by the same name As Dii coeptis inspirate meis and Inspirante Deo It is plain therefore that by the word Spirit in Scripture is frequently understood Divine Revelation which is the effect of the Operation of God's Holy Spirit conveying to the minds of several Prophetical Men whom God has been pleased to choose many extraordinary Truths conducible to the good of his Church Which is a thing so frequent and so plain in Scripture as is not to be bantered away by a little foolish Criticism and is a Truth never to be shaken unless the Infidels have force enough to overthrow the whole Body of the Scriptures Phil. Well we will see Credentius what we can do as to that matter some time or other But in the mean time methinks you outshoot your selves a little in your Notions of Revelation For you generally assert that Revelation is caused by a more immediate and supernatural Application of the divine Spirit to the mind of Man and so does make known to it those extraordinary Truths which indeed is only a Cast of the Jewish Unphilosophical Ignorance For when they poor Wretches could not understand the Natural Causes of Inspiration they were presently for a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for calling in God to help out their sorry Philosophy Every thing which was a little surprizing to them they must needs attribute to the immediate Act of God they were every moment making Mountains as well as Men of God and according to their Philosophy an equal degree of the divine power was requisite as well to
Revelation which was given by Adam and Noah to all Mankind and upon which as was shewn before what is generally called Natural Religion is grounded upon For though Melchisedeck was no Jew as not descending from Abraham yet he was not properly a Gentile especially such a one as is usually understood by the word viz. one that has degenerated from the ancient and true Religion into an idolatrous superstition For Melchisedeck was a true and Orthodox Member of the ancient Noachical Church and no ways tinctured with the prevailing Idolatrous Vice of those Ages but in the midst of the mighty defection to false Gods and Idols was a Priest of the most high God So that 't is a great mistake to say That God had a Priesthood among the Gentiles from the Instance of Melchisedeck because I say Melchisedeck was no Gentile but a constant Perseverer in God's Church from which the Gentiles had even at that time made a defection he kept up to the Noachical Precepts which the Gentiles round him had neglected But if in strict speaking you will have him a Gentile because he was not circumcised it does not from hence follow that God had an instituted Church among other Nations distinctly instituted as the Jewish was For the Scripture does not give us a particular account who this Melchisedeck was the Jews will have him to be Shem the Eldest Son of Noah because perhaps they would allow no body else to be greater than their Father Abraham to bless him but though this does well enough agree with the Age of Shem who lived till after Abraham's time yet it is not probable that Shem dwelt in the Land of Canaan which was the Seat of Cham's Posterity But be he Shem or any one else and though he were a Worshipper of the true God yet he was so only upon the Principles of the old Revelation made to Noah which was common to all the World with him he had not any particular Revelations afforded him as Moses to found a new Church upon neither he nor his People had any such Favour vouchsafed them as to have the Oracles of God committed to them as the Jews had Rom. 3.2 He was a Priest as he was the Elder of a Family in the old Patriarchal way and not by any positive Institution among the Gentiles and so blessed Abraham who communicated with him in the Divine worship whilst he did officiate as he might have done with Abraham in such an Eucharistical or any other Sacrifice 4. As for that Text of Malachi where it is said that God's name shall be great among the Gentiles though Spinosa translates it is great among the Gentiles when the Verb is wanting in the Hebrew which is wrong for the Book is prophetick and speaks of futures and therefore must be rendered shall be this does by no means set the Gentiles at that time on a Level with the Jews but is a remarkable Prophecy of the Kingdom of the Messias when the Partition-Wall should be taken away and God should have one Church made up both of Jews and Gentiles 5. As to those places of the Psalmist that God's tender mercies are over all his works and that God is nigh unto all them that call upon him It is the design of the Psalmist to shew forth God's superlative goodness in this Psalm and therefore among the rest of God's Attributes does praise him for his merciful Providence over his Creatures his tender mercies are over all his works And so his being nigh unto all them that call upon him does not in the least denote any particular divine Institution like the Jewish Revelation among the Heathen but is only in general an Assertion of God's Universal Love to Mankind and his willingness to assist them which no reasonable Man can deny 6. As for your Instance in Job that he was a good Man and acceptable to God why so were all the good Patriarchs before the Law or the Circumcision nay though we should grant that God spake by Revelation to this good Man as it may appear from Chap. 38.1 yet it does not follow that all the Idolatrous Heathen afterwards received the same favour For before the Law and in other Nations where the Law was not received Morality together with the easy Noachical precepts were the Rule of their Duty and therefore until they had forfeited this communication of the divine favour by the enormity of their Lives and their deviation from the True worship they had as good a Title to the Inspiration of God whenever he should please to afford it them as the Jews had after their Church was instituted 7. But as for what you alledge that Jonah was only an Ethnick Prophet I think by your favour that is a great mistake For Jonah was principally a Prophet to the Jews and prophesied under Jeroboam the second the King of Israel as is plain from the 14. Chap. of the 2 Kings where it is said that Jeroboam restored the coast of Israel from the entering in of Hameth unto the Sea of the Plain according unto the word of the Lord God of Israel which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah the Son of Amittai the Prophet which was of Gath-hepher Whether or no that Prophecy which is there referred to were ever written or no or whether it was only verbal we cannot now determine there being nothing like it in our Canon of Scripture but it is from hence very evident that Jonas was a Prophet originally to the Jews That he was afterwards sent to the Gentiles was a great favour indeed to that Heathen City of Niniveh but then he had first Prophesied to the Israelites and when they had profited little or nothing by it he like Christ and his Apostles turned to the Gentiles 8. As for your exceptions from Enoch Noah c. they lived before the general corruption by Idolatry and therefore it is but reasonable to suppose that they living up to the old true Patriarchal Religion might partake of the divine Revelation as well as the Jews And the Prophet Ezechiel's Prophecy is wholly taken up in shewing God's judgments upon the Jews and endeavouring to bring them to a true sense of their Sins only a Chapter or two are interposed to foretel God's Vengeance likewise upon their Enemies whose wickedness God's All-wise Providence had made use of to be a scourge for the Sins of his People And so for the Prophets Isaiah and Jeremy their bemoaning the Calamities of the Heathens of Jazer and Edom that is not a prophecy on their behalf but only is a lively Hypotyposis or Poetical Description of the sad Miseries which those People should undergo to hearten up the Jews in their afflictions when they should understand that God would lay such heavy burdens upon their Enemies and to shew them that they had no reason to forsake the true Religion when they should see that the Heathens underwent as severe judgment as they 9. And so
Fotoques and Games as the Mexicans for the rites paid to their Virachoca Nor does my conjecture stand singly alone but I have your own sacred Writings to back me in it For there are many Texts of Scripture which seem plainly to affirm that God-Almighty has revealed his Will by a Positive Institution to the Gentile World whom you look down with so much contempt upon under pretence of your superabundant privileges For Gen. 14.18 c. it is said that Melchisedeck was King of Jerusalem and Priest of the most high God and that he blessed Abraham which was a principal Office of the Mosaical Priesthood Numb 6.23 and that Abraham pay'd Tithes to him of his Spoils From whence it is plain That God had a revealed Institution before the Jews or their Forefather Abraham's time and that when Abraham is commended for keeping God's commandments and statutes and Laws Gen. 26.5 it is only these positive injunctions in the Land of Canaan which Melchisedeck was the Priest or Prophet or Dispenser of So Malachi 1.10 Who is there among you that would shut the doors of my Temple that fire should not be kindled upon mine Altar For from the rising of the Sun unto the going down thereof my name shall be great among the gentiles and in every place Incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the heathen saith the Lord of Hosts By which words it is plain That at that time the Prophet did not think the Jews dearer to God than other People and that the Heathens worship was as acceptable to him as theirs So Psal 145.18 The Lord is nigh to all them that call upon him to all that call upon him in Truth And in the same Psalm v. 9. it is said God is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works So God himself gives a Testimony of Job a Gentile that there was none like him in the Earth a perfect and an upright Man Job 1.8 So Jonas said he determined to flee to Tarsus because he knew God to be a gracious and merciful God Jon. 4.2 and who would therefore pardon even the Gentile Ninevites Besides we read in Scripture that several uncircumcised Gentiles had the gift even of Prophecy as Enoch Noah Abimelech and Balaam Nay several of the Jewish Prophets prophesy for the use of the Gentiles Ezechiel prophesies to all the Nations then known Obadiah prophesies only for the Children of Edom and Jonas principally for the Ninevites Isaias foretells the calamities and deliverance of the Aegyptians Is 19.19 and the Prophet Jeremy is call'd expresly a Prophet of the Nations or Gentiles Before thou camest out of the Womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a Prophet unto the Nations Jer. 1.5 and Chap. 48.31 he says he will howl for Moab he will cry out for Moab and v. 36. My heart shall sound for Moab like Pipes c. which pathetick expressions shew that he was sent by God a Prophet as well for the Gentile Moabites as the Jews But as for the Prophecy of Balaam that is so express that all the major and minor Prophets cannot pretend more to the Spirit of Prophecy than this one Gentile Seer So that Credentius you may make what brags you please of the Jewish and Christian Revelations but if you do not own old Balaam as much a Heathen as he was to be a very good Prophet you will want one of the most considerable proofs of Christianity Nay the Scripture gives this Man all the Characters of a Prophetick spirit He hath said who heard the words of God who saw the Vision of the Almighty falling into a Trance but having his Eyes open Numb 24.4 Now methinks it is a little unfair for you to make such an outcry about God's particular Favour to you by Revelation when those very revealed Scriptures themselves which you make such brags of allow it to the Heathen as well as you Cred. One can hardly think you Theists are in earnest when you object against the Scriptures and our Religion that God has revealed himself to other Nations as well as us No Revelation to the Gentiles for their Religions I always take you to have a mind only to be pleasant and to put a banter upon us Christians rather than to defend your own Tenents which do not seem much to be furthered by it And when Spinosa contends so mightily for it I fancy it must be only an humorsom Paradox of that odd Man and not his setled Opinion or at least the effect of a Pique he had conceived against the Jews and so was resolved to set them upon the same foot with other Mortals But that the rest of the World have no Revelation for the diverse Religions they profess will appear by considering Because Idolatrous 1. That most of the Religions in the World are Idolatrous Now it is impossible to suppose that God by a Revelation should command Men to do that which all wise Men would be ashamed to do to fall down before Stocks and stones to worship the Sun and the Moon senseless inanimate Creatures and to adore dead Men and Tyrannical Princes or even Herbs or Beasts Now though we should suppose that God was in no ways jealous of his honour and that it was indifferent to him whatsoever Thing we worshipped yet as he is the God of Truth 't is impossible he should command a false worship or instruct People in paying devotion to things as Gods which are only mean and perhaps wicked Creatures Now the far greatest part of the Unchristian World are and have been such Idolaters and therefore to make God to have revealed to them their superstitions is to make God to represent himself such as it is impossible for him to be to be delighted in a worship which is false and wicked and to be himself the Chief Author of the Imposture which is so horrid as no body will contend for 2. Other Unchristian Nations that are not Idolaters as chiefly the Mahometans profess a Religion which allows Immorality Immoral the Founder whereof was rather possessed by the Devil than inspired by God A Lewd debauched Fanatical Wretch that lived by Rapine and Murder and spent his days in Whoredom Adulteries and Sodomies Now his Religion allows its followers to propagate it by the blood of the opposers and by all manner of cruelty and barbarity against Men of other perswasions It allows Concubinacy and Whoredom and even Sodomy it self and the very rewards it proposes in another World are such infamous Lust as a good Man would be ashamed to think of in this 3. As for your Instances out of Scripture Melchisedeck because you should not too much insult over us as having wounded us with our own Weapons will you be pleased to accept this answer to the first That Melchisedeck is no proof of a Revelation among the Gentiles more than of that Universal
again as to the Prophecy of Obadiah whom you assert to have been a Prophet only to the Edomites he was a Prophet only to the Israelites and for ought appears to the contrary originally of Jewish extraction for I think little credit is to be given to the Jewish Authors who would make him an Edomitish Proselyte But that Obadiah was a Prophet to the Jews only is evident by the whole tenour of this short Prophecy where first are denounced God's severe judgments against the Edomites the Enemies of the Jews and his vengeance for their Pride and Insolence and afterwards the Jews delivery from them and conquest over them But upon mount Sion shall be deliverance and Jacob shall possess their possessions And the house of Jacob shall be a fire and the house Joseph a Flame and the house of Esau for Stubble and they shall kindle in them and devour them and there shall not be any of the house of Esau for the Lord hath spoken it v. 17 18. Now does this look like an Edomitish Prophet But this is just as Spinosa and Hobbs and the Devil are used to quote Scripture 10. The most considerable Instance is that of Balaam who may seem to be an Ethnick Prophet by his living in a Heathen Country and his being at the command of a Heathen King and by his predicting so plainly such remarkable Events which afterwards so punctually came to pass as the greatness of the Common-wealth of Israel the destruction of the Canaanitish Nations and the coming of the Messias But then altho' this be true yet it does not from hence follow that the gift of Prophecy was common to other Nations as well as to the Jews from this Instance Because this Prophecy was designed only for the benefit of the Jewish Nation and although it was pronounced by the mouth of a Heathen Man yet the design and purpose of it was for the good of the Jews and truly it was but a small priviledge of the Heathen to have one of them to pronounce a Prophecy of God only in favour of the Jews and that too for the utter Extirpation of themselves So that for ought I see in this Instance Baalam's Ass would be as good a one altogether to prove That Inspiration is common to Brutes too because God once made use of his mouth to confute his Master's folly 11. Well but Baalam you say was a true and accustomed Prophet and not made use of only by God upon this extraordinary exigence I am afraid this is an assertion which cannot be so easily made out as said and indeed the contrary thereof may be proved by the context For first he cannot be a true Prophet of God because he made use of unlawful Arts and as the Scripture says fought for inchantments Cap. 24. 1. and what we from the Vulgar Translate the rewards of divination are in the original only divinations i. e. instruments of divination conjuring Books Wands or the like And secondly he is called Kosem a Diviner or Sorcerer Josh 13.22 Which word has always an ill Character fixt on it in Scripture notwithstanding Spinosa maintains the contrary though without any Instance of it I have carefully examined all the words that I find in Scripture which come from this root and I do not find any unless by way of Metaphor but carry an ill sense and signify unlawful knowledge of future things or a lying pretended one and as for those places of the Prophets Is 24.25 Jer. 14.14 Ezech. 13.7 and 23. Micah 3.6 c. Where they may seem to signify simple Prophecy yet it will be manifest by closely considering the places that they are only harder words to characterise the false prophecies of some lying Prophets among the Jews as if I should call an Astrologer a Gypsy or a Conjurer names which carry more vulgar disrepute and shamefulness in them I know but two places in Scripture where they are used in a good sense the first is Prov. 16.10 A divining sentence or divination not as we translate it too far from the original words a divine sentence is in the Lips of the King and his mouth transgresseth not in judgment That is the King is a wise sagacious Man in his judicial determinations makes shrewd conjectures from outward appearance to discover Mens inward Intentions and by that sort of Political divination awards judgment accordingly The second is Is 32. where it is said The Lord doth take away from Judah the judge and the prophet the Kosem the Conjecturer or the prudent and the Ancient Where the Septuagint do very well translate Kosem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that makes good conjectures or Divinations which is a Metaphorical sense of the word in most Languages drawn from the Heathen Auguries as is particularly plain in those verses of Ovid concerning the Childrens play at Even and Odd Est etiam par sit numerus qui dicat an impar Vt divinatas auferat Augur opes Ovid. de Nuce Phil. By your Criticisms you have roved a little too far from the main point but pray if Balaam were not a true Prophet how came he to say that he would bring Balack's Messengers word what the Lord Jehovah the true Judaical God should speak unto him Numb 22.7 The LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you v. 13. I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God to do less or more v. 18. And God came unto Balaam c. And Balaam said unto God c. v. 9 10. I pray how came he to have this intercourse with the Lord Jehovah and yet be such a Heathen Conjurer as you would make him Nay how came he to make such fine Prophecies of Jesus Christ and yet be such a Diabolical Necromancer Cred. I think Philologus you are not a little mistaken in Arguing after this manner For it does not appear from Scripture that Balaam did endeavour to seek after Jehovah or the true God when he designed to make enquiry after the future fate of the Israelites upon Balack's request but only after Baal or some other false Deity of the Moabites That the search made to him is said to be made to Jehovah is because Jehovah is the Jewish name for God which no doubt in the Moabitish Language was Baal or some such like name which Moses writing in Hebrew calls by the Jewish name Jehovah Not that Baal and Jehovah was the same but that Balaam took his Baal a false God viz. some deifyed Prince of that part of the World for Jehovah or the True God and therefore Moses in regard to his Intention calls him by that name Nor doth the Truth of his Prophecy argue him to be a divine Prophet to whom the True God was wont to reveal himself because although he might intend to make his address to a false God yet Jehovah or the True God might take advantage from this to promote his True Religion by inspiring a false Prophet of the
diverse in Scripture that I think it is not fair to clap that particular sense only upon it which it may but bare possibly signify Sometimes it signifies only the Wind as Is 40.7 The Ruach or Spirit of the Lord blew upon him that is a very dry and fatal wind Sometime it signifies the Soul as Job 47.3 The Ruach the Spirit or Breath of God is in my nostrils Sometimes it signifies Life as Ezech. 37.14 I will give my Spirit to you and you shall live That is I will recover you and give you Life or Spirit again Other times it signifies Mercy as Mich. 2.7 is the Ruach the Spirit i. e. the mercy of God straitened And the word Spirit it self singly is noted to signify a Temper of mind as Caleb was of another Spirit i. e. a better temper than the murmuring Jews Numb 14.24 And in other places of Scripture the Spirit of Jealousy the Spirit of Meekness the Spirit of Holiness c. all which signify Tempers and Dispositions of Mind From all which I conclude that when in Scripture the Prophets are said to have the Spirit of God the meaning is only that they have great Minds or Spirits or extraordinary holy dispositions above the rest of the People Which expression signifies no more in Hebrew than what the Greeks mean when they say the same of a brave Poet or Orator that he has in his Writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some thing divine and admirable and far above the rate of common Authors So that when by these Passages of Scripture it will appear That the Prophets were good solid Writers and Excellent Preachers why should you go about to spoil their Character and make them only Enthusiastical Dreamers And now let my Infidelity be as great as you would make it you see I am a better Friend to your old Prophets than you your self Cred. You have given us here a great deal of learned Banter and it is great Pity that Men should study Scripture so much to make such ill use of it But to give an answer to this wild sort of Arguing which I can hardly perswade my self you urge in earnest Natural Knowledge not Revelation 1. You assert That Natural Knowledge is the Revelation of God and that the Scriptures have not any more reason to be called so than that But this is a great mistake For Natural Knowledge cann't be said properly to be the Revelation but only the Gift of God Indeed what ever we know we should never come to the Knowledge of unless it had pleased God's goodness to endow us with these intelligent faculties but then no body says that God reveals these natural Truths to us but only he gives us the faculties of discerning them Nay let us be as Platonical as we please and assert that all the notions of the Soul are but so many Intuitions on the Deity and our viewing some of those Infinity of Truths which he is pleased to exhibit to us by communicating himself to us I say although we explain natural Knowledge this way yet this is far from being the same which we generally understand by divine Revelation For this first is a general way of God's communicating himself indifferently to all Men for all Men do indifferently partake of a considerable measure of Natural Knowledge But this latter way of God's revealing himself which in particular we call Divine Revelation is a favour which God has vouchsafed but to a very few of all Mankind that they might communicate what was so revealed to them to the rest By the first Men only have a power of perceiving the Ideas and Impressions of outward Objects of compounding and dividing thoughts of affirming and denying concerning them of fitting premisses and deducing Consequences which every ones own experience tells him he has by nature But the latter is a supernatural Impulse of the Divine Power which instills into Mens Minds Thoughts not attainable by human Reason or else gives them an Authority as coming from God which they had not before And therefore it is an idle Fallacy to call those natural Deductions of Reason and Common Ideas of Things by the name of Revelation from which they do as widely differ as Light and Darkness This is only a ludicrous Artifice which your sort of Men have got of making use of Religious Terms when you believe nothing of the Thing and exposing Religion by leaving nothing in it but a few empty names And besides they have another end to serve by it which is this That then their Infidelity does not appear so barefac'd when they make use of the old Terms in an Infidel sense for otherways such Writers as Hobbs Spinosa and the Author of the five Letters would appear so horrid to all Ears that had the least spark of Christianity left that Men would be scar'd from them at the first reading and so all hopes of making Proselytes for the Devil would be over But by this bantering and mincing the matter Readers are cajoled into Infidelity unawares and the Authors escape the punishment likewise which would otherwise attend an open and barefac'd Blasphemy 2. And it is much such another kind of Argumentation Prophets not only extraordinary Men. when you would have the Prophets which are sometimes in Scripture called the Men of God to be only Men of good Parts and very considerable Men because forsooth great things in Scripture are sometimes called by the name of God For what though the Mountain of God be a great mountain and Nimrod a Hunter of God be a mighty Hunter may not therefore Moses and Isaiah and Jeremy be inspired Prophets I pray where lies the consequence of this Indeed if they were only in general said to be Men of God and had no other Title nor no other demonstration of their Prophetick Spirit there would be then something tolerable in this Argument But the name of Men of God is an expression which is but rarely but once or twice in Scripture made use of to signify a Prophet 1 Kings Chap. 13. there are other names which are generally used for that purpose Such as Nabi which signifies one that has particular converse and familiarity with God Gen. 20.7 and Roeh 1 Chron. 9.22 and 16.28 and Choseh 2 Sam. 24.11 1 Chr. 21.9 both which words signify Seers as denoting Men that are accustomed to divine Visions or supernatural Revelations But besides there are such innumerable expressions in Scripture which demonstrate a particular Revelation from God Almighty and a peculiar intercourse of these holy Men the Prophets with him that no reasonable Man can deny it unless at the same time he denies the Authority of the holy Scripture and makes it altogether an Imposture Gen. 15.1 The word of the Lord came to Abram in a Vision saying Fear not Abram c. Now what tolerable sense can be put upon these words but only that this was a particular Revelation of God to Abraham You cann't
am not able to guess at But why should Miracles make Men doubt of the Being of a God In my mind they do plainly prove his Existence For when ever a Miracle is done there is something done by a power superiour to nature now if there be a Power superiour to Nature then Nature is not Self-existent and consequently there is a God which created Nature This must be demonstration to all materialists that allow nothing in the World but infinite and eternal Matter and a necessary concatenation of Causes For if a Miracle or supernatural Power breaks or disturbs one Link of these Causes and Nature afterwards goes on undisturbedly again it is most certain that there is a Power above nature which directs it for otherways a necessary and fatal Nature would move on with an infinite disturbance So that I say Philologus that though to an Epicurean who would have all things come by chance Miracles are not so good a Proof of a Deity as the Frame of the Universe and the Wise Ends of things yet to a Materialist who will have all things to be nature the Eviction of a Miracle must be demonstration for this overthrows his whole Hypothesis and tells him to his face that Matter and Nature are but a limited and subordinate Power and in subjection to a superiour Mind or Power which is God Nay let the Miracle be true or false either wrought by God or the Devil it is home-proof against a Materialist for a Witch or an Apparition is total Destruction to that Philosophy Therefore it is no wonder that so great an outcry is raised against Miracles and preternatural Powers for if these are once evinced the Hobbist is at an End 5. False Miracles no Argument against true ones And whereas you object against Miracles that they are no Proof of an Inspiration from God because there may be a great many false Miracles and that Moses in the 13th of Deut. gives them warning of the same I think this is only puzzling the Case and raising a dust instead of arguing the Point For what though there be false and pretended Miracles are there therefore no true ones Because there have been many false Witnesses must therefore no true Evidence be credited Because there are very many Quacks and Empiricks are there no good Physicians in the World Because there are many Knaves are there no honest Men This is a mad way of concluding which would destroy all humane Society and Conversation out of the World Men must neither eat nor drink because some Men have been poisoned those ways They must receive no good money because there is a great deal of Counterfeit They must believe nothing that is told them because there are many Liars among Men. Now Man would be the most miserable Creature in the World if he were to square his Actions by this Method But God has given to all Men judgment and reason to distinguish between Truth and Falshood between sincerity and design And this we must make use of in considering miraculous powers and proving the Spirits whether they be of God By this we may discern whether the produced Miracle be above the Power of Art or Nature or whether it does not shew the finger of God whether it be the effect of a deluded Imagination and not rather the Evidence of clear and undisturbed Sense whether it be the operation of God or the power of the Devil whether it tends to the Advancement of the Kingdom of Light or of Darkness whether it tends to further Moral Goodness and Piety or else Wickedness and superstition whether it contributes to the strengthening or overthrowing of God's Laws whether it confirms what we are sure God has revealed before or contradicts it Now with this caution we may very well distinguish true from false Miracles and assent to the True whilst we reject the False And therefore Moses in the Chapter which you alledged does with very good reason give the Jews warning that they do not receive Impression from Miracles with too great precipitancy and gives them a good Rule to judge when they are false viz. namely when they contradict the standing Rules of Morality or any other Revelation of God If there arise among you a Prophet or a Dreamer of Dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder c. saying Let us go after other Gods c. ye shall not hearken unto the words of that Prophet c. but ye shall walk after the Lord your God and keep his Commandments and obey his voice c. This is but wise and discreet caution but to condemn all true Miracles for the sake of some Impostures is unreasonable Scepticism and would tend to dispute all Truth and Certainty out of the World and make all men turn Pyrrhonicks and Seekers 6. And it is likewise false Instances of the Jews and Solomon considered which you in the next place lay down That the Miracles and Inspiration among the Jews had no influence upon their Understandings or Lives from the Instances of the Idolatrous Jews in the Wilderness and King Solomon Indeed I can by no means excuse the Jews for their Perfidious Defection to Idolatrous Worship whilst Moses was in the Mount but yet I cannot go with you so far as to assert that the figure of a Calf was thought by them to be the Divine Image For this is such a Grosness as is not to be supposed in Humane Nature it is most probable that they designed this only as an Hieroglyphick or Emblem of the True God in imitation of the Aegyptians For as the Aegyptians with whom they had long conversed worshipped their God Apis under the Hieroglyphick of a Bull or Calf so the Jews who loved a pompous ceremonious worship thought to worship the True God so too For it is plain that they intended to pay their Devotion to the true God because in the relation of this passage Exod. 32.4 It is said This is the Elohim or God which brought thee out of the land of Aegypt Which is more particularly explained in the next Verse To morrow is a feast to the LORD or to Jehovah And as for those places in Ecclesiastes after all that is objected by Atheists and Socinianâ— I do not see any thing to the contrary but that these are only Prosopopoeia's of Epicureans wherein the Absurdities of these Opinions are exposed and brought into the number of those other Vanities which in this Book he is condemning Phil. But after all Credentius I cannot be perswaded but that it was the prejudiced Opinions of the Unphilosophical Jews and their pretence more immediately to the Divine Protection which gave occasion to the rise of so many Miracles in Scripture which might otherways be naturally accounted for It would be too long to run through all the pretended Miracles in Scripture which I could easily make out to be done by the power of Nature I shall only pick out one or two which may
Dei totusque moveri Mons circum mugire adytis cortina reclusis all things do seem to quake The Doors and Laurels of the Gods do shake The tott'ring Mountain moves in Eddies round And from the Curtain creeps a hollow sound So whenever the coming of Hecate is described as in Theocritus his Pharmaceutria c. Or when any great Deity appears as that great Demogorgon which Lucan mentions Lib. 3. the Earth is always said to tremble peretis an ille Compellandus erit quo nunquam terra vocato Non concussa tremit But after all here was not the least ground to suspect any Deceit in this wonderful occurrence for Moses deals very openly with the Israelites in this matter and suffers them to come up into the Mountain after the LORD had departed thence And there is a signal given them when they shall venture to come When the Trumpet soundeth along they shall come up to the Mount Exod. 19. v. 13. Now if there had been any thing of this pretended Vulcano in the Mountain that Moses had cheated them with to be sure Moses had forbid them to come up to the Mountain altogether for their viewing those natural Eruptions afterwards would have laid open the Cheat as much as if they had been present when Moses gave out he was receiving his Law from God who exhibited himself in that Appearance Phil. But still Credentius there is another of this Legislator's Actions which sticks much in my stomach and that is his making the Jews believe that by a divine power he turned the Waters of the Red-Sea into two solid Walls standing up on each side of the Israelites to let them pass through upon the dry-ground But to say nothing of the pleasantness of this Miracle Methinks this was but a cast of the Legislator's Cunning to coin a Miracle out of the Seas Low-water For it is a Tradition among the Aegyptians that Moses being a little more subtile than the ignorant Jews or the Aegyptians which pursued him understood the exact time of the Tide of that Sea and so carried over upon the Ebb his People safe whilst the Aegyptians were lost for lack of better observation * Ant. Lib. 2. Cap. ult Which Thought so wrought upon the Learned Josephus that he allow'd the same to be done by Alexander in passing the Pamphylian Sea Or however this Miracle is much lessened if we assert with a great many of the Divines that the Jews did not cross the Sea but only went in a little way and came out again on the same side and then ignorant folks that lived far off from the Sea might be imposed upon at the same rate every time 't is low water with us Cred. It is a wonder at this time of Day that you witty Gentlemen who are endeavouring to settle all things upon a new Bottom should be beholding to one of old Porphyry's Cavils to bespatter our Religion or to an idle Tale of the Aegyptians But in answer to these Insinnations 1. I am of Opinion The Israelites did not pass round the Head of the Sinus there is no reason to think but that the Israelites passed quite through the Channel of the Sea from one shore to the other For the only reason which gave rise to the other Opinion was the Relation of the Journies of the People Numb 23. where v. 6. it is said that they departed from Succoth which is on the Aegyptians side of the Red Sea and pitched in Etham and from thence moved to Pi-hahiroth passed through the midst of the Sea into the Wilderness and so went three days journey into the Wilderness of Etham Whence they conclude that Etham and the Wilderness of Etham must needs be on the same side of the Sea and consequently the Jews did not march cross the Sea but only through one side of it in a semicircle and out again a little higher on the same side But this is contrary to the express words of Scripture which say they passed through the middle of the Sea And as for the difficulty about Etham that is fairly solved by allowing only two Ethams the one a Town which they encamped at on the Aegyptian side the second on the Erabian side a Wilderness Instances of which are common enough in Scripture and Prophane Histories But if we must needs have the Wilderness of Etham denominated from the Town Mr. Le Clerk * Dissert de Maris Idumaei traject has ingeniously guessed that Etham the Town was situated nigh the upper part of the Sinus Arabicus and gave denomination to a great Desert which surrounded the Head of that Bay and reached down a considerable way on both sides So that though they marched from the Wilderness of Etham cross the Bay they would be only in another part of the Wilderness of Etham still The Waters did not stand erect 2. Neither do I see any reason to assert that the Waters are miraculously consolidated or that they did in a literal sense stand on an heap or erect like a Wall But only God sent a strong Wind as the Text says which blew back the Tide and all the waters which covered the sands over against Pi-hahiroth further towards the Ocean leaving some waters stagnating towards the Head of the Sinus all along towards the Mediterranean Sea So that by this mean the sholes about Pi-hahiroth must needs be left dry for the Israelites to pass over Indeed it must be a North wind which must produce this effect or at least a North-East whereas our Translation says an East But there is no necessity of translating Cadim East it signifying only a strong wind And so St. Jerom interprets it ventum vehementem urentem a vehement and burning wind And Ps 48.7 Thou breakest the ships of Tarsis with a Kadim the LXX Vid. Cler. Diss translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a mighty wind Vid. Ez. 27.26 Job 27.21 Jer. 18.17 And then this explication will be very agreeable to the words of the Text and that division which is assigned to the Waters there And the Lord caused the Sea to go back by a strong East-Wind all that night and made the Sea dry-land and the Waters were divided Ex. 14.21 Now as for those words in the song of Moses and Miriam where it is said that the Flouds stood upright as an heap and the Depths were congealed in the heart of the Sea that must be taken only as a Poetical or Metaphorical Expression And where it is said that the Waters were a Wall unto them it must be understood only that there were Waters on both sides the sholes they passed over And this is agreeable to the expression in the Prophet Nahum Art though better than No-ammone or populous No that was situate among the Waters that had Waters round about it whose Rampart was the Sea and whose Waters were a Wall Nah 3.8 Not beat back by a natural Wind. 3. Nor did this come
Jewish and says they use Oil in their Consecration And Strabo says it is a great crime there as among the Jews to offer a maimed Victim Str. Lib. 15. that they have a Lex Talionis and that there is a Law that no Indian should be a Slave The Brachmans the Indian Priests wear Bells about them like the Jewish High-Priest Slaves there have their Ears bor'd through and a perpetual Light is kept in their Temples Women and New-Born Children are unclean till they are purified with Lustrations They punish Incest and Adultery with death Only the Brachmans like the Levites must go into the inward Parts of the Temple They are defiled by a dead Body and have Cakes before their Idols like the shew Bread and the Brachmans like the Jewish High-Priests must marry Virgins Vid. Thevenot Huet Dem. Prop. 4. Cap. 6. And the Inhabitants of the Country of Tangath redeem their first-born with a Ram. Now when the Jewish and the Indian Rites are so very like why might not I assert that Moses had them from India as well as you from Aegypt Nay even the Barbarous Tartars have many things not unlike the Jews Vid. Conring Thes Rerump They celebrate the New-Moons with Songs and Compotations they bewail their Dead Thirty Days they breed no Hogs and punish Adultery with Death And so as to the new World the Children of the People of Mexico and Jucatan are Circumcised and the Mexicans keep in a perpetual Fire The Charibeans celebrate the New-Moon with the sound of a Trumpet and abstain from Swines Flesh Those of Mechoacana are defiled by dead Bodies and those of Peru and new Spain marry their Brothers Wives And in Nicaragua Women after Child-Birth are unclean Besides the Attick and Roman Laws and Rites are in many things as like the Jewish as the Aegyptian The Attick Laws establish that no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Heiress should marry out of her own Tribe their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Cakes answer to the shew-Bread Plut. Sol. and the Law of Solon that Women in grief should not tear their Cheeks is not unlike that of Moses Lev. 19.28 Their Priests were to marry Virgins and Citizens and no Lamb was to be a Sacrifice less than a Year old And we may say the same of the Roman Their Sacrifices bore a great correspondence with the Jewish the burning the Holocausta their Moâ—a Sâ—lsa Lustrations c. Their Nudipâ—dales seem very like the Eastern Devotion of â—ulling off the shooes Their Puerâ—â—ae abstaining Forty Days from the Templâ— the Frondeae Casae in the Feasts of Anna â—erenna and the Neptunalia so like the Feast of Tabernacles the unhallowing of a Priest that touched a dead Body or who â—ssociated with his Wife before Sacrifice all look as like the Jewish Laws as any Custom in Aegypt From all which I conclude that since so many Nations in so different parts of the World have the same Rites with the Jews either by chance or Tradition or it may be by the mimikry of the Devil I am sure it is very great Boldness to say that all these came to the Jews from the Aegyptians Phil. Well Credentius you have made a fine learned Harangue upon the matter if we Infidels were to be convinced by that But I have a notable Objection which lies both against Moses and all the Sons of the Prophets And that is they appear to be like the rest of the Jews miserable ignorant People and after all their mighty pretences to the Knowledge of the Divine Nature are scandalously ignorant concerning it They every where seem to be gross Anthropomorphites representing God as having Eyes and Hands and Feet Adam to whom God made his first Revelation knew nothing of God's Omnipresence or Omniscience but pretended to hide himself from him and to make a simple Excuse to him And Moses who relates the story brings in God like a Man walking in the Garden The same Moses was so silly as to fancy God visible and to desire to see him Exod. 33. And some of the Prophets endow God with humane Passion and make him to repent to be sorry and to be glad But above all the contrivance of the Prophet Jonah is the wisest who thought to run away to Tarshish out of God Almighty's reach as if God had no power out of the Country of Judea Now who can expect Revelation to come from those Heads which were not furnished with the common notions of natural Religion Cred. You do a great injury to the holy Scriptures and to the memory of the Holy Men recorded there to conceive such an extravagant Opinion of them especially when it is taught there that God is a Spirit that he beholds all things is present every where that he is not a Man Jews far from being Anthropomorphites and the like And therefore you ought in all candor to suppose that these expressions which attribute Hands Eyes c. to God are only to be taken metaphorically and are spoke only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner as Men speak And to this the Jewish Writers who are supposed to understand their own Language best do unanimously agree This Maimonides spends several Chapters in his first Book of his More Nevochim to prove So the Targum when the Scripture seems to impute any corporeal Action to the Deity interprets it in a way more agreeable to the Divine Nature As Gen. 28. And behold the Lord stood above it Onkelos paraphrases the glory of the Lord stood afore it So Gen. 31.49 The Lord watch between me and thee The Targum says the Word of the Lord watch between me and thee And this is the constant use of that Interpreter says Maimonides More Nev. Lib. 1. Author Halic Ol. c. 1. quoted by Hottinger in his Dissertat Theolog. Philolog Cap. 46. And a Jewish Rabbin writes that when they meet with any expression or Metaphor concerning the Deity of this Nature they are used to interpose Cabiacol if I may so speak Vid. Buxtorf Lexicon Talm. Rad. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now the true reason why the Scripture does express the Attributes of God by Bodily actions and properties is not that those Writers thought God of a bodily shape but by the reason of the narrowness of the Hebrew Tongue they wanted abstracted Terms to express them by And when these Corporeal Terms were applied to God the People of that Nation knew as well what was meant by them as the Schools do by all their Quiddities Thus the Eye of God is the same as the Providence of God So Jer. 39.12 Cast thine eye upon him i. e. take care of him And 2 Chr. 16.9 The Eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole Earth i. e. God takes care of all People in it So the Heart of God was as well understood to the Jews as if it had in more Scholastick Language been called his Decree or his Will.