and it requires onely eye-sight to observe that it could be contrived no other way but by Divine Providence But when I pretend to have routed all the mechanick Philosophers it is so far from presumption that there is no more glory in it than in the Conquest of an Infant And indeed nothing does more exactly resemble their wise contrivances than the little sports and works of Children for just as they make their Play-things so do these grave Philosophers make their Worlds In short the folly and non-sense of meer Mechanism or accounting for the nature of Things onely by Matter or Motion or any other second Causes is so notorious that all the Philosophers in the World never were nor ever will be able to give any the least account how so much as a Stone should fall to the ground without a Divine Providence This may seem a very odd challenge to be made to the great Wits and Virtuosi of Mankind but I make it not rashly and have throughly consider'd all their Attempts and more than enough demonstrated their Vanity and am sure upon the most diligent enquiry that it can never be done any other way than by resolving it into the force of Magnetism than which in all the Universe there is not a more amasing piece of Divine Art and Wisedom But here before I can proceed to what ought to have immediately followed I am forced to thrust in a kind of preposterous digression in answer to a very mean piece of disingenuity that I have lately met with from the Mechanick Philosophers viz. That I have made too bold with the reputation of great and famous Men and treat those that have been admired and renown'd for Wisedom and Learning in all Ages as if they were void of common sense And thus the late Authour of the Augmentation to Mr. Hobbs his Life when he has represented me as one of the keenest and unkindest of his Adversaries brings off his Master with this clean Complement that he has no reason to take it unkindly from one that sticks not to treat the greatest even of the ancient Philosophers after the same rate and gives the same correction even to the great Aristotle himself as to Mr. Hobbs and as for the famour de-Cartes he sticks not to chastise him like any School-boy But in the first place methinks this is a very poor and humble Objection and becomes not the due confidence of a Philosopher For it is this sort of Men that first upbraid us with the great and unanswerable Performances of Mr. Hobbs and tell us that till we can answer him we may preach what we please to the People but wise Men will be of his mind And yet when we not onely answer but plainly demonstrate the pitifull and even childish folly of his pretended Philosophy that is objected as an unpardonable rudeness to so learned a Man But I would fain know what is to be done in this case you will not be content till we undertake him and yet if we do you grow angry and our very attempting it is made our crime But yet if he be exposed 't is none of our fault but his own for 't is not in any Man's power to make his Notions better or worse than they are and if we represent them truly and they prove ridiculous we cannot help it but if we do not it would be somewhat to the purpose if they could convince us of so unmanly a piece of disingenuity but till then 't is at best but a very childish thing to complain either of unkind or uncivil Usage And therefore in the second place it was done much less like a Philosopher onely to give an account of my Assertions against Mr. Hobbs without taking any notice of our Reasons and Arguments For if I have charged any thing upon Mr. Hobbs and have not demonstratively prov'd it I am bound to give publick satisfaction to his memory But if I have then the severity of my charge is no fault of mine and for that I dare and do appeal to the judgment of all impartial Men whether I have not proved upon and against him all that I pretended to and if I have then it is evident that Mr. Hobbs has asserted a very wicked Cause very foolishly But lastly 't is done still much less like a Philosopher to load me with that invidious charge of traducing the greatest Worthies among the Ancients For I know no one quality more unbecoming a Man that pretends to letters and civility than an envious affectation of finding fault with the Performances of great Men. This has ever been the creeping artifice of small People to make themselves considerable onely by the greatness of their Adversaries and it is a practice that I detest as I do Slander or Perjury And if they could but assign one Instance in which I have in the least wrong'd any learned Man they should not be so forward to shew it as I would be to confess it But otheways to insinuate that I spare not the greatest even of the ancient Heroes is to say no worse but a sneaking way of encountring an Enemy and indeed an inward confession of the want of some better reply For if they thought they were able to overthrow Arguments in fair Combate they would scorn to betake themselves to such skulking Artifices For when all is done the whole merits of the Cause will rest upon the reason of the thing so that if I have opposed or confuted any of the ancient Philosophers upon good and substantial grounds I have done them no wrong in doing Truth right If otherwise I have not really injured them but my self and it is in these Gentlemens power that make the complaint to demonstrate the falshood or the folly of my Opposition But till then I think it becomes not the state and grandeur of a Philosopher to condescend to such poor topicks of Insinuation But if they will do so it is all one to me for my onely design is the pursuit of real Truth I mean not useless and barren Speculation but such as is serviceable to the Happiness of humane Nature and that is all the Learning or Wisedom that I care for And if any Man stand in my way though it be Aristotle or de-Cartes Epicurus or Mr. Hobbs Friend or Foe yea though it be M. Tullius himself yes though it be an Angel from Heaven I must on and if I am forced to justle them out of my way I cannot help it for I am resolved never to leave it my self However it is a vain thing for Mechanick Philosophers to complain of being a little derided when they so wantonly and affectedly expose themselves to it For how is it possible for the wittiest Men to come off with better success that when we see the whole World framed with such admirable Art and Wisedom shall undertake to teach the senseless Materials of which it is made to be their own Architect I will
upon such appeals and challenges as these that is an evident Demonstration of their undoubted truth and reality And this may suffice for the proof of the truth of Scripture-history supposing the Books of it were written by those Persons whose Names they bear Though beside this it is no inconsiderable proof of their Integrity that Eusebius has observed in their impartial way of writing Thus onely Saint Matthew himself of all the Evangelists takes notice of his own dishonourable Employment before his Conversion and Saint Mark who wrote his Gospel from the information of Saint Peter is observably sparing in those things that might tend to the praise of that Apostle and so could not with decent modesty be reported by himself but more exact than any other of the Evangelists in the description of his shamefull Fall Thus when Saint Peter had so frankly own'd our Saviour for the Messias Saint Matthew relates our Saviour's Answer with a high Commendation of him Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jona for Flesh and Bloud hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Then charged he his Disciples that they should tell no Man that he was Jesus the Christ. Whereas in Saint Mark all these magnificent Expressions of our Saviour to Saint Peter are modestly omitted and all the Answer that is there made is no more than this And he charged them that they should tell no Man And so again though Saint Mark in all his other Relations is more compendious than any of the other Evangelists yet in the Story of Saint Peter's denial of his Saviour he is most of all circumstantial And whereas Saint Matthew and Saint Luke set off the greatness of his Repentance afterwards by saying that he wept bitterly Saint Mark expresses it more modestly onely that he wept Now when Writers pass by such things as make for their own praise and record their own Faults and Miscarriages that without their own discovery might never have been known to Posterity they are of all Men least to be suspected of falsehood and give the strongest proof in the World of their love to Truth and Sincerity So again granting that they would not stick at any falsehood to advance their Master's Honour and Reputation yet to what purpose should they forge Lyes of his Disgraces and Sufferings especially all those shamefull Circumstances that they have recorded of his Condemnation and Execution Now if we believe them in the black and tragical part of the Story why not in all For if they onely design'd to set off their Master's Greatness why do they so carefully acquaint the World with the History of his Misfortunes Why do they tell us of his great Agony before his Passion of his scourgings and Mockings of his purple Robe and reeden Scepter of the Contumelies and Reproaches that were thrown at him whilst he was hanging on the Gibbet of his being forsaken by all his Followers of his being abjured by the most zealous of them all and that without the application of Racks or Torments These things if not true to what purpose should they invent them nay if true why should they not doe what they were able to stiflle them if the onely design of their Romance had been to gain Honour to their Master So that if they were honest and faithfull in those sad Relations concerning him why not in those that carry Triumph and Reputation in them For if they had design'd to lye for his Glory they must have baulk't every thing that might any way offend the Reader And if they had design'd a Romance instead of that plain Story that they have recorded to Posterity they would have told us that Judas had no sooner given the treacherous Kiss but he was turn'd into a Stone that the Hand that struck him was immediately wither'd that Caiphas and his Accusers were struck blind that the Souldiers who supposed they had apprehended him had onely seised a Phantasm whilst he vanisht away that his Judges were befoold in all their phantastick Process against him whilst he stood invisible among them despising their Mock-solemnity In short was it in all humane Accounts much more becoming the grandeur and dignity of that Person that he pretended to be that he should not have been obnoxious to the common Miseries and Calamities of humane Life but that when by his Divine Power he had establisht his Kingdom in the World he should have return'd back to Heaven without any suffering and with all the Ornaments of Glory and Triumph This certainly had been much more proper matter for a Romance if they had design'd nothing but their Master's Greatness than to have fain'd those mixt Actions that are recorded of him in the Gospels and those that would have believed their other Reports would not have disbelieved these And therefore seeing they would not corrupt or suppress the Truth in the unpleasant part of the Story we have no ground to suspect them of the least falsehood in any other part of it howsoever in it self strange and miraculous when it is so evident that their design was real Truth and not their Master's Greatness § VIII But if we believe the Books of Scripture were not written by those Authours whose Names they bear then we must believe that either they were forged in their days or afterwards If in their days then they either own'd them as true or not If they vouched them they gave them the same Authority as if they had been indited by themselves If they disown'd them as containing Reports that they knew to be false then they themselves were obliged to discover the Imposture which having never done that is an undeniable evidence that if they were written in their time either they themselves writ them or at least approved of them But if they were written afterwards how came they to meet with such an early and universal reception in the Christian Churches We find them always own'd as the undoubted records of the Evangelists and Apostles in the most ancient Writers that lived after them nay some with them Now how is it possible that Books that contain in them matters so strange and wonderfull if they had been counterfeit and spurious and thrust upon the World after the death of those Persons whose names they pretend to bear should command such a catholick and unquestionable reputation If indeed they had pretended to have lain obscure for some time and to have been afterwards retrieved there might have been some ground of suspicion But when they are own'd as the most ancient and undoubted records of the Church
up both in the Records of that City and the Syrian Tongue to which Language the ancient Greek and Latin Fathers were altogether strangers and if they had not yet they might easily be ignorant of so remote a Register But that there were such Records we have all the Faith of Eusebius at stake who positively vouches it that he found them enrolled in the publick Registry of Edessa and faithfully translated them out of the Syrian into the Greek Tongue Not to mention Saint Ephraem who lived before the time of Saint Austin and was a Deacon in the City of Edessa who makes the same honourable mention of these Epistles with Eusebius though that is a pregnant Testimony by it self but much more so from its exact agreement with Eusebius his Relation but passing by that and much Aug. Ep. 263. more the Epistle of Darius to Saint Austin and of Theodorus Studita to Pope Paschal because it is possible they might rely wholly upon the Authority of Eusebius I shall lay the whole stress of the Testimony upon him alone whom we cannot suppose guilty of such a gross and meer forgery as to have framed the whole story onely out of his own Brain I will grant that he may sometimes seem partial and favourable to his own cause and be apt to make more of a Testimony than the Testimony it self will bear but that he should forge and falsie a publick Record and that in a matter of this weighty nature he has given us no reason to entertain so hard and unkind a suspicion of him For he is a stranger to Eusebius that knows him not to be as nice and curious in examining the credit of his Authorities as any the most critical Authours whatsoever and for this reason he has rejected many excellent passages that might have been very serviceable to his Cause meerly because of their doubtfull Antiquity allowing nothing as Authentick that he cannot vouch by the Testimony of ancient and contemporary Writers Now that such a Man should be guilty of such a gross and groundless Lye as this is past the ill-nature of Mankind to suspect Nay farther though some of our late Masters of Censure are very forward to observe the slips and mistakes of this great Man and charge them smartly upon him as if done out of meer design yet the whole matter being impartially weighed we have more reason to impute them to haste and inadvertency For though sometimes he may seem to emprove Testimonies yet does he as often lessen them which plainly shews that he trusted too much to his memory But still he is ever in the right as to the main of the Story and fails onely in circumstances and that chiefly of Chronology by confounding sometimes one Story with another but otherwise he tells no false Stories and onely makes some mistakes of memory upon true ones and as many of them to the disadvantage as to the advantage of his Cause as might be shewn if it were worth the while by comparing all particulars But for the present this is sufficiently exemplified in the very last passage that we insisted upon viz. The Testimony of Pilate concerning our Saviour in which the chief thing as it is set down by Tertullian is our Saviour's Miracles and yet it is left out by Eusebius when he transcribes the rest of the Testimony And though it is possible that he might follow the Greek Translatour of Tertullian yet however we see he is as easily drawn into a lessening as a magnifying mistake and it is much more likely that Eusebius should through haste clip the Translation than that the Translatour should clip the Original for he onely consulted the passage occasionally and so might in his hasty transcribing overlook a part of it but for the other who made that Translation his particular business it was not easie to overlook so material a passage In short Whatsoever faults Eusebius may be guilty of no Man can suspect him of meer Forgery without the forfeiture of his Ingenuity Neither in the last place is the date of the Record an inconsiderable circumstance to prove the Record it self for Eusebius tells us that at the bottom of it was subscribed These things were done the 340 th year Which though it has heretofore puzled learned Men is excellently clear'd by the Epocha of the Edessean Computation who began their Account from the first year of the 117 th Olympiad when Seleucus began his Reign in Asia now from that to the 202 d. Olympiad in which year being the 15 th of Tiberius our Saviour suffer'd is just 340. years So that Thaddaeus was dispatched to Edessa in the very same year in which our Saviour arose from the dead that great work it seems being once over he would no longer delay the good King's request These are all the foreign Testimonies that I think convenient to represent in this place though many more I shall be forced to observe when I come to give an account how it comes to pass that though our Saviour did those Miracles that are recorded of him and though there were all that evidence given of them that we pretend there was yet so great a part of the Men of that Age both Jews and Gentiles should live and dye in Infidelity § XVII Having hitherto demonstrated the impossibility of the falshood of the Apostles Testimony concerning the truth of Christianity from its contradiction to the first Instincts of humane Nature to all the principles of common Prudence and to their own design it self and from the undoubted certainty of their Records and from the concurrent Testimony of foreign Writers I now proceed to the next part of the Argument that supposing the Apostles Evangelists and first Disciples of Christ would have endeavour'd to impose upon the World with a palpable and unprofitable Lye against all the foremention'd contradictions to Nature to Sense and to Themselves to demonstrate the impossibility that they could ever have prevailed so effectually and so speedily as they did upon the Faith of Mankind And as many thousand Absurdities as there were in the former Supposition there are so many ten thousands in this for the inequality of the number of the Persons was not less the first Preachers of the Gospel being very sew in comparison of the vast multitudes of their first Converts And yet if Christianity were false all these must be guilty not onely of all that folly that we have represented in the case of the Apostles but much more in that they did not onely suffer themselves wilfully to be deceived into the belief of the strange Story of Jesus without sufficient evidence of its truth for if it had sufficient evidence then it was no Imposture if it had not then all that profest their belief of it were wilfully deceived i. e. They pretended to believe that to be a Divine Revelation though themselves knew that they had no sufficient ground or motive for so strange a belief
But beside this grand Absurdity of wilfully deceiving themselves to no purpose nay against all the foremention'd inconveniences they must be so far beside themselves that when they had abused themselves with a proofless Tale they should join their zcal to the first Impostors for propagating the Cheat to the manifest ruine of their Fortunes and hazard of their Lives and that such vast numbers of them should with such unheard of courage and constancy endure the most exquisite Pains and suffer all kinds of Death either without ever inquiring into the truth of the matter of Fact for which they suffer'd or suffering for it after that rate without any satisfactory Evidence of it Here in short we must believe that such a Doctrine as Christianity published in such a manner as it was should find such an universal entertainment in so short a time without any the least rational proof or evidence of its Divine Authority A Doctrine the truth whereof depended entirely upon a matter of Fact so that if it were false it could not then have escaped confutation and unless it were undoubtedly true could never have obtain'd any belief A Doctrine so unkind to the vicious customs and practices of the Age so contrary to the prejudices of Men and the establisht Religions of the World so unpleasing to Flesh and Bloud so hated and so full of danger That when this Doctrine was published by such Persons Men of mean Education void of Graft or Learning or Eloquence they should without any other help than barely telling a false Story perswade such vast numbers of Men to forsake the Religions in which they were educated and without any hope of profit nay with a certain prospect of all the miseries of Life yes and Death it self to embrace this new this despised this hated this persecuted Forgery Lastly That great numbers both of the most learned and wisest Men that lived in the Ages next and immediately after it should after the strictest enquiry concerning the truth of these things not onely suffer themselves to be imposed upon by so late and palpable a Fiction but hazard nay loose their Lives and Fortunes in its defence And yet this was the case of the primitive Converts as I come now to demonstrate by a review of particulars § XVIII Now as for the reality of the matter of Fact the speedy entertainment of Christianity in all parts of the World that is a thing so unanimously attested by all Writers that it is rather to be supposed than proved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gospel of our Saviour like the Sun enlightned all the World at once and infinite multitudes of People both from Cities and Villages were by the Apostles preaching brought into the Church like Corn crowded into a Granary And they who had been long enslaved to the Superstition and Idolatry of their Ancestours were set at liberty by the preaching and miracles of the Disciples of Christ and renouncing that rout of false Gods that the merciless Daemons had introduced into the heathen World return'd to the worship of the onely one true God the great Creatour of all things So when Celsus objects the novelty of Christianity Origen answers that there lyes the wonder that in so short a time a new Doctrine should so strangely prevail over all the World conquer both Greeks and Barbarians the learned and unlearned all ranks and professions of Men and possess them with so firm a belief of its Divine Authority as to be ready to seal their Faith with their Bloud a thing that was never done for any Opinion in the World before And so Justin Martyr in his Conference with Trypho the Jew affirms that there is no part of Mankind Greeks or Barbarians nay not those wild and uncivilized People that were wont to live without Houses and Cities amongst whom Prayers and Supplications were not made to the Father and Creatour of all things in the name of the crucified Jesus It is an excellent passage of Clemens Alexandrinus to the same purpose at the end of his Sixth Book of Collections The Philosophers says he pleased the Greeks alone neither did every one please all Plato followed Socrates Xenocrates Plato Theophrastus Aristotle Cleanthes Zeno every Master had his own particular School and Scholars but our great Master's Philosophy was not confin'd as theirs was to their own Country within Judaea alone but spread it self over all parts of the habitable World and was entertain'd by whole Cities and Nations both of Greeks and Barbarians it bore away whole Families and Villages and no single Person could resist its force that would but give himself leave to hear its Wisedom insomuch that it gain'd over many of the Philosophers themselves And if any Magistrate did any where suppress the Grecian Philosophy it soon vanisht whereas our Institution from the first publishing of it has been every where persecuted by Kings and Emperours and Tyrants by Presects of Provinces by Commanders of Armies and which is more furious then all the rest by the Multitude These have join'd all their power and their malice utterly to extirpate our Religion but still it flourishes more and more and does not wither away as it must have done had it been a meer humane Invention but it stands invincible as the power of God that nothing can restrain or alter and this notwithstanding that it was foretold by the Founder of it that all its Followers must suffer Persecution And Tertullian assures the Senate of Rome that the Christians had fill'd all Places and all Offices that they were of strength enough to master the Roman Empire nay that so great were their numbers that if they would but agree to retire out of it the World would stand amazed at its own solitude And in his Book against the Jews he tells them that it enlarged its conquests beyond those of the Roman Empire that it subdued those places that were inaccessible to their Armies and reckons up multitudes of People from one end of the habitable World to the other that were converted to the Faith of the crucified Jesus And in the same manner does Arnobius challenge the unbelieving World Methinks says he this should not a little shock your unbelief to see the Authority of this despised name to prevail in all places in so short a time that no Nation is so utterly barbarous and lost to all civility whose manners have not been reform'd and polisht by this gentle Institution nay more than this it has master'd the great Wits the Oratours Criticks Lawyers Physicians and Philosophers and not onely so but all its Disciples are so serious and sincere in their profession that they will forgo all advantages of Life even Life it self rather than forsake the cross So that notwithstanding all your Laws and Interdicts your Threatnings and Executions your Hangmen and Dragg hooks and all your innumerable ways of torture they grow not onely more numerous but more
to set about such an Undertaking to reverse all the ancient Laws and Religions in the World and to introduce every where not onely a different but a contrary state of things These things says he if they should have objected he could have return'd them no other answer had he not prevented the Objection by the promise of his miraculous Assistance And therefore when they were obedient to his command it is evident that they were already by his Divine Works convinced of his Divine Authority For that they believed in him must be granted in that they so readily obeyed him in a little time leaving their own native Country to instruct the World in the Faith of Jesus and soon saw the promise of his Divine Assistance not onely made good but abundantly exceeded by their incredible success But when they went about such a Work as this after what manner think you did they address themselves to the People Did they go into the Market-place and there summon up an Auditory of all Passengers or did they apply themselves to particular Persons Take which you please I pray which way did they win their Attention when they began their Story at the most ignominious Death of their Master whom they set forth as the onely Instructour of Mankind the Son of God and Saviour of the World For if they had conceal'd that part of his History that related to his Passion and Sufferings and onely trumpeted out his great Vertues and much greater Miracles it had been very difficult to overcome the Faith of Mankind to a report so very strange and in it self incredible And yet if they had done this they might have kept their Story within some bounds of probability But when they acknowledged that the same Person whom they magnified as a God lived like a miserable Man encountred perpetual Affronts and Contumelies and at last suffer'd the Death of the worst and most ignominious Malefactours who that heard them would not laugh at the gross contradiction of their own Story Or at least how could any Man be so credulous as upon the bare report of unknown Persons to believe that a Person so shamefully executed should be so conspicuously risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven when he was not able to rescue himself from so dishonourable an Execution However who could have been so easie as to forsake the Religion of their Countrey and that way of Worship that had been used as they believed from the beginning of the World by the meer Authority of a company of mean and ignorant Mechanicks and a crucified Malefactour who notwithstanding his contemptible Life and dishonourable Death would bear himself out as the onely Son of God While says he I revolve these things in my Mind and consider the improbability of the Story in it self I cannot imagine how it is possible meerly by their own bare report to prevail upon the Faith of any one Man And yet when I reflect upon the strange Effect of their Endeavours and that such despicable Persons as they were in themselves should prevail upon such innumerable multitudes of Men and that not in barbarous and obscure places onely but in the most famous Cities of Rome Alexandria Antiochia nay in all parts of the World Europe Asia and Africa I am forced to enquire into the rational Account of so strange an Event and find that nothing could ever have brought it about but a manifest Divine Power whereby they were able when they pleased as we find in their Records to work Miracles and that alone was more than enough to vanquish and subdue the minds of Men to their Authority For when they saw their Miracles they could not but be concern'd to enquire by what Means they wrought such Effects And when they were told that they were empower'd by Jesus and did whatever they did by virtue of his Authority that alone over-ruled their Minds and without farther proof commanded entire submission to his Doctrine So that it was not the evidence of the thing it self nor the credit of their Testimony but the undeniable power of God discovering it self in their miraculous Actions that so easily subdued the World before them And it is impossible as Origen observes that the Apostles of our Lord without these miraculous Powers should ever have been able to have moved their Auditours or perswaded them to desert the Institutions of their Countrey and embrace their new Doctrine and having once embraced it to defend it to the death and defie all manner of dangers in its defence But then as it was impossible to have wrought this wonderfull change in the World without these miraculous Powers so with them it was impossible for Men to withstand so clear a demonstration of Divine Authority And therefore they did not so properly convert the World by their Preaching as by their Actions whilst they perform'd such things as though they themselves had never opened their Minds proclaim'd their Divine Commission And when People were once convinced of that little perswasion would serve the turn to engage them to the belief of that Doctrine which by their works they had already proved to be of Divine Authority And this if we consult the Apostolical History was the usual method of their proceeding first to shew a Miracle and then to declare its meaning Thus the first time that they appeared in publick after their Commission to preach the Gospel to the utmost parts of the Earth was at the great Festival of Pentecost when Proselytes of all Nations resorted to Jerusalem to whom they preached in their several Languages and this being noised abroad that a few illiterate Fishermen were all on a sudden inspired with the gift of speaking all the Languages of the known and habitable World curiosity brought great multitudes to hear them and when the multitude was convinced of and amased at the Miracle then was it a proper time for Saint Peter to begin his Sermon of the Resurrection of Jesus and prove it by their own Testimony This Jesus hath God raised up whereof we are all Witnesses That is we that are as you see endued with this miraculous gift of speaking all Languages in order to our preaching in the name of Jesus to all Nations do here assure you that we were no less than Eye-witnesses of his Resurrection And there lay the main strength and efficacy of Saint Peter's Sermon it was the Miracle that so soon converted thousands to his Doctrine So again when it was blazon'd abroad that the famous Cripple that was so well known to every Boy in the City to have kept for so many years together his begging stage at the chief Gate of the Temple styled Beautifull because made as Josephus informs us of Corinthian Brass was so miraculously healed by one of the company onely by a word speaking this could not but enflame their curiosity and every Man was concern'd to satisfie himself in the truth or falshood of a report
However it is evident from hence that the Apostles settled a perpetual form of Church government to which all Christian people were indispensably bound to conform and then if that form were Episcopacy and if they settled that by our Saviour's own advice with an Eye to prevent Schisms and Contentions the case is plain that Ignatius his pressing all Churches so earnestly to obedience to their Bishop was nothing else but a prosecution both of our Saviour's and their command And then that it was Episcopacy is so evident from the unanimous and unquestionable Testimony of all Antiquity that it is positively asserted by all the Ancients and not opposed by any one but that would be too great a digression from the present Argument and therefore I shall not pursue it though I have gone thus far out of my way to shew for what reasons some Men have endeavour'd to impair the credit of the Records of the ancient Church not for any real defect and uncertainty that they found in them but because they give in such clear and undeniable Witness against their fond and unwarrantable Innovations And therefore I would advise these Gentlemen as they value the peace either of the Church or their own Consciences that they would cease to struggle any longer against their own convictions renounce their Errour when they can neither defend nor deny it and not be so headstrong as rather than part with a wrong Notion or confess a Mistake endeavour what in them lies to blow up the very foundations of the Christian Faith Or to bespeak them in the Words of Saint Clement Is there any one then that is bravely spirited among you Is there any one that hath compassion Doth any one abound in Charity Let him say if this Sedition or Contention or Schism be for me or by my means I will depart I will go my way whither soever you please I will do what the Society commands onely let the Sheepfold of Christ enjoy peace with the Elders that are placed over it He that shall doe so shall purchase to himself great glory in the Lord. Thus they doe and thus they will doe who leade their lives according to the rules of God's policy This was the gentle and peaceable temper of the primitive Christians but if they thought it their duty to quit their Country rather than occasion the disturbance of the Churches peace how much more to forgoe a false or an ungrounded Opinion And therefore to deal plainly with them I shall load their Consciences with this one sad and serious truth that when Men have once rashly departed from the Church that they live under and persevere in their Schism in spite of the most evident conviction they have renounced together with the Church their Christian Faith and are acted meerly by the spirit of Pride i. e. the Devil And therefore I do with all compassion to their Souls request such Men among us impartially to reflect upon themselves and their actions and if they are convicted in their own Consciences of having made causless Schisms in the Christian Church as I know they must be by those peevish pitifull pretences that they would seem to plead in their own excuse with all possible speed to beg pardon of God and his Church and as they would avoid the Judgment and displeasure of Almighty God against Pride Envy Peevishness Contention and Sedition to make publick confession of their fault to all the People that they have drawn after them into the same sin and with all humility and lowliness beg to be admitted into the bosom and communion of this truly ancient and Apostolick Church But my tender Charity to these poor Men that I see driving with so much fury self-conceit and confidence to utter destruction has again drawn me out of my way to perswade them if it be possible to turn back into the way of peace and salvation however it is high time for me to return to my Discourse § XXXI After this great and glorious Martyr the next eminent Witness of the original Tradition of the Christian Faith is his dear Friend and fellow Disciple Saint Policarp who as he was educated together with him under the Discipline of Saint John so he out-lived his Martyrdom about sixty years and by reason of his very great Age was able to give his Testimony not onely to that but to the next period of time so that as he conversed with Saint John Irenaeus conversed with him and withall gives an account of his Journey to Rome in the time of Anicetus and of his Martyrdom under M. Aurelius which was not till the year 167. So that through the great Age of Saint John and Saint Policarp the Tradition of the Christian Church was by them alone delivered down to the third Century for Irenaeus lived into the beginning of it not suffering Martyrdom himself by the earliest account till the year 202. And this is the peculiar advantage of his Testimony beyond all others that as it was as early as any so it continued into the most known times of the Christian Church for it was under the reign of M. Aurelius that the greatest part of the Christian Apologists flourisht and beside that his great courage and constancy in suffering for the Faith proves the great and undoubted certainty of his Tradition He was familiarly conversant with the Apostles and Eye witnesses of our Lord and therefore Ignatius recommended to him the care of his Church as knowing him to be a truly Apostolical Man and so he continued his care of the Christian Church for many years with great Faith and Resolution and at last seal'd his Faith with his Bloud I shall not need to give a particular account of his Life it is enough that as he declared at his Trial he had faithfully served his Lord and Master fourscore and six years but among the Records of his Life there is none more certain or more remarkable than his own Epistle to the Church of Philippi and the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna concerning his Martyrdom in both which is shewed his great assurance of Immortality In the first he bottoms his Exhortation to an holy Life upon no other principle than the certain evidence of their Saviour's Resurrection and firm belief of their own in the second he cheerfully resigns up his last breath with the greatest assurance of Mind concerning it in this short and excellent Prayer O Lord God Almighty the Father of thy well-beloved and ever-blessed Son Jesus Christ by whom we have received the knowledge of Thee the God of Angels Powers and of every Creature and of the whole race of the Righteous who live before Thee I bless Thee that Thou hast graciously condescended to bring me to this day and hour that I may receive a portion in the number of thy holy Martyrs and drink of Christ's Cup for the Resurrection to eternal Life both of Soul and Body in the incorruptibleness of the Holy Spirit
met with many Bishops and found them all of one Mind and teaching the same Doctrine and having given some account of Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians he adds that the Church remain'd after that in the pure and right Doctrine untill the time of Primus Bishop there with whom sayling to Rome I conferred and abode many days being come to Rome I stayed there till the time of Anicetus whose Deacon was Eleutherius whom Soter succeeded and after him Eleutherius In all their Succession and in every one of their Cities it is no otherways taught than as the Law and the Prophets and the Lord himself preached This is a singular Testimony of the sincere Tradition not onely of one or two or a few Churches but of the Catholick Church And as he described the Ecclesiastical Succession every where so has he the rise and birth of Heresies and particularly in the Church of Jerusalem After that James sirnamed the Just had suffer'd Martyrdom his Uncle Simeon the Son of Cleophas was chosen Bishop being preferred by the unanimous Vote of all because he was the Lord's Kinsman And hitherto that Church was call'd a pure Virgin because as yet it had not been deflour'd with any false Doctrines But Thebalis being displeased that he was not chosen Bishop secretly endeavour'd to debauch it from whom sprang those many Heresies that he afterward reckons up and so having elsewhere described the Martyrdom of Saint Simeon he adds untill those times the Church of God remain'd a pure and undefiled Virgin For such as endeavour'd to corrupt the perfect Rule and the sincere delivery of the Faith hid themselves till that time in secret and obscure places but after that the sacred Company of the Apostles was worn out and that generation was wholly spent that by special favour had heard with their Ears the heavenly Wisedom of the Son of God then the conspiracy of wicked and detestable Heresies through the fraud and imposture of such as affected to be masters of new and strange Doctrines took rooting And because none of the Apostles were then surviving they published with all imaginable confidence and boldness their false conceits and impugned the old plain certain and known truth At these passages I must stop a little because though they are a great Testimony of the purity of the primitive Church yet I find them very confidently made use of by Innovatours as unanswerable Arguments for rejecting its Authority Thus Gittichius an eager Socinian contending with Ruarus both concerning Grotius his way of writing in making so much use of citations out of the ancient Fathers in his Commentaries and withall concerning the primitive Fasts of the Church which Schliclingius and some of that party began to imitate condemns it not onely as altogether useless but dangerous De antiquitate in Religionis negotio statuo extra ipsas sacras novi foederis literas in iis exempla Apostolorum nullius omnino antiquitatis habendam cuiquam Christiano ullam rationem And then proves his Assertion from this passage of Hegesippus and the more ancient he says the Tradition is after the time of the Apostles so much the worse it is because from the very time of their dissolution the Church was overrun with Heresie and Superstition So peevish are Men against the honour and authority of the ancient Church when they are sensible of their own Apostasie from it And the truth is all our Innovatours agree in this one principle and that for this one very good reason because the ancient Church if it were permitted to give judgment upon them condemns them all For these Men finding errours and corruptions in the Church of Rome instead of reforming them as they ought to have done according to the Constitution of the primitive Church they fall to contriving new Models and Bodies of Divinity out of their own brains And among others Socinus disliking the Calvinian Theology as contrary not onely to the holy Scriptures but to the first principles of natural Religion sets up a new Divinity of his own contrivance without ever enquiring into the Doctrine and Discipline of the ancient Church and being advised of his flying so wide of it he together with his followers rather than part with their own fine new Notions of which they had the honour to be the first Authours and Abettours will by no means allow of any such thing as a true and uncorrupted Church ever since the time of the Apostles But with what vanity and arrogance it is none of my present task to enquire onely in answer to this Objection I must reply that it is a very wide and I am sure very far from a civil Inference to conclude that because there were Heresies in the primitive Church there was nothing else And they might with as much reason have applied the Objection against the Apostolical Church it self because then as the Apostles themselves complain the Tares were sowing though it seems not so openly and so impudently as afterwards Nay upon these terms it is impossible their should ever be any such thing as a true Church in the World for as long as there are such things as Pride and Vanity among Mankind there will be such Men in all Societies as will be tainted with their own idle dreams and conceits and then rub their itch upon the common People But though there were Heresies in the primitive Church which I say was not to be avoided as long as it consisted of Men yet they were never able to prevail but after some struggling for admittance were sooner or later utterly stifled And we have as certain a Tradition of the Birth Growth and Death of Heresies as we have of the true Doctrines of the Church and it is very considerable that all the ancient Doctours of the Church overwhelm the Hereticks with this one Argument by convicting them of apparent Innovation and deriving down their own Doctrines from the Apostles themselves So that though there were Heresies in the primitive Church yet its Apostolical Tradition was never mixt or tainted with them but run down in a pure and clear chanel by it self And therefore it is a very childish as well as disingenuous Objection against its Authority that there were some Men in it that would have been corrupting the purity of its Doctrine but were never able to compass their design especially when they were so far from passing undiscover'd or uncontroul'd that we have as certain an account both of the Men and of their Opinions and their inconsistency with the Apostolical Tradition as we have of the new fangled conceits of our own present Innovatours And therefore there is no more danger of our swallowing down old Heresies together with the Tradition of the Church than there is of sucking in their new ones whilst we adhere faithfully to that And thus having upon occasion of this particular passage of this ancient Authour cleared the Authority of the ancient Church in
altogether false and frivolous what is that to what hapned at Rome So that had there been never so many of the Posterity of David at Babylon there might have been no more than two found at Rome And therefore if Hegesippus had affirm'd that there were onlytwo all Scaliger's Stories of Babylon are to no purpose But when he has affirm'd no such thing but on the contrary gives us a distinct account of Simeon the Son of Cleopas Bishop of Jerusalem who lived there after the time of Domitian Scaliger could have no motive to make the Objection but onely to empty his Common-place-book of two or three Rabinical Quotations But yet his next Exception is much worse viz. that there was no such Person as Judas of the Kindred of our Lord mention'd in the Gospels But suppose there were no such upon Record it seems very hard dealing with an Ancient Writer that lived so near the times that he Writes of and had opportunity of enquiring into the Genealogy of the Family when he affirms that there was such a Branch of it to deny the truth of the matter of Fact onely because it hapned not to be mention'd in the Gospels whereas nothing is better known than that divers more material passages relating to our Saviour's Family are there omitted their design being to describe his own descent from David and not to give any account of the several present Branches of the Family And yet after all Scaliger's confidence that there was no such Man upon Record do we find him expresly reckoned among our Saviour's nearest Kindred Mat. 13. 15. Is not this the Carpenters Son Is not his Mother called Mary And his Brethren James and Joses and Simon and Judas So blind is the humour of Criticising as to overlook the most obvious passages rather than loose the Glory of one new discovery This passage I have vindicated not because that it self was at all needful to my purpose but onely to maintain the credit of Hegesippus for if there were no such Story that saves our labour of giving any account of it if there were then we must take it as we finde it in Hegesippus according to whose account it was no Persecution for Religion but onely a jealousie of State Neither is it to be wondred at that Domitian though of all men most suspicious should be so strongly tainted with it when the same conceit had for a long time been of so great force among his Predecessours For it is very obvious from the Histories of those time that the Jewish Notion of their Messias had got deep footing in the Gentile World from the Authority of the Sybilline Oracles in that the Old Books of the Sybils that had been for many Ages Religiously preserved in the Capitol were together with the Capitol it self burnt about Eighty years before our Saviour's Birth and to retreive their loss three Ambassadours were about Seven years after when the Capitol was rebuilt dispatcht into Asia to gather together what Records they could there find of those Prophesies and brought back with them about a thousand Verses By whom they were first Composed I am not concern'd to enquire though it is probable as the Learned Isaac Vossius conjectures that they were Collected by the Jews out of the Ancient Prophets as appears from their agreement with the Holy Writings and especially in the great Prediction of a Messias or Universal Monarch Which it seems was so plainly foretold by them that in a little time it alarm'd the Senate it self to forbid the reading of them and that for very good reason too When they found every aspiring Spirit in the Common-wealth to apply them to himself For this was one of the Foundations of Catiline's Conspiracy as Tully informs us concerning Leutulus in his Third Oration against Catiline And when Caesar had made himself Master of all it was vulgarly believed to have been the effect of this Prophesie as the same Author Triumphantly tells us in his Second Book of Divination which was written immediately after Caesar's fall Cum Antistitibus agamus quidvis potius ex illis libris quà m Regem proferant quem Romae posthaec nec Dii nec homines esse patientur The great thing that offended the zealous Common-wealths Man in them was the name of a great King And if we may believe Suetonius or his Author Julius Marathus the same year that Augustus Caesar was Born the Senate upon the account of this Prediction Regem populo Romano naturam parturire that nature was then in labour with a King of the Romans Decreed nequis illo anno genitus educaretur Not unlike the practice of Herod when he Murther'd the Children of Bethlehem to secure the Title of Shiloh to himself which some of the Atheistical Jews of the Sect of the Sadducees had flatteringly applyed to him and were for that reason stiled Herodians And this conceit himself cherished with very great care among the Jews as the fulfilling of Jacob's Prophesie upon the departure of the Scepter from Judah to himself thereby to conciliate the greater reverence and Authority to his Government And this probably was the reason as very an Atheist as he was of his building so magnificent a Temple because the Jews expected such a glorious work from their Messias Now this conceit being so familiarly entertain'd in the minds of men in that Age it is no wonder if all that were in actual possession of Authority whether themselves believed it or not were so watchful against all pretenders to it but much less in such a suspicious Prince as Domitian especially as to the Family of David who by the consent of the Jews that were the great Masters of these Prophesies had the first Title to this great Prerogative And yet it was not so much but onely as far as appears by Story they were presented by some flattering and officious Informers to the Emperour which occasion'd some trouble both to themselves and the followers of Jesus but when the jealous Emperour came to enquire into their Claims he was so satisfied of the Innocence of the men that he immediately dismist the Inditement as frivolous and revoked all Edicts against the Christians as Partisans in the same cause This is the true account of all his proceedings against them though if he had proceeded upon other reasons all his reasons could be nothing but reasons of State and all his executions nothing but acts of Savageness and Cruelty But whatever they were there is no evidence of his entring into the merits of the cause and if he did not his brutal Tyranny can be no objection Nay if he did all that can be inferr'd is that Christianity was not pleasing to one of the worst of Princes and that is the best that can be made of his Persecution and there we leave it that as Nero was the first so Domitian was the second Enemy to Christianity and conclude with Tertullian Consulite commentarios vestros