to him and teaches us in a duemanner how to perform the Duties of Nature he does not only do this not only rectifie but far exceed all natural dictates of worship and induceth much into his service that receives its Virtue and worth singly from Institution and no otherwise Never since Man was first made has God left him singly to the Natural Laws of his own Being for the payment of that Homage he owes him Even to Adam in his Innocent state God thought fit to give a Law Supernatural A Law which for the matter of it had no foundation at all in Adams Nature further then that he was by his own nature generally obliged to do whatsoever God required of him Much more may we expect it since the fall the whole Method of our Recovery being Supernatural Nor is it fit to be thought that God who has made man not only under an Obligation to the performance of all moral goodness but has also implanted in his Being a desite of a peculiar and supernatural converse with him and given him such noble faculties so capable of it should not promulge some particular Laws by which he might receive a full and satisfying direction for the attainment of it or indeed that God should not direct men to the furthest approches they were able to make toward him and glorifie himself by appointing a way to the utmost Homage and Service their rational Beings are capable of Fourthly Some things most essentially necessary to the Being of all Religion and to the present and future good of Mankind are not discoverable but by Revelation And 't were a barbarous conception to think that God should leave the World wholly in the dark about those matters wherein their greatest conceruments lie I will not speak particularly of the Nature of God how indiscoverable it is without Revelation and yet how necessary to be known according to our capacity in order to all true worship Mens Ignorance in that particular having evidently been the root of all Polytheisme and Idolatry nor what marvelous dark absurd yea prophane and blasphemous conceptions the World had of it without Revelation Nor will I speak further of the Worlds Original how useful and necessary the Knowledge of it is to us to be truly informed how our selves and all things else came first to exist What marvellous instruction to our selves and what a natural Homage to God results from it which yet depends purely upon Revelation and the Knowledg of it is impossible to be attained without it Nor will I mention those uncertainties the World hath been and must without Revelation be still intangled with all about Death to know whether it be a Natural accident a thing originally appurtenant to Humane Nature and annexed to our Beings in their first constitution or hath been as a punishment or upon some other account introduced since and the many difficulties that will arise to our meditation either way nor will I much insist upon that uncertainty we must needs be in about a future Condition after this life unless particularly infoâ—med therein by Revelation Though my Reason will tell me and it may safely be collected from the unequal disposition of rewards and punishments here that there is some future estate of things beyond this World without a supposition of which I must either depose God from his Government or else admit him unjust both which are absurd yet how conducing is it to all true Religion and how necessary for the incouragment of Virtue and the supression of Vice to be fully informed about these things and not to be left fluctuating about with every blast of uncertain guess and conjecture What wild conceptions had the Heathen world about their Infernal Regions and their Elisian Fields Nor were they only fictions peculiar to the Poets but admitted by their Wisest men and best Philosophers who were able to frame very little better Ideaa's of those things To give one Instance of many Plutarch one of the wisest and best of the Heathens in the Treatise he wrote upon this Motto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gives no better an account of the future state of mens Souls then that the Wicked are only overwhelmed in the perpetual Oblivion of all things And for the Place and Condition of such as shall be happy hereafter in his Consolation directed to Apollonius he adheres to the opinion of Pindar who describes those things in the same Fictious and Ridiculous way that Virgil does directly imitate Pindar therein Epicurus indeed pretended to some Wiser Sentiments But the end of them was to render all Notion of a Future condition Fabulous and to Allegorize all that was said of another World into this And to make men believe that whatever was said of the Sufferings and Pains of the Infernal Regions it was nothing else but what was suffered in this Life by Covetous Ambitious and Fearful Minds Exâ—gitated with their own Exorbitant Passions Which was a most effectual way to banish out of the World all Fear of Vice and all Love to Virtue which even by those Obscure notions they had of a Future State was much upheld and maintained But to go farther How necessary must we needs grant it to have the certainty of a Future condition after this Life established by Revelation when we consider how Unfixed some of the Wisest have been about the very Being of any such thing at all Such men as Socrates and Cicero were Doubtful and Unresolved in the case and came to no more but That they inclined to that opinion and judged it the more Probable And Aristotle discoursed of it with much more Obscurity The Resurrection of mens Bodies is a thing of farr Harder belief stands in greater need of Revelation to credit it 'T is not the easiest task to possess men with a through perswasion about It when 't is revealed Saducisme is a weed very apt to grow and not soon Eradicated We find St. Paul sufficiently Laughed at at Athens for Preaching the Resurrection 'T was a New notion to the Philosophers And yet if there were any Glimmerings of it amongst any of the Philosophers it was amongst the Stoicks who were one of the Sects he encountered I know there have been some remote apprehensions amongst the Pagans tending this way But neither the Pagan-world in General nor any considerable part nor indeed any part of it at all ever agreed in a positive distinct belief of any such thing Some fancied there would come to be such a Revolution of the Heavens as that all the Stars would be precisely returned to the very exact Punctum in which they were when all things began first to be and that then all that ever had been should return in Order Time and Nature to their former Condition and Station and be just as they had been Some tell us the Magi who were the Caldaean Philosophers had some obscure notions that all men should one day revive and become Immortal And some
bring us to the best way of Living we are capable of in this World both in respect of God of our selves and all others The Doctrines and Precepts of this Holy Book are so justified to us from the Light of our own Reason and do so directly tend to the perfection of our Nature and so guide us to what we our selves judge to be best that 't were extream unreasonable to judge it an Effect of the vilest and worst sort of Imposture Never any Doctrine taught men to live so dutifully to God so comfortably to themselves and so usefully one to another so tuneably in all Holiness and Righteousness as this of the Bible does The Doctrines of this Book are most transparent Beams of Divine Perfection They are a Rule given according to what is eternally existing in the Holy Nature of God so far as we are capable of a conformity to it And that in the judgement of right Reason is the Highest and Noblest account of all good Living For we cannot do better than in our Measure to correspond to Divine Perfection No Law can with greater Reason and less Arbitrariness nor more indispensably oblige us than that which appears to be grounded upon the Eternal and Unchangeable Nature of God And such are the Laws of the Gospel The great Design of which is to assimilate men so far as their Faculties will bear it to the excellent Nature of God and that rational Idea of it we are all born withal What crooked and imperfect Lines have men drawn in their best Documents both Moral and Divine compared with this compleat and excellent Rule of Holy Living What Pure and Spiritual Worship is here How suitable to the Holy Nature of God! What undefiled Religion without the least mixture of Idolatry or Superstition What Superlative Piety and Vertue without any one spot of Vice Yea forbidding Evil in the very Thoughts What punctual and perpetual Truth and Honesty is here required upon no other grounds but pleasing God doing good to Others and hopes of a Reward hereafter There 's not the least taint upon any one Duty the Scripture requires from us by proposing any base mean or sordid Ends. No vain Glory No esteem from Men No corrupt Advantages are made the ultimate End of our Obedience The best way of living and upon the noblest account is here proposed to us An exact Scripture-Life has as much of Heaven as can well descend upon Earth Makes the World as quiet an Habitation as it can be and Man-kind as happy in themselves and as easie one to another in all Converse and Society as they themselves can wish to be Where is there a Man not degenerated below his own Reason but approves the Scripture-Precepts as Excellent and justifies Him in his own Breast that conforms most to them No well-disciplin'd Heathen can refuse so to do What Charity is here required Still we are bid to hope the best To look upon all Men with a kind eye and to interpret them into the best sense they are capable of What commands Not to offend weak Ones What mutual Forgivenesses What provocations to Love What strict injunctions to do good to all men upon all occasions With what patience and meekness are we taught to behave our selves Indeed 't is such a Doctrine as makes a Man perfect throughly furnished to every good Work Brings men to the best way of Living the noblesâ— Principles of Suffering and the comfortablest way of Dying Now How can we better-judge of a Law that pretends to come from God and to be of Divine Mission than by its Nature the great Tendency of it and the influence it has upon Humane Life And when we find so holy and excellent a Design as appears throughout this whole Book for the honouring of God and compleating the Happiness of Men and in a way so corresponding to the judgement of right Reason and that Divinity we are Born with What can we otherwise judge but that such a Book must needs be from God Such pure and untainted Streams of Prety and Vertue must needs slow from the Fountain of all Perfection 'T is not possible to imagine that the Devil or any Ill Men should be ever either able or willing to compose a Book of such a Nature that should reduce the World to such a posture as This does To make men the best Subjects to God the best Friends to themselves and the most useful Citizens one to another Nothing less than an Infinite Wisdom could have contrived so great a Happiness for the World And nothing less than Infinite Goodness it self can be reasonably thought to be the Dispenser of it 'T is extreamly absurd to think that That Doctrine which in the judgment of the best Reason is the most Pure and Excellent and most useful to the World of any we find in it should be the product of the Devil or the worst sort of Impostors and that â—t must be if it be not from God for there 's no middle way 'T is to suppose that such should out-do Divine-Goodness in that wherein my Reason bids me expect the highest expression of it And in truth That the World should stand more indebted to such Benefactors for the best things than to God himself Fourthly We find in this Book a full and most comprehensive account of the Revolution of this whole World in all its changeable Vicissitudes and of God's visible Providence in the disposal of all Humane Affairs Indeed We find this Book a compleat Map of the Whole Affair of the World and God's Government of it There evidently appears an exact Conformity between the course of the World and what we are here told of it Nothing comes at any time to pass contradictive of but according to what is here revealed to us And this we shall sind if we consider the course of things either in a Natural way a Moral way or a Spiritual way First In a Natural way The natural course of the World has continued to this time according to what Moses at first as from the Mouth of God declared about it That there should be Seed-time and Harvest cold and heat Summer and Winter and that Day and Night should not cease but succeed each other Secondly In a Moral way The Scripture has given us a Summary yet satisfactory and full account of what-ever we have seen acted amongst Man-kind to this day and told us in general of all those Principles Designs and Practices by which the Wheel of this World has been turn'd about by the restless minds of Men in all Ages So that we see nothing under the Sun of which we are not some way inform'd in this Book Thirdly In a Spiritually way Here we have an exact account of all that Divine Intercourse which has been or at any time is between God and Men The manner of it set down and the general method of God's proceedings in his convincing enlightning sanctifying satisfying and comforting the
same terms must I believe all things Divine and Supernatural unless God give me new faculties or some way extraordinarily assist me and make me somewhat more then I was Nor did any man that was not himself Divine and Infallible as the Apostles were and inspired infallibly to know that he was so ever receive any Revelation upon any higher terms then that we call Moral assurance and Humane credibility For first If I receive a Revelation upon Motives External and Foreign to it self such Motives are all granted to be in themselves of a Humane and fallible Nature If I receive it upon any Motives Internal any Testimony resulting from such Revelation it self to justifie its own Divinity to me yet I must of necessity without extraordinary inspiration judge of such Internal Testimony by Moral considerations and from Humane and Rational Argumentation with my self come at last to make a judgement about it Those that lived in the first times that saw the Miracles and heard the Doctrine delivered from the mouths of the Apostles themselves were yet without inspiration but upon Humane and fallible terms of judging and believing because those Mediums by which they did judge and believe were in their own Nature so for 't is not a thing in it self infallibly certain but that any man may be mistaken in the judgement he makes of a Miracle or in that faith whereby he embraces any Doctrine as Divine First This Objection as 't is urged by those of the Roman Church does not disturb us at all Indeed returns directly upon themselves nor does the remedy they provide any way cure that inconveniency which they suppose will otherwise accrue to Religion by it They tell us God has placed an unerring Judgement a faculty of making an infallible determination in the Church and from thence this Objection is Answered by that means we are perfectly at an end of all doubts about this matter for if the Church that is in it self Infallible tells us that this is the word of God and as it was at first delivered we come upon that account to a Divine and Infallible faith as built upon a Divine and Infallible Testimony and are infallibly assured about it But this kind of reasoning brings us but just where we were and is indeed in it self but a very mean sort of trifling for 't is to erect another infallibility to be assured of which there is ten times greater difficulty then in the former case The Scriptures we say are in themselves Divine and Infallible as coming from God The Question is about out way of coming to know this that they are so 'T is confessed by us it must be without inspiration by means in themselves Humane and Fallible and from thence results the strength of this Objection That supposing the Scriptures to be in themselves Divine yet we coming in a Humane way to the Knowledge that they are so and to solve all Objections against them our belief of them is still resolved into no more then that we call a Humane and Rational credibility And do we not come to the very same point in the other case The Church say they is Divinely inspired but how came I to know it To say by the Scriptures is in this case ridiculous If upon Providential and Probable Motives as themselves do acknowledge we are thereby pitched upon a fallible bottom still are we not upon the same Humane and Fallible means of judging 'T is not enough in this case to make the Pope or any else Infallible but before we can that way perfectly enervate this Objection we must make every man infallibly to know that they are so infallible Can any man more infallibly judge of the Churches infallibility then of the Bibles Are there not as many nay more questions that must necessarily be determined by Fallibly and Humanely judging in the one Case then in the other as first whether there actually be any such thing as an infallible Church extant or no Secondly if there be what Church it is that is so and Thirdly whether that Church be universally infallible or only in some things and under what sort of constitution it must be when it so infallibly acts so that admit the Churches infallibility in it self yet 't is utterly impossible that a man should believe any thing upon its infallible determination with any other then a Humane and Fallible Faith because 't is upon Humane and Fallible Motives upon which men primarily and previously come to an assurance of such infallibility And therefore whatsoever faith in the Roman Church is grounded upon the Churches infallible Judgement it must unavoidably be ultimately resolved into such Grounds as are in themselves of a Humane and fallible Nature So that the Roman infallibility as 't is in it self an absurd and fictitious pretension so were it admitted 't is to no purpose at all for that end for which 't is intended so far as 't is urged in this matter Secondly a rational Belief of the Bible and a rational Satisfaction about it founded in a Moral assurance is all we can have and all that in this case we ought to expect I demand of all such Objectors by what means they come to any Assurance in any Point of Religion To one of these three things they will be unavoidably forced Either to deny that there is any certainty at all in Religion and thereby to subvert all Religion To pretend to extraordinary Inspiration or else to acknowledge they come to it in a Moral way And indeed the founding our belief of Revelation upon Moral and Rational Assurance is so far from subverting the certainty of our Religion that the grand Fundamentals of all Religion must of necessity be originally established upon that Bottom and can be upon no other for we come to an Assurance of the Being of God and the future state of mens Souls upon no other Grounds then Moral and Rational conclusions from whence there can possibly result no more then a Moral Assurance Whoever attemps a Rational proof of the Being of God is obliged to disclaim all pretence to Infallibility in the way of his Proof because Infalibility is wholly relative to God himself The notion of it cannot exist without the admission of such a Being and therefore to talk of an Infalible way of proving his Being would be grosly absurd for 't were openly to beg the Question and take that for granted which we oblige our selves to prove So that whoever upon rational terms and the grounds of Moral Assurance believe the Bible to be sent us from God believes it upon the same Grounds upon which he must necessarily believe the first Principles of all Religion and believe it upon the highest terms God either requires or enables him without Inspiration to believe it upon such as ought sufficiently to fix him in his belief and upon such as if duely pursued will certainly produce all those excellent ends God intends by this Book This
may serve in some measure to manifest the vanity of all pretensions to an Infalible belief without a Divine and Infalible assistance of revealed and supernatural Truths and the Mistakes of such who suppose we can never be settled in any Points of Religion without it And may sufficiently justify an indeavour to make a Rational proof of the Scriptures without a pretence to any such Divine and Infalible Judgment about them If so much be urged for the Proof of the Bible in general and in Answer to particular Doubts relating to the manner of its conveyance as will amount to a rational assurance and satisfaction 'T is all we can have without Inspiration and all we ought to Expect in this case All we pretend to from attempts of this nature is but a Moral assurance that this Book was at first written by Gods direction and that those Copies we now have of it are without any designed corruption or other variation from the first Originals then what humane frailty in the Transcribing of them has occasioned descended down to us and that in all such places where we find various readings the true Sense of the place and the original Dictates of the Holy Ghost are amongst them all safely preserved and by a diligent search may be discovered And upon the same Grounds of Moral Assurance are men in point of Translations and all such who are Illiterate For as we can be without extraordinary assistance but Morally certain that the Bible was Originally Written by a divine direction and that those Copies we now have of it in the Original Languages were at first Rightly transcribed and have not been since corrupted or changed so men may be also Morally Certain about a Translation For 't is in it self a thing very possible to be that the Scriptures may out of their own Languages be truely and rightly translated and being so are of the same Divine Authority that they were before and upon circumstantial considerations men may come rationally and safety to conclude that they are so And indeed unless all men in an Age that understand the Original tongues should agree which is absurd to conceive and morally impossible to be to deceive and abuse those that do not no Designed abuse nor any palpable falshood can be imposed upon men that way And in like manner persons Illiterate may be Morally Certain that they are no way deceived when the Scriptures are Preached or Read to them The Ground of Assurance in all these cases is still the same the Difference is onely Gradual Those who understand the Original Languages are upon easier and nearer terms of Moral Assurance about them but in the other cases it may be also attained And in all cases God has providentially afforded means sufficient to secure any reasonable man about the Truth and Authority of his Word Fourthly How can we believe this Book say some to be from God when we find contained in it divers Contradictions Several strange and Incredible Stories and other things greatly liable to Exception This Objection though it looks with the most Threatning aspect has yet the least prevailing Influence is of all others the most Impotent has the least rational Vigour and when duely examined will prove least effectual to those bad Ends for which it is by any intended When men tell us in general of Contradictions they find in the Bible but come to no Distinct and positive Proof they do not in that case Object but Revile He that will give an Edge to such kind of Discourse must punctually Instance Wherein this book has asserted any One such thing as implies a direct Contradiction and is in its own Nature utterly Impossible to be or where any two things are affirmed and denyed so directly contrary to each other that they are wholly uncapable of any Reconciliation This task with some degree of Contempt we impose upon all Antiscriptural men And are very secure that all those seeming Contradictions that are to be found in the Bible do at last prove an eminent Testimony to its Divinity For first they are in their appearance so to be a great Instance that in the Writing of this Book there was no corrupt Design to Cajole or engage the opinions of men to it And Secondly upon a thorough 〈◊〉 due there appears in them all such a deep unthought of and admirable Concord without the least shew of any Designed Agreement and such a unanimous tendency towards the great End of the whole as greatly savours of Divine Council and such a Contrivance as we may reasonably expect to come from Above In the management of these kind of Weapons against the Bible we find none that have been at any time since more dexterous then heretofore were Celsus Juliâ—n Porphiry and Faustus the Manichee How mean their attempts were and how little Impression they made will appear by the Instance of some of their chiefest Objections in this kind First they Object against the Bible because we are told therein of divers Incredible things As that a Serpent should speak to Eve an Ass reprove his Master that the Sun should stand stâ—â—â— and a Woman be turned into Salt with many other things of the like nature That the Devil should speak in a Serpent or that God should open the mouth of an Ass can seem Impossible and so incredible to none that acknowledge such Superiour and Invisible Powers especially 't was absurd in Celsus and Julian and others of the Heathens so to Object because nothing was more commonly believed amongst them then Stories of this nature and 't is well known the Devil spake daily to them through Images Philostratus gives a large account how an Elm-tree spake to Apollonius Porphyrie tells us that a River saluted Pythagoras Julian himself and his Philosopher Maximus had oft heard the Devil speak with divers kinds of voices and therefore no such things could seem Impossible to them Nay Julian acknowledged a Possibility of the highest point in the Bible which is the Incarnation of the Deity and himself gave an instance of it in Esculapius whom he supposed to descend from Heaven and assume Humane Nature that he might instruct the World in the art of Physick 'T is in truth in it self a thing Childish and absurd to Object against the Bible for the relation of any such passages if the Being of God be once acknowledged 'T is true that no humane power can make the Sun stand still turn a Woman â—â—â—o Salt or effect any thing of such a nature and should the Scriptures ascribe any such things to any Humane Ability the Objection were well grounded but they are things possible and easy with God to effect and the fact of them when ascribed to Him of an easie belief Nor can any man reasonably Object against the Scriptures upon any such account that does not first deny the Actual Existence of God Secondly They tell us there are some things contained in the Scriptures