body or more noble than it or else you ought to begin again and say that Beasts have some other Felicity than that of drinking and eating and of enjoying their Body Arist This Reason convinces me but what would you conclude from thence Theod. Thus Aristarchus you believe that the Jews were Men as we are and that they had a Soul I would say a Substance which thinks perceives wills and reasons and is distinct from the Body your Friend whose place you take being a Cartesian does not doubt of this Arist 'T is true he proves demonstratively that the Existence of the Soul is more certain than that of the Body Theod. This being granted Aristarchus I say that Judaism as to the Letter is not a Religion which God has established for Men and that it could not render the Jews either more perfect or more happy because Moses propounded no other Felicity to the Jews than the enjoyment of the Body and that this sort of happiness is only proper for Beasts if it is true that Beasts have a Soul After Moses had propounded this carnal and ceremonial Law to the Jews which was a shadow of things to come Deut. 28. he promised that if they would observe it their Land should be fruitful that they should have great Families and numerous Flocks that they should be Masters over their Enemies and that God would preserve them as a People which he had chosen But if they would not observe it he told them that they should want all the necessaries of life and foretold those temporal Evils which are come upon them In fine he promised no other recompence or punishment no other happiness or misery than the enjoyment or privation of Bodies it seems there was no Hell no Paradise no Eternity for the Jews Arist But whence comes that 'T is certain the Jews were very gross and carnal Theod. 'T is not Aristarchus that the Jews were gross and carnal but because Moses being only the Figure could only promise good things in a Figure and could not bring them into the inheritance of Children The chief Priests according to the Law of Moses entered into the Sanctuary made with hands which was only a Figure of the true one They entered there with the blood of He-Goats and Calves which could not purifie the Conscience therefore the Law of Moses could not justifie men it gave them no part in eternal happiness therefore Moses was not to promise them any such thing that was the propriety of Jesus Christ who is entred with his own blood into Heaven the true Sanctuary and who hath purchased eternal Salvation as being the onely High-Priest of good things to come Can you think that the Jews were more carnal than the Heathens Can you imagin that Moses was more gross than Poets who make mention of their gods after so unworthy a manner But the Heathens thought of another life The Poets speak of the Elizian Fields and of Hell as places destined for the recompence of Virtue and the punishment of Vice There is no Motive more strong no Idea more terrible no Recompence more agreeable than that of Eternity and the most barbarous Nations are capable of being smitten shaken and carried on to the exercise of Virtue by this thought that they would be eternally rewarded for it yet Moses reckons a great number of Blessings and Cursings without mentioning Eternity Arist 'T is because he did not believe there were Spirits he believed not the Immortality of the Soul Theod. This Consequence is very just and did I not know that the Law of the Jews and their Covenant with God was a Figvre of the New Covenant I perhaps might think my self obliged by the deference I owe to the Books of Moses to be of the sentiment of the Sadducees for only this Party appears reasonable as I have already said for I have not yet spoken any thing that overthrows it But as your Friend is a Cartesian he is too much convinced of the Immortality of the Soul and that Beings which think are distinguisht from matter that cannot think to draw the same Consequences as you do Arist 'T is true this must convince him Theod. Nevertheless he was not convicted of it I could wish that the Body were our true happiness but is this happiness capable of recempencing those who fulfil the precept of loving God with all their heart with all their soul and with all their might This might perhaps be a sufficient reward to the Roman Virtue for happiness must be proportionable to its Virtue But is this worthy of God Is this sufficient to make those truly happy who truly love him You see plainly Aristarchus that they are not Why then did Moses enjoin us to love God with all our might And why did he only promise us the enjoyments of our Bodies for the recompence of this love unless it be that the love of God is indispensibly above all things and that Moses was not to promise the happiness he could not give This seems to me sufficient to convince you that Judaism was but the shadow and figure of Christianity that the Old Covenant only represented the true reconciliation of God with Men and that the Priests according to Aaron's Order the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law ought to be abrogated by the Sacrifice of the Lamb without spot which takes away the sins of the world which worthily satisfies the Justice of God which introduces us into the Holy of Holies and promises the true happiness to all those who are members of that Body whereof he is the Head Thus you see that I have no design to become a Jew unless you believe me stupid enough to look upon the Body as my proper good the Body I say which can't be the happiness of Brutes if they have a Soul distinct from their Body and more Noble than it But as for you Aristarchus you have now a design to turn Turk I speak to you as you take upon you the character of your Friend you are for a Paradise where you would always be indulging your self in sensual pleasure you would have many Women to satisfie those Passions which are even here below called brutish and shameful * Chap. of Order Chap. of Judgment Chap. of Mercy c. the great Mahomet promises them as fair as new laid Eggs and as beautiful as Oriental Pearls they shall have black rolling Eyes Arist Enough Theodorus the Turkish Religion is certainly unworthy of reasonable Men it is even unworthy of Beasts if they have a Soul more Noble than their Body And I acknowledge that the Alcoran destroys itself by its own Principles as well as Judaism does in the Letter For in fine 't is certain that the enjoyments of the Body are not worthy of the Soul That those who love them become not thereby more perfect That those who enjoy them are thereby often ashamed And that the promises of Moses not to mention those of
I don't know that Theodorus for being merciful he can pardon when he pleaseth Theod. But can he be willing to do it Arist What a Question that is Men themselves can do that Theod. Men can forgive when they are offended they ought not to revenge themselves nor have they power to do it As they love themselves to excess they would be sure to exceed being Sinners they would condemn themselves and whatsoever offends them being ordained by God they would be guilty of Rebellion For the only thing wherein God hath no hand to wit the inward malice of their Enemies doth them no harm they have no right to oblige others to love them neither can they take any revenge for want of that love that doth not belong to them But if Men had received the sovereign wisdom and power to judge and punish if their essential Will was the Order if they could not act against that Order might they not punish such Crimes as would be committed against God or pardon Sin and Disorder and yet not offend the Law and Order But supposing they could do you think they might also secure to Sinners the means of attaining Felicity They would certainly make an ill use of their power and by overthrowing the order of Justice prove themselves Sinners and thereby be altogether destitute of either love to God or zeal for his glory Do you think God can reverse the essential order of things or fight against himself Do you imagin it is possible he should not love himself or forbear his own satisfaction by neglecting his Justice and that mercy which you conceive to be a virtue in us to be a perfection in God No Aristarchus God is not merciful in the same manner as we are that Clemency would be contrary to his Justice That Sinners be happy implies contradiction if not on the part of Sinners at least on that of him that is omnipotent and cannot act against the essential order of things on the part I say of him that is essentially just God must punish Sin and if he hath a mind to spare those that commit it for the end that he proposed to himself in the construction of his work it is necessary that a Sacrifice more worthy of his greatness and justice than they are should receive the blow that was to make them eternally miserable Thus God may be merciful Things being thus you easily see what need we stand in of Christ's satisfaction That the Mediator of the Arians and Socinians is a Mediator who can never atone for them nor reconcile them to God And that none but those who believe that Jesus Christ is really God because none but a God can justifie and save us in a word that none but those who call upon Christ by that name which the Scripture gives him that expresses so well his qualities Jehovah Justitia nostra God our Righteousness can have a full assurance in his Sacrifice Observe Aristarchus that God doth whatever he ought to do Arist But God lieth under no obligation to any one Theod. I own it But God doth whatever he is obliged to for his own sake Men offend and oppose him and overturn the order of things ought not he then to revenge himself satisfy his Justice and punish those that offend him For I grant that as for our sakes God is obliged to do no more than he pleaseth But he is obliged to do something for himself and that being granted it is just to believe that he will not omit to do it for he loveth himself and is willing to do whatever he ought to do for himself I own that there is no Law that constrains him but that he is to himself his own Law However he is to himself inviolably a Law and must of necessity love himself tho' nothing forces him to love himself but himself Arist But Theodorus will you dive into God's Councels and give Bounds to his Wisdom and Power Do you think that God could not satisfie his Justice otherwise than by the death of his Son If it be so Theod. I understand you Aristarchus God's Justice could have been satisfied by a thousand other means The least Suffering the least Action of God-Man could fully satisfy God's Justice for all our Crimes for the merit of it is infinite by the dignity of the Person But God could not be fully satisfied by any other Satisfaction than that of a Divine Person Nothing is worthy of God but God himself All manner of offence against God is infinitely criminal and there is nothing Infinite but God He cannot therefore be satisfied without having a hand in it such is the Immensity of his greatness Tho' God had sacrificed all the Creation to his wrath and annihilated all his Works that Sacrifice would still have been unworthy of him But God had not made the world to annihilate it he had made it for him that hath restored it for his Son was predestinated before all Ages to be the Chief of it He is the First-born of all Creatures the Beginning of the Lord's Ways the Beginning End and Perfection of all the Works of God for whatever God hath made is only perfectly worthy of God through Christ I don't know Aristarchus whether your thoughts follow mine perhaps I run too fast But pray what is it you would say to me Arist I 'le tell you God being infinitely wise and powerful why could he not form a Creature sufficiently noble and raised above Sinners to atone for them Theod. How Aristarchus Shall a Creature undertake to reconcile Sinners Plead for them Shew any love for them That is for the damned For if we are not ranked with the damned it is because we are made free in Christ But supposing with you that a Creature could do all this satisfie for us and free us by his satisfaction it follows that we are indebted to that Creature and his Slaves that our obligations to him ought to divide our love between God and him and that our Restoration being perhaps a greater good to us than our Creation we ought to love him better than God himself if we ought to love most the things that do us most good Yet God requires that we should love him in all things and that all the motion of love which he causes in us tend towards him and he will not only be esteemed by us as the first Cause and Being but also beloved in all things as the only true cause of whatever the Creatures seem to produce in us This is the order of things Now it would be reversed and even its overturning justified should your Notion of God's design to give us another Restorer than himself subsist For that design would in some manner justify a Love not solely tending towards God since that design proposes to us another than God for an Object of our Love when it proposes to us a Creature endowed with an excellency sufficient to oblige us really and by himself
Arist But are we not under some Obligation to other Men that pray for us Pontificii Loquuntur to the Saints in Heaven that intercede for us Theod. Yes Aristarchus but that Obligation ought not in reason to divide our Love All the good will that other Men have towards us is unefficacious they cannot do us the least good through themselves You do not doubt that all other Men merit but in and through Christ for Christ himself doth only merit our Salvation and duly satisfies his Father as he is his Son so that there being nothing really and in it self capable to do us good without God all our life ought to tend towards him This is the order of things he hath established that order at our Creation for he hath only made us with a prospect of the beauty of that order having only made us to love him How can it then be imagined that he would destroy that order But let us suppose that a Creature so excellent in his nature were made and would satisfie for us and sacrifice for our sakes himself and what ever he hath his Sacrifice would still be unworthy of God's Justice and his Satisfaction unequal to the immensity of our offences since any offence committed against God is infinite by reason of his infinite dignity To strike our Sovereign on the Face is a greater Crime than to kill our Slave the offence growing proportionably to the dignity of the offended party above that of the offender This being granted it followeth that God would not be fully satisfied by that Creature and therefore it cannot be supposed that he would ever make such a Creature to satisfy his Justice if he would be fully satisfied But do you not think Aristarchus that God who loves himself perfectly is obliged to do himself right by being willing to satisfy himself fully But still supposing with you that God might have taken another Method for the restoration of his work than his Sons Incarnation what Religion assures us that he hath done so Where is a Creature that introduces us to God or a Religion that teaches this Mystery of our Reconciliation with God If it be the Religion of the Chineses or that of the Tartars perhaps it may not be amiss to follow it But there is no other Religion but the Christian that acknowledges Original Sin and the general depravation of Nature much less doth any other acknowledg a Creature raised above Mankind by the excellency of his Nature to be their Victim For after all if the Jews invoke Abraham Moses and their Prophets still they believe them to be Men and such whose principal greatness consists in being the shadow and figure of their Messiah and our Redeemer Therefore there can be no other Religion than the Christian nor any other Mediator than Christ neither can there be any Religion so excellent nor so worthy of God as that we profess for there is no other way so worthy of God whereby he could have repair'd his work as is that we believe he hath taken In fine God's work repair'd is even much more worthy of God by the holiness of its Restorer than it was in its natural perfection Erast What you tell us seems to me very true If God had not known that the reparation of his work would yield him more glory than its first construction it seems plain to me that he would not have suffer'd it to grow corrupt For after all God was not surprized at Adam's disobedience he hath foreseen his Fall before his Creation and also the corruption that Fall was to spread over all his work Theod. You are in the right Erastus God's first design hath been the Incarnation of his Son We were made for him tho' he took Flesh for us We were made after his own Image for he is Man in God's intent before Mankind was produced God hath chosen us in him before the Creation of the World and made all things by him and for him For Christ is the Man for whom God hath made all things He was predestinated to be the chief of Angels and Saints even of the Angels that are before the Saints But he was before all things in God's design for the members are made for the head and not the head for the members As I said it to you Dialog 2. it is through the Incarnation of the Son that the Father is worship'd as he ought to be For what signifie the veneration of Men and Angels if not offer'd through Christ But if it be certain that God will be worship'd as he ought to be it is as certain that he will be worship'd through his Son and therefore it is sure that God's chief end is the Incarnation of his Son and that the Creation of Men and Angels enters into his design only on the account of his Son he having made them for no other end but that he might receive their adorations through his Son and suffer'd Adam's Sin and the corruption of Nature to make way for the Incarnation of his Son that is to make it necessary or be its occasion All this seems most certain to me but pray Aristarchus what think you of it Arist I don't know yet what to think on 't Erast How Sir can you still be in doubt about it I 'le convince you presently A Workman that makes a piece of Workmanship for his own private use and surely foresees that if he expose it in the way some one or other will certainly break it doth not act prudently if he doth not lay it in a safe place Arist I own it Erast Very well But if a Workman foresees that laying his Work where he ought to lay it and where it will be broken he shall be paid infinitely more for it than it is worth do you think he ought to hide it or lay it in an improper place to preserve it principally if he can without the least trouble to himself make such a piece of workmanship Arist In that case Erastus he ought to place it in its true and right place and not alter his design but on the contrary make an end of his work if not that it may be broken at least that he may be paid for it more than it is worth and lay hold on the accident that will befall his work as on a favourable opportunity of enriching himself for I suppose that this same workman thinks more on himself and growing rich than on any thing else Erast Observe me then God is that Workman who works for himself and minds nothing but his own glory All the pure Creatures cannot honour him as he deserves neither can all his works enrich him Do you conceive then that he will make them Besides if he makes Man and leaves him to himself if he doth not hinder his freedom and will be loved by him with a love of choice an understanding love perfectly worthy a reasonable Creature in a word if he places Man