a Conscience from the Immortal Gods which cannot be plucked away from us So that whatever Improvement these Notions and Impressions may receive from an after Instruction yet they seem to be implanted in us by the same Power that made us reasonable Creatures who no more could leave himself without Witness in our Minds than in the Works of Nature And being thus antecedent to our own Reasoning or other information can proceed from no other a Principle than Revelation doth and is therefore equivalent to it III. There is a Traditionary Proof of Revelation which is by Testimony or by such Instances as are a part of the Revelation and of which as I conceive no tolerable account can be given if they are not allowed to be of Divine Institution In order to which 1. I observe That the Want of a Revelation in any particular Nation or Age is not an Argument sufficient to prove that there never was any Revelation For Revelation being more especially of things not knowable by the mere Light of Nature may be lost while the Light of Nature remains It being in this case much as it is in Matters of History which may be derived from one Generation to another and especially by Registers and Memorials But if a former Generation be careless and slothful or the Records not faithfully wrote or kept the Matters of Fact in one Age are irrecoverably lost in the next or turned into Fables Of which the Earliest Times are too manifest an Instance and for which reason Varro did not divide them amiss into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obscure or unknown and fabulous Which lasted till the First Olympiad and that was at soonest Anno Mundi 3173 when the Historical Age according to him begins Now as the want of such Histories will not prove that there never were any such and much less that there were no Matters of Fact for the furnishing such Histories So though there be no Revelation or no Memorials of such a Revelation in some particular Nations or Ages it will not necessarily follow that there never was any such Revelation made to the World 2. When I propose the Proof of a Revelation I would not be understood so much as to suppose That there was from the beginning or before the Time of Moses a Pandect or Collection of Divine Revelations but only that there were Inspired Persons to whom God did as occasion served reveal himself in sundry times and divers manners such as Adam Enoch Noah c. 3. Where there has been or is no Revelation or pretence to it if any such Age or People ever were yet there are or have been in those Ages or Nations certain Footsteps of such a Revelation and which whereever they are found are as evident Marks of such a Revelation as Pillars or Crosses found in a Countrey at present uninhabited are that there have been some persons that have been there before and have erected those Monuments 4. I account such Usages Rites and Principles to proceed from Revelation that have no foundation in Reason and the nature of the thing but are correspondent to what we call Revelation and which can well have no reason at all assign'd for them if not the Reason given in that Revelation Such are Expiatory Sacrifices and other things relating to Divine Worship 5. This is the more confirmed if such Usages Rites and Principles have been observed practised and believed in Nations that have had no relation one to another no Commerce or Communication nor sometimes knowledge of one another for then they must arise from some common Head from whence they were ab-originally dispersed among the several Branches of the same Stock When one People has been mixed with another as the Jews and Egyptians or derived from another as the Colchi from the Egyptians or there have been Commerces and Confederacies Wars and Conquests 't is no wonder they intermingle in several Rites and Observances Of this we have a notorious Instance in Circumcision which by the abovesaid means came to be received by several Nations as the Ethiopians Egyptians and Colchi the Phoenicians and some of the Syrians as Herodotus shews But when the Usages Rites and Principles have been as well found where there has been no Communication as where there has 't is no less a sign they descend from one and the same Original than when the Waters of the Seven Branches of the River Nilus have one and the same Taste and Colour without any Communication that they do all descend from the Main Stream In like manner if we find suppose among the Seventy Nations into which 't is said Mankind was divided upon the Confusion at Babel several of the same Rites and Usages generally speaking concurring with those of what we call Revelation we must conclude That they were observed before that Dispersion and were wholly owing to as early an Institution Among the Instances that I shall make use of for the Proof of a Revelation I shall begin with those that relate to Divine Worship such as Time Sacrifices c. 1. Time That there is some particular Portion of Time to be set apart for the Publick Worship of God either by Divine Appointment or Humane Consent is absolutely necessary when it is to be the Act of a Society for Worship without some time for such Society to convene and assemble in must inevitably end in Confusion and Dissolution And therefore as God created the World as a Temple to exhibit and manifest himself in and created such Beings as should in their several Stations celebrate his Praise so when he had finished all his Work he established that Day which he rested upon to be from thenceforward devoted to that Service as we may see the Institution Gen. 2. 2. I call this an Institution for when could that be more seasonably instituted by Divine Authority than at the Close of the Creation when the Sanctification and the Reason of it were so immediately connected God blessed and sanctified it because in it he had rested from all his work It being not probable that there should be at that time no Institution when the Reason for it is expresly given or that there should be no present Obligation to observe it when there was an Institution If God had no sooner finished his Work but he sanctified the Day following 't is evident that the Obligation to observe it must begin with the Institution And if he sanctified it because on that Day he rested 't is as evident the Institution did begin with the Reason of it And then how improbable is it that God should bless and sanctify a Particular Day and yet for the space of Two thousand Years together should leave that Day in common with the other Days of the Week without any distinction How improbable again that it should be first instituted and made a Duty to the Jews only for a Reason that equally concerned all Mankind
IMPRIMATUR Feb. 4. 1694 5. Guil. Lancaster The Certainty of Divine Revelation A SERMON Preached at St. Martins in the Fields Feb. 4. 1694 5. BEING THE Second of the LECTURE For the Ensuing YEAR Founded by the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Esquire By JOHN WILLIAMS D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty The Second Edition Corrected LONDON Printed for Ri. Chiswell and Tho. Cockerill At the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard and at the Three Legs in the Poultrey MDCXCVI HEB. I. 1 2. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son IN which Words I have observed there is I. A Description given of Revelation 't is God's speaking and declaring his Will to Persons chosen for that purpose II. The Certainty of it 't is by way of Declaration and taken for granted God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake c. III. The Order observed in delivering this Revelation it was at sundry times and in divers manners In time past by the Prophets and in the last days by his Son It was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in parts and in several Periods and Manifestations and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Illapses Visions c. IV. The Perfection and Conclusion of all 't is in the last days by his Son the Heir of all things c. Under the first I have shewed 1. What we mean by Revelation in contradistinction to Natural Light 2. The Possibility of it 3. The Expedience Usefulness and Necessity of it It is the Second I am to proceed to viz. The Certainty Under which I shall shew I. That God has reveal'd himself or that there has been such Revelation II. The Difference between Pretended and Real Revelation III. That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament contain such a Revelation and have upon them all the Characters necessary and belonging to such Revelation I. That there has been a Divine Revelation What I have principally in my eye is the Proof of the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures but for the present I shall lay that aside and take my rise towards it from such general Principles and Observations as are founded upon Reason or such particular Instances and Matters of Fact as manifestly proceeded from Revelation And accordingly I shall dispose of what I have to say in Proof of it under these Four Heads as we have for it 1. A Rational or Moral Evidence 2. A Natural 3. A Traditionary or Testimony 4. A Supernatural First Moral Where in the first place I take for granted what I have before proved viz. That a Divine Revelation is Expedient Useful and Necessary and upon that Supposition shall attempt to prove the Certainty of it I acknowledge where the Necessity is created by our own fault there lies no obligation upon the Creator to provide a Remedy and since the Necessity Mankind is now in proceeded from their Apostacy that Necessity can in reason be no just Plea for it nor a sufficient Excuse in the want of it When Man was created in such a state as made Revelation a necessary Help to his Reason God immediately afforded him such an extraordinary Manifestation of himself But when he forfeited that Divine Gift he could have no allowable Right or Claim to it For to him that hath and improves what he hath shall be given but to him that hath not and takes no care to preserve and improve it may justly be denied what was otherwise fit and necessary for him to have This indeed is the Case if rigorously stated but considering the miserable Circumstances Mankind were in after the Fall more especially through want of a Revelation we may reasonably conclude That the Goodness of God would no less incline him to give it than if he had been obliged to it by a special Grant Promise or Covenant Decrees are Secrets lock'd up in the Breast of Almighty God and whatever Good is therein intended how beneficial soever they may be in the Event yet afford no Satisfaction to us till they are opened and revealed And though the Redemption of Mankind were decreed and were according to Circumstances to operate and in due season to be fully executed yet what would They have been the better if for 4000 Years together that Decree had lay hid in the Bosom of the Father and the Decree had never been a Promise and that Promise had never before that time been reveal'd unto them So that had we no such Promise upon record as The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head yet however we might be as sure that there was some such kind of Revelation made to Adam some Promise of Forgiveness when God did intend to Redeem him and all Mankind as there was a Design to Redeem them It being as necessary toward their present Comfort to have a Revelation of that Mercy in their Redemption as Redemption it self was necessary toward their Happiness And this will farther be confirmed if we consider what has been before proved in the former Discourse That all men have had a Sense of the Want of a Revelation and have been possess'd with an earnest and impatient desire of obtaining it which being a desire becoming Human Nature useful and fit to be cherish'd it is not to be conceiv'd that where there is provision made to answer all sensible and natural Appetites throughout the Creation that this no less importunate though supervenient Desire should have no regard paid to it but be suffered like Aetna to be always burning within tormenting as it were the Bowels of Mankind with an unquenchable Fire or an unsatiable Desire of knowing what was not to be known and of obtaining what was not to be obtained This is a State that the Consideration of God's Goodness will not admit us to suppose and we must therefore necessarily conclude That the same Divine Power and Wisdom that made Man a Reasonable and Inquisitive Being and has allowed him a World of Wonders to employ that Faculty in the Contemplation of hath also provided for that Noble Desire of knowing what the Will of his Maker is and what relates to his own Eternal Welfare and that is by a Revelation Indeed without this 't is with him as with one that is born Blind that whatever other Evidence he may have of the Being of a God wants one of the most convincing of all which is The Wonders of an Almighty Power and Incomprehensible Wisdom conspicuous in the Frame of Nature and the visible parts of the Creation So whatever sense men that have only Reason for their Guide may have of the Mercy and Goodness of God whatever they may observe in the Course of his Providence to confirm them in the Belief of it whatever Hopes they may have of it from the general Notion of the Divine Nature whatever Desire they may have of it from a sense of
their own Misery yet they want that Evidence of it which as we find by constant experience alone can satisfy and compose their doubtful and distracted Minds and that is Certainty or which is the same Revelation by which and nothing less That Certainty is to be attained And therefore we have just reason to believe that was not wanting to the First Ages of the World For the same reason we have to believe God to be good the like reason we have to believe that he did after that manner make himself known in those early times from the first to Mankind But it may be said What is all this Reasoning to Matter of Fact For if after all there has been no such Revelation or no Proof can be made of it That is more than a Thousand Speculative Arguments for it And besides supposing there was once a Revelation what was that to those Ages and Nations that afterwards wanted it and were condemned as it were to sit in darkness and the shadow of death The last of these is not to be denied and so I shall first of all consider it And in answer to it it shall suffice to say for the present That if there has been such a Revelation made known to the World and all due care taken by the Almighty and Beneficent Creator for the Preservation of it and it afterwards be damnified or corrupted or in fine utterly lost through the Negligence or Perverseness of men themselves the Fault of the Miscarriage wholly rests upon them The making known the Revelation was an extraordinary Case and is a voluntary Act of Grace and Favour in Almighty God the Preservation of it is the ordinary Case and belongs to Men and when once the Extraordinary Case becomes Ordinary God leaves it to its proper and natural Course to Second Causes to Human Prudence Care and Inspection Thus it is with Reason the Noblest Principle of Human Nature which if not attended and nurtur'd may degenerate into Stupidity and a kind of Brutality As it happen'd to some Nations in the Southern Parts of Africa West-Tartary and West-Indies that notwithstanding the Characters of an Almighty Being legibly stamped upon the Face of the whole and every part of the Creation have so far degenerated that it has been questioned Whether they have had any Notion or Sense of a God or any sort of Worship for him And so it is in the case before us For as God had made a special Revelation of himself to Adam after as well as before the Fall so he took a very effectual way for the Conveyance and Preservation of it by the Longaevity of those Patriarchs with whom it was deposited and who were to take care that it might be preserv'd inviolable Three of which alone fill'd up the first Period of 1656 Years from the Creation to the Flood viz. Adam Methuselah and Noah So that Methuselah lived 243 Years with Adam for so old was he when Adam died and Noah lived 600 Years with Methuselah for so old was Noah when Methuselah died and the Flood came And four again of the Fathers after the Flood tho the Extent of their Lives was shortned fell in with the 856 Years from the Flood to the giving of the Law by Moses at Sinai So that Abraham is well supposed to have lived 150 Years with Shem Jacob about 20 with Abraham Levi 60 Years with Jacob and Amram the Father of Moses lived in the Time of his Grandfather Levi. Now what course in the Circumstances and the State the World was at that time in could be more fit if duly observed for conveying the matter of a Revelation through the several Periods and Ages of the World so far as Personal Teaching was sufficient And especially when the Things revealed and after this manner to be delivered from Age to Age were of Importance sufficient to oblige both Teacher and Scholar and withal so Few as might without any Difficulty be retained And therefore if notwithstanding the Method taken by Almighty God for the registring what he had revealed in the memories of men and for delivering it down to future Ages there was afterwards no care taken on their part and no reasonable provision made for conserving such a Revelation but that in process of time it was either totally obliterated or vilely corrupted the Miscarriage was as I have said wholly chargeable upon such as by their Negligence or Wickedness made Mankind to sin in not delivering or not faithfully delivering down to Posterity what they themselves had received in its Original Purity from their Ancestors The Case is indeed very lamentable but what is not to be helped without Almighty God alters the Nature of things turns them out of their proper and ordinary Course and acts solely by his own Power and Prerogative either without or above the Agency of Second Causes Which is no more with reason to be expected than that when God has made the Earth in its own nature fertile and capable of yielding all things necessary for man's subsistence with Cultivation that He should also be obliged to continue it in the same state it was created in and when by the Sloth and Stupidity of men it brought forth nothing but Thorns and Thistles should miraculously make every Tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food and whatever was beneficial and necessary to grow out of the Ground as at first and before there was a Man to till the ground Now if this be unreasonable for Man to expect it is so then in the case of Revelation which God had committed to the Custody of Men themselves and made them whose Interest it was to be the Conservators of it Having thus far considered the Case of those that had not or have no Revelation I shall return to the Main Point which is To shew that there has been such a Revelation And that brings me to the IId Sort of Proof which I call Natural as it belongs to things Natural and is opposed to what is of mere Institution which I conceive to be equivalent to Revelation And they are Speech and common Notions 1. Speech For which there is in Man a Natural Capacity and Organs admirably contrived and disposed as we see by experience But now there is a vast difference in that case betwixt Us and other Creatures for other Creatures have not only Organs as we have fitted for their proper Notes but at once have all those Organs in Tune and in Operation so that whatever they would signify in their way and according to their kind they immediately thereby express But though the Organs of Speech in us are as exquisitely framed yet we gradually grow up to the use of them and again can never apply them or know how to use them without some precedent Instruction And therefore it has been the Opinion of many That without hearing others speak we should be eternally dumb as the Experiment of Psammeticus King of Egypt
shews if true of shutting up Two Children in separate Caves where they never heard one Articulate Word and so could use none So that now Man must be taught and as he is taught so he speaks But we will put the case in which there was no Human Instructor and yet the Person spoke as articulately and had the free use of Words and knew as well how to express his mind by them from the very first as if he had had the best Helps for it in the world and had been never so long a time versed and practised in it and that Person was Adam who was created in a full Age and had none before him and yet must as soon have Words for use and Skill how to use them as he had to give Names to the Creatures according to their several kinds For without this what Conversation could he have with Eve or what Comfort could he take in her presence for it was not to be call'd Society and what a Dejection must there be in each of them when all other Creatures had their Notes for understanding each other according to the Species they were of but they themselves alone were mute So that though 't is not expresly said That Adam and Eve had any Discourse yet 't is as certain from the reason of the thing as it is that God spake to them or the Serpent and Eve spake together But 't is certain Adam must then be self-instructed or be instructed by God He must then invent a Language of himself or he must be taught by him that made him If he was to teach himself how could he know that he was able to speak or how can we think he would begin his Conversation by an attempt that way For 't is highly probable that they would first have began with dumb signs or some external motions as we see those ordinarily do that have no Words which others can understand or if they should at length have found out such an Expedient and formed some Articulate Sounds yet what a tedious course would this have been and how long before it could be wrought into a Language that they could first Think of Words and then Remember them and then Use them and then fall into Discourse Don't we find how difficult it is to learn to speak a Foreign Language when we have all Advantages for it by Instruction and Discourse with those that speak it But suppose Two Persons wholly strangers to one another and of a Language as different as Chinese and English should meet together and be constrained by Circumstances being without other Society to converse with each other though each had a Language of their own and knew how to speak and form Words for Pronunciation yet how long would it be before they could fix the Words for it and to have a Term for every thing they were to discourse about to invent and agree upon it and then to remember them and then to use them And then much more will the difficulties increase were these Two in the case of Adam and Eve and to beat out the Track which never any walked in before to invent Speech it self and Words to be spoken and sufficient to express the Thoughts of each other so as to make Company and that Company agreeable acceptable and useful This must have been the work of Time if it had been practicable and the Difficulty of it would have made each others Company a Burden rather than a Pleasure till such time as they could come to a mutual understanding of one anothers minds and inclinations And therefore to make them meet helps for each other it was of Necessity that they should have an extraordinary Power communicated from Heaven and be enabled by that Instinct as soon to speak as the other Creatures are in a course of Nature to utter such Voices as are suitable to their kind or as Mankind are to express their Passions of Joy or Sorrow by Laughter or Tears So that 't is not without reason I rank the Gift of Speech among those things that are of a Divine Infusion and so equivalent to Revelation 2. Another Instance of this kind is what is usually called Common Notions or Natural Impressions Common Notions because they are common to all Mankind and Natural Impressions because they are conceiv'd not to be acquired by any Human Means such as Education and Instruction Observation and Experience but are imprinted on our Nature by an Immediate and Supernatural Power That there are such Notions as all Mankind do agree in is undeniable such as the Belief of a God an Adoration to be given to him and that there is an essential difference between Good and Evil so that Good cannot by any art or endeavour be made or esteemed to be Evil nor Evil Good For as the Natures of the things themselves cannot be altered so neither can our Conceptions of them It is as undeniable That these Notions or Impressions are so early to be discovered and do so grow up with our Reason that they seem not to be the Effects of our Reason but rather to be antecedent to it and that it is rather what we Find than what we Chuse what belongs to our Nature than what we add to it And accordingly as we have a Notion so a Sense of those things antecedent to all Reasoning and Instruction which we call Conscience excusing or else accusing according to the nature of the things whether good or evil Now as the Nature of the things must be before our Conception of them so both must be before we pass this practical Judgment upon them And if we do exercise this Faculty antecedent to all Instruction then so must the Sense of the things be about which it is exercised So the Apostle Rom. 2. 14. When the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law these having not the law are a law unto themselves Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness c. Which is exactly agreeable to the Phrase of the Wisest among them So Aristotle calls it the Natural Common and Unwritten Law But above all Cicero who best knew the sense of the Philosophers and how to express it doth speak fully to this point both as to the Universality of these First Notions and the agreement in them by all Mankind both as to the nature and rise of them There is saith he a certain Law not written but native to us which we have not learned received nor read But we have taken and derived it from Nature it self to which we were not Taught to be conformed but Made it was not by Institution but Infusion This in another place he saith all men have by a certain Anticipation and calls them innate Cogitations and will allow it to come from no less a Power than what is Divine We have saith he received
as well as them because he rested and for a reason existent from the first as well as in the time when it was instituted at Sinai 'T is highly unreasonable to add one Prolepsis to another and to heap Figure upon Figure when there is no necessity for it contrary to all the Rules of a Just Interpretation Now if this be an Original and Primaeval Institution we have one Instance of a Divine Revelation so far as the Scripture is of Authority and surely we may demand in its behalf to have as much regard paid to it as we give to Prophane Histories But however we are not without a concurrent Testimony from them also in this particular For it is manifest that there hath been of great Antiquity such a Distribution of Time as we call a Week of Seven Days and which is more to our purpose That the Seventh Day was a Festival and Religious Day This Lucian doth more than intimate and long before him Solon who calls it Most Holy Day in his Elegies quoted by Eusebius and one earlier than he Homer who calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Day But Calimachus Homer and Linus are still more particular for they say it was because all the Works of Creation were then finished So Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 't is therefore called by Linus The Birth-day of the World Now there is nothing in Nature to point to this for there is no more to be observed from the Motion of the Heavens for such a Septenary distribution of Time or Division into Weeks than there is for the dividing of a Day into Hours And consequently it must proceed from some Institution and from a very early Institution because of what I have observed from the fore-cited Authors who are of great Antiquity especially Homer and Linus For Homer is supposed to have lived in or about the time of Saul in the Year of the World 2940 and Linus in the time of the Judges about the Year 2570. The consideration of which doth make it probable that these Ancient Poets owed their Information to the general Tradition of the World rather than to the Jews Indeed Aristobulus the Jew from whom Eusebius drew the abovesaid Testimonies saith these Poets had borrowed them from the Jewish Books But if it be consider'd how little the Jewish Books the Scriptures were known to the World before the Translation of them by the Seventy into Greek which was about 300 Years before the Birth of our Saviour or how little the Opinions of the Jews themselves before the Captivity were known abroad it will hardly be conceived that these things should be known so early and spoke of so positively by the Greek Poets Homer and Linus within so short a time after the Institution of the Sabbath at Sinai as these two lived for Linus must have lived within less than half an hundred Years after the time of Moses and Homer in less than 400. Where if we take the lowest term that of Homer the Jews were hardly in a setled State and no more in a Condition than they were disposed in their Temper or permitted by their Religion to inform other Nations in the Articles or Mysteries of their Religion So that it seems very evident that the Observation of the Seventh day for the Service of God was an ancient and general Opinion and especially of those who may be best presumed to understand what had been the sense of Mankind in the Ages before or those in which they lived And if this was the Opinion of those early Times conformable to the History of Scripture we have sufficient reason to offer this as an Instance of a Revelation 2. Another instance of Revelation is Sacrifices and especially those of Expiation Amongst all the Rites and Usages relating to Divine Worship there are none that exceed these in their Antiquity except the Sabbath or Extent For we no sooner read of God's Reconciliation to Mankind but that they offer'd Sacrifice no sooner of Noah's Deliverance and Escape out of the Deluge but he offer'd Sacrifice And without doubt as it begun so it continued and was as much dispersed and observed among Mankind before the Flood as after it But how probable soever it is that this Rite was thus universally observed before yet That we are not so certain of as we are of the Observation of it after the Flood when there was no Age nor Nation where it was not to be found how dispersed soever they were of which no tolerable Account is to be given unless it be allowed to have been in use before the Dispersion at Babel and that it was of Divine Institution It must have been I say in use before that Dispersion for how could all Nations fall into one and the same Practice and have the same Opinion of Sacrifices when there is nothing in the Nature of the thing to lead them to it if it had not been that they had all descended from one Blood from one Family from one Body by which means it was conveyed into all the several Branches issuing from it and went along with them where ever they went Now the question is Whence this should arise and what gave it this universal Acceptance and Authority whether the Invention of some Eminent Persons suppose in those early Times or whether it was by Revelation from God and of his special Institution There seems no great reason to think this Service should proceed merely from the Invention of Men even of those pious and well-disposed Persons since as I have said there is nothing in the nature of the thing to lead to it For how could it be supposed that this should be acceptable to Almighty God which in it self holds no Conformity nor is at all suitable to his Nature Will I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats is a true representation of it It might become a sanguinary sort of Daemons or false Gods and wicked Spirits to be pleased with the Fumes and Reakings of the Bleeding Sacrifice as the Heathens generally thought But men of any understanding would rather chuse a reasonable Service for the God that made them reasonable Creatures and might presume another sort of Sacrifice would be more acceptable to him than this and acceptable without it viz. a Sacrifice of Praise and Prayer of a pure Mind and a good Life which the wiser Heathens did in their Opinion exceedingly prefer But as for the Sacrifices and Blood of Beasts such Philosophers as Pythagoras and Plato spoke of them often with regret and displeasure and others wonder'd how they first came into the World as Porphyry that wrote expresly against them What Expression could thereby be given suppose of mens gratitude to God for their Being and their Preservation Who of all Mankind is fo stupidly credulous so foolish that can think the Gods delighted with such a present of Bows Gall and Blood which a hungry Dog would