which being equally commanded by God himself were of equall obligation as to their performance with any of the rest of which no such Typicall account can be given And therefore the reason of their Institution can only be this That since every thing must of necessity be done with some Ceremony in some Place or Time or Order or Gesture or Manner and Circumstance or other it pleased God for the avoiding of Confusion and for the preservation of an uniform and orderly way of Worship which would otherwise be exposed to perpetual change disturbance and alteration to adjust and determine the particular circumstances of those indifferent matters because considering the perverseness of some mens minds and the diversity of their several fancies and humours such changes and alterations could never happen without a considerable breach of Charity and Friendship among men which must needs be a wonderfull Obstruction as well to the interest of the Civil State as to all the religious Performances and Duties both as to their devotion in themselves and as to their acceptance with Almighty God If therefore the nature of Mankind be still the same under the Gospel that it was under the Law if the reasons for the necessity of Uniformity be the same now that ever they were in former ages if the method of this Uniformity be not adjusted by God himself under the Gospel as it was under the Law and if this Uniformity cannot be obtained unless the Church be invested with a right and power of prescribing the terms of it than it follows plainly as hath been already observed that the Church must be invested with such a power because else it would want the necessary means of its own unity and preservation which every Society must be supposed by the Laws of nature and reason to be invested with and if the Church be invested with such a power then all its Members are under an indispensable obligation to obey it because that Power which may be lawfully disobey'd is no Power at all And this is sufficient to vindicate the exercise of Ecclesiastical Censures And if you demand further Whether it be lawfull for the civil Sanction to interpose in behalf of the Church to see that its Orders and Injunctions be duly and faithfully executed and obey'd I answer that it is for this plain reason because the Civil Power has a right of exacting all kinds of lawfull Obedience from its subjects and this obedience if it were not Lawfull could not be enjoyned by the Church it self But besides the express provisions of the Law of Moses it self there were also several pretended traditions of Moses from Mount Sinai there were likewise the determinations of their Wise men in controverted cases the Decisions of the Tannaim and the Amoraim and of the Schools of Hillel and of Schammai the two so much celebrated but disagreeing Founders of the Pharisaick Order For which Traditions and Determinations of their famous Masters the Jewes had usually as great if not greater Veneration than for the Law it self and they were at length swell'd into so vast a bulk that like the Missals and the Rituals of the Romish Church at this day which are so full of Ceremonies burthensom in their number frivolous and superstitious in their use they ate out the very life and heart of true Religion as our Saviour himself in several places of his Gospel with no less Justice than severity complains The Heathen World had also their Sacred Offices prescribed by a certain Form as well before as under the Law And the same is the case with the Mahometan and Pagan Idolaters at this day which Ceremonies of theirs though for their number they be intollerable to a devout Soul which cannot suffer it's self to be so far taken off from the more inward and substantial part of Religion though in their nature they be mostly foolish and in their use Superstitious and in their design Idolatrous as being directed to a false object yet as well these as the Jewish Formalities do prove thus much by the common consent of Mankind that an Uniformity in the outward circumstances of Divine Service is necessary to the more due and solemn performance of Religious Worship and to the publique peace and quiet of the World What is the reason that at this day the French Persecution against the reformed Religion and its Professors rages with so much violence and fury thorough all the spatious Territories and Dominions of that mighty Monarch Shall we think it is a Zeal for the Catholique Religion as they are pleased to call it that is for a Fardle of absur'd ridiculous and blasphemous Superstitions that inspires so wise and powerfull a Prince with so mean thoughts of Cruelty and Revenge Shall we think he acts upon a principle of Conscience who has sufficiently discover'd to the world by his insatiable thirst after Empire which cannot be purchas'd without the price of Bloud that he has no other principle of action than that of a boundless appetite of Rule and Greatness Shall he be thought to act upon a principle of Duty and Religion who makes destructive and depopulating Wars without giving a reason and violates the faith of Peace by arbitrary Dependances and unwarrantable Claimes Who conquers more by the peremptory Decrees of his late erected Chambers than by the conduct of his Generals or by the numbers discipline and valour of his Armies What therefore can be the true cause and motive why he that glories in the blessed title of the Most Christian King should yet notwithstanding persecute Christianity it self What else can be the true reason of all this Cruelty and seeming Madness but that he wisely considers that the true way to Empire abroad is by unity and peace at home that a Kingdome divided against it self cannot stand and that these differences of Religion as they have done already in the experience of that Kingdome as well as ours will some time or other prove the occasions of great disorders and commotions in the State And shall we not then make use of the same wisdome for the support of Christianity which is with so much diligence and zeal made use of by others for its Extirpation For Popery is either no Christianity at all or it is Christianity wrapt up and hid in such an heap of Ceremonies and Superstitions that it can hardly be discerned Is it worth our while to contend about Ceremonies when we are losing the Substance to squabble and fall out about indifferent things when our Religion and our Liberty our temporall and eternall Interest lye at stake If the things prescribed be indifferent and consequently lawfull why do we not show that they are so by complying with them If the quarrells raised about indifferent matters do yet notwithstanding rise as high as those which are agitated between the Papists and us about matters of a necessary and unalterable nature why do we not cement and compose these unhappy breaches by
the express command of Scripture And here before I pass by farther let me ask our dissenting Brethren one Question they in their Congregations are used to sing together the Psalms of David converted into English Rhimes some of them of one man's composing and some of another now though the words of the Psalms themselves especially as they are in the original were divinely inspired and therefore they may pretend though it be a Form yet it is not a Form of humane Institution yet the words of him that puts them into Meeter are not David's words any more than a Paraphrase and the Text are the same the same sense may be expressed in different words and those different words are so many different forms to them that reade them from whence it is manifest that they do not pray by David's Form which was inspired but by the Translator's which is of humane Institution and why then do they declaim so loudly against a Form of Prayer Why they will tell us the Scripture has no where enjoyned it but I have proved the contrary and they themselves confute their own Pretences by their Practice But suppose the Scripture did not enjoyn it what then if we must neither pray with a Form nor without unless the Scripture bid us doe one or the other then we must not pray at all for the Scripture does not any where command either of these unless it be in the use of the Lord's Prayer and yet at the same time enjoyns us to pray without ceasing But these Gentlemen if they were half so good Philosophers as they are bad Divines would have understood before now that all Prayer is a Form and that without a Form it is impossible to pray at all for the sense at the bottom of all Prayer is the same it is either a devout acknowledgment and admiration of the Divine Excellence and Perfection or it is a thanksgiving for his Mercies or an humbling our selves before him for our Sins or entring into new engagements and resolutions of a new Life by offering up the Sacrifice of a broken and a contrite Heart or lastly it is a deprecating those Judgments which hang over our heads for our Sins and an entreating his Goodness for those Blessings which the necessities of our nature or the circumstances of our fortune and condition do require and let these things be expressed with never so much variation of phrase yet it is not that variation in which the true nature of the Prayer consists but it is the sense which is at the bottom which is alwaies the same as a tune is the same though it be pricked down by never such variety of marks and a sentence the same express'd by several cyphers It is not the words that God regards but it is the inward Ardency and Devotion of the mind which may be the same with a Form as without it â—ay in trutâ— it may be greater with a Form than it can be without it because then he that officiates not being to seek for what he is to say and his fancie and invention not being perpetually upon the rack his mind is the more intent and fixt upon the Object of his Devotion and upon a sober and considerate reflexion upon those things which make up the entire theme and subject of his Prayer he is not apt to dishonour God nor to expose himself and Religion to contempt by rash and inconsiderate expressions uttered in the heat of a distempered and inconsiderate Zeal which we find by experience I speak without reflecting upon any particular person many of our non-conforming Brethren doe as well in their Prayers as Sermons for want of duly considering what they have to say before-hand which shows plainly what extream Presumption and â—olly they are guilty of when they pretend to utter such contemptible stuff by the assistence of the Spirit It is true indeed there was in the first ages of the Church such a thing as the Gift of utterance but it was when men of mean parts and education were sent forth to preach the Gospel by our Saviour himself who without this could not have delivered themselves as became the Embassadors of so great a King it was at a time when the World could not be converted without Miracles when the Fears of Death and Torments and Persecution would have put all their natural faculties to silence had they not been assisted and encouraged by an extraordinary influence of Divine Grace from above It was at a time when they were to be carry'd before Magistrates and Rulers to give an account of themselves and of that Gospel which they preached and then it was necessary indeed that a particular assistence of the Divine Spirit should overpower the fears of death and remove all apprehensions of danger out of their way and that the words which they were to speak should be given them and put into their mouths at that very instant lest otherwise for want of ability or courage they should expose and betray themselves and the Gospel But at this time of day there is no necessity of any such supernatural assistence and that it is not actually afforded appears partly from the experience which we have of those that pretend to it and partly from this that Saint Paul expresly tells us that the Gift of Prophecie of Tongues and of Knowledge were in time to fail and if they be not failed already as well as those other miraculous Powers of Healing Diseases and of Casting out Devils we have little or no reason to believe that ever they will besides that the Gift of Tongues being manifestly ceased and these three being mentioned together we have abundant reason to conclude that those of Prophecie and Knowledge are ceased together with it But after all we have no Promise in Scripture that God though by his Spirit he will furnish us with affection and zeal to the end of the World will ever put the very expressions into our mouths the Spirit it self helpeth our infirmities saith Saint Paul speaking of this very business of Prayer but it is not with a Gift of utterance but with Groans that cannot be uttered let our words be what they will so our hearts be but right God is well pleased Compositum jus fasque animo sanctosque recessus Mentis incoctum generoso pectus honesto Hoec cedo ut admoveam templis farre litabo It is true indeed such is the nature of style that the same sense clothed in different expressions shall either extort respect or laughter the reason is because all speech is either proper or metaphorical in proper speech where the words are the real and immediate marks of the things they express there we are affected with the sentence according to the opinion we have of those things which are contained under it but in metaphorical we are differently affected as the Metaphors are taken from things of a contemptible or a serious and usefull nature Now nothing
is more plain than that in religious Discourses whether in Prayer or Sermon nothing ought to be said after such a manner as to move laughter or contempt instead of exciting Devotion and serious attention but whether this end be more likely to be attained by an extempore or well-considered and premeditated Prayer let any man of common sense and understanding judge And though such rash and inconsiderate expressions may be well enough approved where they are uttered among people that are affected by noise rather than by sober and judicious expressions by a sound and wholesome Form of words yet it ought to be considered one would think how unbecoming such things are to the gravity of one that pretends to teach and instruct the World or to the Majesty of that Person whose Character he sustains what scandal it gives to understanding men and what advantages to the profane and lastly how unsuitable it is to the design of Religion which is to make men happy by creating in them a calm and sedate temper not so much to move their Passions as to inform their Judgments and to prepare them for Happiness by wisedom and instruction But if there be any who by the strength of natural parts by the quickness of their fancie or the volubility of their tongues by long custom or acquired habits by art and study by ringing the changes and by shuffling the same expressions at several times into a several order and method shall from thence seem either to themselves or others to be possessed of this Gift of Prayer yet they are in truth and reallity very much mistaken and it will appear they are so in that they generally use these whether talents or acquirements or artifices and devices of theirs rather in a way of ostentation than use by spinning out their Devotions to an unusual length and by endeavouring to captivate the ears and hearts of inconsiderate people by that much speaking which our Saviviour condemns Thus it appears plainly that a sober and well-considered Form of Prayer is a manifest advantage both to the Speaker and the Hearer and to the latter it is an advantage in a respect which I have not yet mentioned If I pray in an unknown tongue saith the Apostle my spirit prayeth but my understanding is unfruitfull 1 Cor. c. 14. v. 14. And again v. 16. how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen From whence it follows plainly that in this age especially when the miraculous effusions of the Spirit are in a manner wholly ceased those Prayers are the best to which we are best prepared to say Amen but those are manifestly Forms of Prayer because in those we goe along with the Minister himself nay we understand beforehand what it is he is about to ask and so are the better prepared to joyn withhim and to say Amen heartily devoutly and preparedly to all his Petitions And the same Chapter will likewise furnish us with another argument against these extempore Effusions when they are truly and properly and not onely pretendedly so which is but to put a cheat upon the People namely that they are subject either to the heats of Enthusiasm on the one hand or to the coldness of Non plus and Drawling on the other both of which expose Religion to contempt in the opinion or at least in the practice of those whose design and interest it is to make it contemptible and cheap and serves to alienate the affections of much wiser men than ever they are like to gain over to themselves If the whole Church be come together to speak with Tongues and there come in those that are unlearned and Vnbelievers will they not say that ye are mad and if the same or a like advantage may and will be taken from the indiseretion of every extempore Pretender there is the same reason why he should lay by his pretences and give way to a sound and sober Form of words The truth is a premeditated and an extempore Prayer have each of them their inconveniences the latter cannot be without them and the first if it be not done by â— man of some judgment and experience he does usually endeavour onely to shew his parts as if his design were to recommend himself to the good opinion of God Almighty for a man of Eloquence and Wit the premeditated man does oftentimes talk so fulsomely as if his design â—ere to cajole and cokes the great God of Heaven and Earth while the man of gifts and graces as â—e thinks himself does by ridiculous or rash expressions by mimical gestures and affected alterations of his voice by speaking sometimes so high as if he would prevail with him by clamor and sometimes so low as if he had a secret to communicate to his Maker openly affront and abuse him to his face and in the face of a numerous Assembly Bâ—t both these Inconveniences are happily avoided by the wise provision which the Church has made If then the use of Forms of Prayer in the publick Assemblies of Christians be not onely lawfull in it self and justified by the practice of all ages before the Reformation but also manifestly tending to Edification and freed from very many and very great inconveniences to which extempore Addresses are exposed and therefore necessary to be allow'd And if though Forms of Prayer be necessary in the general yet this or that particular Form be not otherwise the Liturgy of all Churches and all Ages must be exactly the same Lastly If no Formulary of Divine Service can be introduced into the common use and practice of the Church but by the publick Sanction whether sacred or civil or both then we have here a plain instance of a lawfull humane Imposition in indifferent matters for though a Form of Prayer be necessary yet this or that Form is not from whence it follows beyond all possibility of contradiction that an humane Imposition in indifferent matters or a Determination of those indifferent things by the authority of men to one part of the indifference is not in it self unlawfull and whatsoever may be lawfully commanded is of necessity to be obey'd unless we will renounce all obedience whatsoever However thus much will certainly be granted by the most avow'd Assertors of the Separation that we have every one of us a right and power of determining our selves in those indifferent matters for otherwise the nature of their indifference is destroy'd and yet if thus much be but allow'd they will find themselves driven to an absolute necessity either to contradict themseves and to affirm contradictions in a breath to say that the same things are and are not indifferent at the same time or else they must bid adiew to their beloved Cause and give submission to the Authority of the Church For whatever natural Liberty men have in themselves when once they become members of a Society they are supposed to give it up to the legislative or governing power
Prosecution of all Penal Laws cannot be called Cruelty unless it be Cruelty to govern or to use the necessary and the onely means to keep the World in order all Punishment is Cruelty or at least Injustice which is inflicted is defence of a bad cause or a bad religion but when the Penalties themseves are not so severe as to deserve the name of Cruel and when they are inflicted for the Preservation of a sound and orthodox Religion which I persuade my self most of the Dissenters will acknowledge that of the Church of England to be when they are inslicted for the preservation of Unity and Friendship among men when this is the onely Expedient by which an universal Friendship and Charity can be maintained by which the Government can be rendred safe in it self and easie to those that are to obey by which we can be rendred quiet and secure at home or considerable abroad by which we can be put in the best capacity to resist an Enemy or to succour an Ally or to transmit the Profession of the Gospel in its native purity and beauty down to our own Children and to their posterity through all generations as long as time shall endure whereas without this course we shall be subject to infinite changes and vicissitudes in our Secular and in our Ecclesiastical Concerns and shall be more dangerously exposed when our strength by a Toleration is disunited and broken in pieces to the incursions of Idolatry Superstition Infidelity Debauchery Prophaneness and of all manner of Evil whatsoever it be this is sufficient to justifie a lawfull Power in the use of the onely means by which these Inconveniences may be avoided and if it shall so happen through the evil disposition of men that a Prosecution of the Laws which is the onely possible expedient of Peace and Safety shall yet notwithstanding produce the same mischiefs and disorders which a Toleration would have done yet in this case the Magistrate will have the satisfaction in his own Conscience and before God of having discharged his duty and of not having betray'd that trust which is reposed in him which in the other as being a natural means to bring us all to confusion I do not see how he can ever have or expect The Contentions about matters of Discipline are therefore manifestly of the highest importance because they occasion a Separation which is the fruitfull mother of all those fatal mischiefs both to Church and Kingdom that have been mentioned already and can never be too often repeated or too seriously reflected upon I would very willingly know of our Dissenters what they think themselves upon supposition that the whole Nation were divided and parcell'd out into separate and independent Congregations which is that which an unlimited Toleration would produce whether or no its strength wou'd be so firm and so compacted as it is now To say it would is to say that a divided interest can be as strong as that whose parts are never so well compacted and knit to one another and it is besides this absurdity in the reason of the reason of the thing to contradict the experience of our own Age and of all that have gone before it to maintain the lawfulness of such separate Congregations notwithstanding those many and dismal inconveniences to which they are exposed is to affirm that it is lawfull to endeavour the subversion of the Government which in this case will never be able to maintain it self without a standing Army no more than in the times of usurpation and it will be very hard if not impossible besides other incommodities and pressures to which this way of administration is exposed that instead of defending the Laws they shall not at some time or other subvert them instead of making the Prince happy and his People secure they shall not make both miserable obnoxious and dependent instead of agreeing together for the maintenance of the common peace and safety they shall not fall out among themselves partaking of the epidemical giddiness of the People whom they pretend to serve but are in reality their absolute Lords and Masters and burn up all the sences of Property and Right in the unnatural flames of an intestine War I demand farther whether they can or do suppose though God be thanked we are not yet brought to the utmost persection of Tumult and Disorder that the separating of so many particular Congregations is not a weakning of the Government as well as the dividing the whole Nation into such independent Assemblies would be a subvertion of it Certainly this depends in its proportion upon the same reason with the other and therefore cannot be deny'd besides that the present posture of affairs doth sufficiently prove it to be true when our Heats and Dissentions about indifferent matters as men are pleased to call them have made us from a Nation that was used to be the Umpire and the Arbiter of Europe to become so inconsiderable as we are abroad and so uneasie and unsafe at home besides that by our Divisions we encrease those dangers of Popery which we pretend to dread while by an universal but deserved cry against so detestable a Superstition we are heaping coals of fire upon our own heads against the day of wrath and persecution if ever it prevail among us and we provoke our Enemies with more zeal than prudence unless we would join together as we ought to do in a common League to resist them so that it still appears more and more evident upon all considerations that Uniformity is necessary to the publick safety it is necessary to the honour and seemly appearance of the Government as well as to the happiness of it it appears likewise that separate and independent Congregations are therefore unlawfull because where there is no common jurisdiction there can be no common rule of discipline and order it appears that a Toleration of such independent Assemblies is a Toleration of uncharitableness and strise among men and therefore as being directly and diametrically opposite to the very nature and temper of Christianity it must of necessity be unlawfull lastly it appears that humane impositions are lawfull because this Uniformity which is necessary to the quiet of the World and to the making Christianity usefull to so good an end cannot possibly be obtained without them Separation let it be for what cause or upon what pretence soever does as I have said already imply a dislike and does create an alienation of affection in the parties separating from one another and therefore since a quarrel is much more easily somented than begun since it is hard in many cases for the best tempers to â—e reconciled to one another but very easie by new provocations to add new fewel to the fire of discord till it grow masterless without any hopes of quenching therefore no such Separation ought ever to be made without necessary causes and such as make Communion in its own nature unlawfull
least strengthen what former proof hath been given if it may not pretend to be a new proof by it self Secondly If we should suppose that the Jews had generally that familiar knowledge of and acquaintance with the law which is denied what extreme madness and folly would it have been in this case for them to relapse to the Idolatries and Superstitions of the Heathen World that is to run out of the light of noon into the darkness of midnight to leave a Religion which they perfectly understood and were not capable to be abused by the craft and subtilty of designing Priests to embrace that where all was kept secret and where they were in perpetual danger of being imposed upon by the designs and artifices of those whose trade and livelihood depended wholly upon the credulity and ignorance of the people or would they not rather have said to any that should have endeavoured to perswade them to make so foolish and so unaccountable an exchange of their Religion as our Saviour said to the Samaritane Woman Tou know not what you worship we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews So that besides the direct proof of this assertion which this consideration will afford here is also a Demonstratio per absurdum and the manifest inconvenience of the contrary opinion is enough to overthrow it Seventhly For this reason the law is called the Covenant of Levi Malach. 2. 4. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you that my covenant might be with Levi saith the Lord of Hosts Not but that the Covenant was made in common with the whole people of Israel but it is called the Covenant with Levi because as it follows v. 7. The Priest's lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts And then v. 8. to show how easie it was for them who had the entire possession of the law to themselves and who were the Oracles upon whom the people depended to impose upon them and abuse them at their pleasure it is added But ye are departed out of the way ye have caused many to stumble at the law ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi. Eighthly and lastly It is to be considered that in all the most ancient times of the Jewish Church the sacred Volume consisted wholly of Consonants and that the Vowels were supply'd without the help of any visible Characters by the skill or traditionary usage of the Priests among whom it was preserved that it had no Vowels visibly and determinately set down is evident from the Genius of all the Eastern languages to all of which this defect did anciently belong and from the Writings of all the Rabbinical Doctors whether Ancient or Modern who always have and still do continue to this day to write down only the Consonants or unsounding Letters leaving the Vowels to be supplied by the skill or conjecture of their â—â—ders and lastly from all the ancient MSS. of the Hebrew Bible it self of which Isaac Vossius who had seen Two thousand an incredible number affirms that he never saw any ancienter than Six hundred years which had the Masorethical Vowels and Accents annexed to it Now it being clear and evident to those who understand any thing of these matters from the nature of the thing it self and from the experience of those differences which are to be found by comparing the several Translations which have been made out of the Original Hebrew with one another by collating the seventy and the Chalday Paraphrasts and the fragments of Symmachus Aquila and Theodotion the Vulgar Latin and the ancient Medrashes or Jewish Expositions and Paraphrases together somewhat of which hath been already attempted by Capellus but yet so as that without any detraction from that incomparable work there is still an infinite field remaining for the industry of others to exercise it self I say it being evident from all this that the same Consonants are capable of and have been actually pointed with different Vowels which different Vowels shall constitute different words by themselves and shall by the change of one or more such words make a different sense to arise in a sentence taken together according to the several possibilities of variation in the same clause or sentence it is manifest that every new way of pointing is in effect a new Comment or Paraphrase upon the Text in which this variation is made But besides this there is also another sort of variation to be considered to which the Scriptures of the Old Testament are easily and have been actually exposed either by the mistakes or by the wilfull and industrious fault of the Transcribers and that is by the likeness of Consonants either as to the sound or figure either in the Old Samaritane or in the â—esent Assyrian Character such as are the changes of â— â—aleth a Resh and a Lamed by reason of likeness in figure or of an Hajin and an Aleph being both gutturals for the similitude of sound into one another of which sort of aâ—terations there are an incredible number of instances to be found by comparing the several Translations with one another to say nothing of that addition which might be made to these by a comparison of all those M SS which are extant at this day nor to take notice of the Keri and the Ketib of the Masoreth it self or of the various readings of Ben Asher and Ben Nephthali that is to say of the Eastern and Western Jews Now whoever shall consider these two causes of different reading or different interpretation and shall withall suppose the ancient Jews to have been every one of them obliged to transcribe an entire Copy of the Law for himself and to have read it without any Points and Vowels and lastly shall compare this with the mistakes to which men are subject the wofull ignorance and want of sense to which the common crowd of all Nations is usually exposed and much more the Jews who are by nature a stupid melancholly and superstitious sort of men and with the conceits and prejudices the love of novelty the natural itch of being thought wiser than their teachers and the wicked ambition which in all ages and nations possesses many mens breasts of overthrowing and unsetling the present establishment of things of disobeying their superiours of gathering Churches or Congregations as the Modern phrase is that is of siding into Factions and Parties and of disturbing the publique peace and quiet upon religious pretences and then let him tell me whether it were safe after all this to intrust every private person to transcribe the Law or Prophets or to point it for himself that is in effect to make all the alterations in Religion which either ignorance carelesness or design can introduce nay whether it would not have been impossible in so great variety of reading and interpretation as this would have unavoidably occasioned but
the Books of Moses that is to say the Origine of all things in the first Chapter of Genesis the distinction of foods or abstinence from unclean things in the History of the Flood and afterwards in the Body of the Law it self and lastly the rites and ceremonies of lustration which are no where more nicely adjusted than in the Levitical Law And if in these particulars he be not in every thing conformable to the platform of Moses yet this is no argument that he had no knowledge of that Law or of the Religion and Manners of the Jews but only that it was Traditionary confused and obscure besides that there are two other causes which might and did probably conspire to make a variation as to particular instances though the Genius and Spirit of the Pythagorean Philosophy were much the same with that of the Mosaique Law First out of a particular affectation to be the founder of a Sect and to be thought as well by himself as others to have been the inventor of a new Doctrine and the introducer of a new Philosophical institution into the World Secondly He did not only converse with the Jews but with all other Eastern Nations and so his Philosophy was probably little more than a Medley of the Hieroglyphique and Symbolique Mysteries of divers nations as all the Philosophy and Religion of the East was wrapped up in Symbols jumbled into a Philosophical Oglio together It was much such another thing in Philosophy as the Phoenician History of Sanchuniathon was for an account of time where there are many very plain and undoubted strictures of true and genuine antiquity jumbled together without any regard either to truth or shame though I do not say the composition of Pythagoras was equally frivolous and indiscreet with the Heathen Mythology of all the barbarous Nations and fabulous times But after all though the converse of Pythagoras in Babylon be at the same time an argument of his acquaintance with the Jews yet it may well enough be that that knowledge which he is said to have received from Zabratus may be only a Transcript out of the sacred Volumes in the Temple of an Idol such as that which by the Midianites and Amalekites in the book of Judges was called Bahal Berith for as Bahal though it be for the most part applyed to the signification of an Idol may yet notwithstanding in its genuine and first acceptation denote and signifie the true God so may Jah also which is the proper and incommunicable name of the true God who is only self-existent and is what he is from himself be apply'd not improperly by the Heathens themselves to the most contemptible and silly Idol in the world because let it be what it will in it self it is looked upon by them that worship it under the notion of a true and proper Deity and that it was actually apply'd to the Idols of the Heathen I shall immediately make appear and and if I do it will then I hope be granted for another reason besides what hath been already urged that this incommunicable name of God which is every whit as sacred as the Tetragrammaton and consequently that also was not so great a secret among the neighbour Nations as the superstition of the later Jews would make it So then Zabratus though it may most properly and fitly be understood of the true God yet nothing hinders but a false one may also be signified by it and at that rate it will be the same with Baal Berith whom Philo Byblius the Translator of Sanchuniathon calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the King of Berith or of the Berytians and whom he confounds very unskilfully with Abibalus which was the name of the true God and was I make little or no question the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the words of Philo in Eusebius are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. In which words when I consider what a strange Miscellany that History of Sanchuniathon was and as it seems a designed imposition upon the credulity of after-ages I cannot but believe that this Abibalus whose name does so exactly hit to the pat and proper signification of the true God was one of those names by which he was used to be called For what is Abibalus but El Abib that is Deus spicarum as he was called from changing the beginning of the Jewish year to the month of Abib from Tisri of which so much hath been already spoken And that which confirms me very much in this conjecture is one of these four things which follow and much more all of them together First Eusebius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which if you understand of a dedication such as hath been usual to great persons in the more civilized and learned times I doubt it will be hard to find any instance of such a dedication at a time when letters themselves were scarce known in the world and without being able to produce an instance it is very absurd and ridiculous to suppose it you may suppose any thing else though never so extravagant with equal reason But if you will understand it so as that the Monuments of Sanchuniathon were lay'd up in the Temple of Abibalus which is the most proper sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek then let the thing it self be true or false here is a kind of a confused and obscure acknowledgment that Abibalus was the name of a God which since he cannot be the same with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether you understand by those words the King of the Berytians who was a mortal man or the Idol of Baal Berith to which the Etymon of Abibalus will not so well suit as to the true God here is one though a faint and obscure indication that Abibalus was the name of the true God Secondly We meet with other compositions exactly of the same form and analogy with this in the Monuments of the Eastern Antiquity For as the God of the Hebrews for the reason above mentioned was by the Phoenicians or by the men of Berith called Abibalus so by the Aegyptians Neptune was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from El and Mos which signifies water exactly by the same Analogy with the other as Tztzes hath recorded which is a new argument against Scaliger in his Controversie with Philo Judaeus which is likewise backed by the testimony of Josephus who saith that among the Aegyptians Mos or Moy hath the signification of water Thirdly It matters not though this name be no where found in Scripture for the Phoenicians called even those things and persons for whose knowledge they were indebted either to the Scripture it self or to a Tradition derived from it by names of a very different sound from those by which they were called in the books of Moses themselves though by their signification as in this instance of Abibalus they did sufficiently discover from whence they came