humiliations are so far from taking away the belief of his Divinity that they enforce and support it Let them be proposed to any man of sense and he will conclude 1st That his humiliations can bring no alteration to his Divinity God being wholly immutable and incapable of decay to what state soever he is pleased to descend Periculum status sui Deo nullum est Tertul. de carn Christ 2ly That if he took upon him the vile and despicable form of a man 't was because he would have it so He could have come invested with all the majesty expected from the Son of God His resurrection his ascension his fitting at the right hand of his Father are mysteries as full of Glory as the others are of shame He is instated by them in that splendid appearance the Irreligious and Jews would have him in at the beginning So that his humiliations cannot be attributed to any want of power Nor dares the Irreligious deny these glorious Mysteries unless he resolves to yield up those he looks upon as so shameful Knowing nothing of either of those but from the relation of the Evangelists he must equally receive or reject the whole matter of fact 3ly That he did it because he would do it and that he would do it because he loved us He loved man in his miseries and infirmities and who can turn into a crime so stupendious so miraculous a charity Tert ull ib. 4ly That nothing is really low or shameful but what bears the character of sin The Greatness of God shines in the number order and motion of the Heavens Nor does he fall from his Majesty when he applies his power to the formation of the vilest insects His providence maintains them His immensity renders him present in the horridest places Nor did yet any man think all these things a shame and a reproach to him Yet almighty God is as really in them after his manner as Christ in his mysteries of Humiliation CHAP. II. Christian Religion obliges us to believe impossibilities and things beyond the reach of nature Answer THat nothing is to be believed but what is seen is ridiculous in the very doctrine of Irreligion whose abetters believe many things they never saw Who of them denies Antipodes though they never were there Who of them refuses the testimony of facts related by prophane Historians because they never saw the like Who of them disbelieves many things he has been told because some of them proved false and makes his private opinion the rule of what is credible and possible But it is demonstrable the Irreligious can deny none of those miracles which are obvious in the Scripture There are but two wayes of disproving miracles First shewing their impossibility Secondly Their want of Authority It is altogether out of their power to prove the first A miracle is either impossible as being beyond the force of nature If he thinks them impossible in that sense so far we agree Or it is impossible to God and this he cannot assert according to his own principles Or impossible in it self and this cannot be made out but by demonstrating a real certain evident contradiction in them And if we consider things in themselves what impossibility is there that a soul and body which were united a little before should join again and be in the same state they were before their separation if there is a power capable of uniting them What contradiction is there that a blind man should receive his sight a dumb man his speech a Paralytick his limbs Nature doing it often with time and remedies why cannot a superiour power do it in a moment For the second viz. Want of authority no Irreligious sure will charge them with Besides the integrity of them that transmitted them to us Besides their principle that no lye was lawful but that a lye in matter of Religion was detestable they say nothing but what they have been eye-witnesses of Some of those miracles have been believed for three thousand years and preserved by a people that has built their Religion upon them The rest have been believed sixteen hundred years since and contributed to the conversion of all the nations of the Earth Their Preachers sealed them with their blood wrought the same if not greater and induced by them an infinite number of people of all Ages and Conditions to dye for the truth of the Gospel 'T is matter of fact that before Christian Religion was brought into the world all Nations the Jews excepted were Idolaters It is another matter of fact that those Idolaters changed Religion and from Infidels became Christians And what greater proof than this can be required for the authority of miracles how could such a sudden alteration be seen in the world without an infinite number of wonders which backt and supported the Gospel Were so many millions of men meer children whose mind was altered at first sight Were they so stupid and simple as to receive any new Doctrine without discernment and upon trust Is not the History full of the strange excesses Nations ran to to defend those errors the Disciples of Christ would remove from them Could they be overcome after so long so stout a resistance by any other force than that of miracles Do not the violent and lasting persecutions of the Primitive Church evince that they were of a Religion contrary to ours How could twelve Fishermen agree upon so strange a resolution as that of delivering lyes to all the world and be so obstinate as no torments could perswade them to desist from their foolish undertaking How could so many Nations assent to lies which procured nothing to their defenders but death and sufferings How could they venture their lives to maintain and transmit them to us by a constant and uninterrupted tradition Certainly one should convince us first that all those Nations were naturally mad and apt to prefer a severe law which extends its empire to the very desires of the heart and has for its Promulgators men unknown and persecuted every where to their first Religion which put no limits to their cupidity And before any body should embrace Irreligion the Irreligious is concerned to prove by solid arguments that those changes are naturally possible and the more because they are so particular to Christianity as to be found no-where else CHAP. III. The incomprehensibility of things Christian Religion obliges us to believe answered The injustice and absurdity of that reproach THe Irreligious complains many points are proposed to his belief which it is impossible for him to understand as if nothing was to be believed but what falls under his senses Which reproach may be reduced to these two Propositions That nothing is to be believed but what may be comprehended and that things are not when they are incomprehensible Then which two propositions nothing can be imagined more impertinent Besides that thereby a weak frail blind man makes his private understanding the
as younger Brothers The Egyptians and the Ethiopians claimed that honour and declared that they came immediately from the womb of the earth And the Athenians took the proud title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Chaldaeans and Egyptians carried their Dispute to the very height The first as refer Diodorus and Tully who laugh at both said that when Alexander the Great over-run Asia they had already applied themselves to the study of the Stars just four hundred seventy thousand years And not reckoning their years by the reign of their Kings but divers periods some of six thousand others of six hundred the least of sixty years they made up their account The Egyptians wanted no number to outvie them They found in their Archives that since they had the name of Egyptians the Stars had already compleated four times their great revolution that is returned to the same state where they were when they began to move which includes an incredible number of years Being as proud of Astrology as the Caldaeans they boasted to have kept the Ephemerides of an infinite number of years and the lives of their Kings all that time An Author of theirs relates three branches of them One of Gods the other of Heroes the third of men who reigned an infinite number of ages Nay they were so thirsty of antiquity as to say that Vulcan their first King reigned innumerable ages But the Annals of his reign were lost The Sun succeeded to him as being his Son and reigned six hundred thousand six hundred seventy four years May it not be askt whether the brain of them that made such reckoning or of them that believed them was well settled and yet this is the ground of the belief of the Irreligious Those Dreams are all the shelter they can find if they go to prove the authority of the world by way of authority They agree therefore with Christians in that they believe incomprehensible things But with this difference that we believe only upon the authority of God who has revealed them We are perswaded that his power goes farther than our apprehension And that he includes within and works without himself greater wonders than we are able to conceive And as it is alwaies rational to trust him who is infinitely wise so reason it self forces us to believe things beyond reason This impotency of conceiving the works of God is the only thing can make us happy What sort of God is this that can be included in the narrow minds of men Certainly an object of this nature is a slender ground of felicity And our hopes being inseparable from our faith his incomprehensibility is the greatest comfort of our souls This Irreligious will admit of nothing but what his senses or his experience make plain to him When therefore they believe any thing they neither see nor apprehend their belief is not grounded upon the certainty or evidence but the interest they have in things It is not the object that determines and fixes their belief but their heart and inclinarions They believe that such a thing is after such a manner because they know it and are satisfied but because they would have it so Nay they carry so far that abuse of their reason that when they cannot avoid to believe things morally incredible they had rather believe them incredible by their gross absurdity than any divine grandure that lies in them These are the miserable shifts of the Irreligious But if they could stay there and feed themselves with the imaginations of their hearts without any danger we had nothing to say to them All wise men would only think them out of their wits and so far 't is well 't is no worse But to believe impertinencies and Chimera's with that danger that if they mistake they shall fall into an eternal state of misery 't is a fury a passion an extravagancy that wants a name and can scarce be imagined CHAP. V. Abuse the Irreligious makes against the Immortality of the soul of the conformity between man and beast IT is not intended here to prove the immortality of the soul but only to shew how false and inconsistent are the principles of Irreligion There is a vast conformity between man and beast in their senses in the multiplication of their kinds their self-preservation their passions their distempers their death c. From the mortality of the souls of beasts the Irreligious concludes that of the soul of man and thinks in that to judge according to the natural impression that form in his mind so many qualities which being common to both make a sort of prejuge against man To evince how false is that ratiocination it may suffice to prove that it is no less against than for him He concludes from that conformity that as these of beasts so our souls die Why not that theirs are immortal as well as ours The conformity being equal to both sides it must not be more partial to one than to the other According to all appearances saies the Irreligious Man Beast are altogether alike in the necessity of dying and in all the consequences of death But the whole beast dies body and soul therefore the whole man dies so also But the very self same argument may be thus as probably inverted Beasts and man are are alike in their death But man dies in his body and not in his soul therefore Beasts do so too and their souls are immortal Either of these conclusions must be equal to the Irreligious since professing to believe but what he knowes he knowes and can know the mortality of the souls of Beasts no better than their immortality But Christians saies he acknowledge the whole Beast dies Which answer is the more absurd because he must not argue from what we believe but only from what falls under his senses and experience and what he must thence rationally conclude But he sees only in a Beast the death of the body His eyes can go no further and concludes from that internal equality any thing for their soul Or leaving the answer in its full latitude 't is in vain he makes use of our authority concerning the destruction of the souls of beasts since we do it by reasons which establish the immortality of ours But supposing with them and all the world besides the mortality of the souls of Beasts all that can be concluded from their conformity with man can only fall upon that wherein they are alike There is in man that which is rational and that which is animal Man is born preserves himself by nourishment and his kind by generation He is subject to the distempers of his body the passions of his heart the disorders of the Elements and the necessity of dying All this is common to him and the smallest Beasts Nay many of them out-do him in the perfection of his senses Their light is more piercing their hearing quicker their smelling more refined But all this is still animal All
consideration whether he that far from swiming in wantonness has scarce time to live had rather give over the hopes of eternal happiness than to deprive himself of those sinful joyes he never did and never shall possess And for them that lie under sickness let any wise man judge whether he that has lost the strength both of his body and mind and entertains no other commerce with men but that which tends to his recovery is to prefer that little he has left him to the probable hopes of an endless felicity But why is the question confined to three or four sorts of men Let that choice be offered to all Trades-men Plowmen Merchants Souldiers Seamen c. Sure there is none so stupid as to prefer the hardships of their lives to that eternity of happiness Christian Religion induces us to hope Irreligion therefore cannot be the Religion of those men It can admit none for its Votaries but young rich robust people abundantly provided with all the ease plenty and pleasure this life can afford No other condition is fit for it Nay they must be secure of persevering in the shining flourishing state they are For should any revolution spoile them of their Estates any sickness enfeeble their bodies or if they live to old age their very choice which they look'd upon before as rational will appear to them foolish and extravagant Nay they will not stay so long Half a day is more than sufficient to pull down the magnificent engine of their opinions That which was true in the morning whilst they had their health will be false deceitful erroneous ridicule in the evening if they are wounded or dangerously sick And though they seem then unwilling to alter their mind eitherout of obstinacy or shame yet they cannot persevere in it without proclaiming themselves fools There remaining to them only some moments of life deprived of all pleasure and attended with torments 't were ridicule beyond what can be imagined to prefer them how present and certain soever to the hopes of eternity how doubtful and distant soever it appears If then Religion is to be preferred to Irreligion when poverty sickness or old age full upon us Is Irreligion to be preferred to Religion when Youth Ease Plenty and Health leave nothing to our desires to lust after Is not truth the same in our young as in our old dayes Is there a Religion for the Rich and another for the Poor Certainly the truth of those things and much more that of God depends not upon the alterations of our lives It is still the same notwithstanding the different dispositions or opinions we are in Nor can Irreligion shelter it self in that vast number of Christians who by falling into sin fer no less than they the enjoyment of transitory things to the promises of the Gospel Though it may be confest with grief that all that has been said against the irreligious may in some sense be applied to them yet there is an infinite difference between them When Christians fix their heart on transitory things they do it not in consequence of their belief They acknowledge that they act contrary to their Principles They accuse and condemn themselves If they sin therefore 't is not out of any Irreligious principle which perswades them to prefer the present to the future and what they enjoy to what they hope In their very sins they believe still the words of Christ and trust his Promises But the corruption of their Nature oversways in them the Dictates of their Faith An incomprehensible weakness the first sin left on them renders them more eager after present things though nothing comparable to the absent They are carried away through a violent passion which conceals the horror of sin from the eyes of their souls or trusts too much upon God's mercy What can hence the Irreligious conclude unless it were this that humane nature is depraved and men act against their own principles which shall be easily granted But considering this maxim in it self and independently from the dispositions of particular men does any thing evince more palpably that it is false than the ordinary course of the world There is no man but leaves a thousand times in his life the certain for the uncertain A merchant ventures his mony which is certain against a very uncertain gain A Conqueror ventures that peace he enjoyes at home against a very doubtful success A Plowman a Souldier a Pilot venture what they have against probable hopes of getting more Nay upon this Maxim Of leaving the certain for the uncertain turns all the commerce of mankind since they disturb their quiet which is the thing they are most secure of to come to what they pretend which is full of uncertainty CHAP. VII The true Notion of this Maxim of St. Austin Tene certum Dimitte incertum FRom all that has been said it is easie to conclude the falshood of that maxim that the certain is to be preferred to the uncertain Now to judge how far it may be true we need consider but this that when we are irresolute 't is alwaies either upon the ends we propose our selves or the means to attain them From whence these three Propositions fall naturally 1st When we are agreed upon the end and only doubt which means are surest to attain it 't is the greatest madness in the world to leave the certain for the uncertain to part from a way which leads infallibly to Heaven and engage in another which perhaps may end in Hell And this Principle proclaims the madness of the new Doctrine of Probability that Monster brought up by the Jesuits for the total extinction of the small remains of Christianity in the world For since all Christians agree upon the end they aspire to and which is more upon the means Christ has givenus in the Gospel what is there more void of sense than to leave them for by-wayes unknown and untrodden paths 2ly When the end is not agreed upon and that our mind is at a loss upon which to fasten it self it is to be examined whether those ends are equally advantagious to us as whether the gain exceeds considerably the venture and then the certain is infallibly to be preferred to the uncertain 'T were indeed an inconceivable madness to venture an advantage quietly possest against another of equal worth but uncertain All the reward of your labour if you succeed is to be in the same state that you were in before and if you miss to lose both what you possess and what you hope This is the case of the Duellists who venture their lives that they may get a name They lose their life which is the greatest of natural goods to win an imaginary glory which becomes after their death a real infamy to all subsequent ages 3ly If the end we pretend to are odds and the good we hope considerably greater than that we possess already the first though uncertain is to be preferred
those resemblances exaggerated with the greatest care extend not to the rational which is his grand difference And so all that can be inferred hence is that he dies in all that is beastly in him in his body in his sensitive life in all the faculties and operations that depend from corporeal Organs But what is all this to the destruction of his soul which depends upon those Organs neither in his being nor his operations Who can hear without indignation this manner of arguing Man is like beast in that which is common to both Therefore in all that is peculiar to him Beasts die in their bodies in that sensitive life which constitute the beast so does man therefore he dies in that rational intellectual life which is proper to him Man dies in his body therefore in his soul The Sun shines not when it is Ecclipsed therefore he shines not at all CHAP. VI. Conformity between Man and Beast THe conformity between man and beast is threefold the first natural and necessary the second shameful the third laborious The first is the consequence of an animal life Man and beast agree in eating drinking sleeping c. And although this state be imperfect as supposing many wants yet there is neither shame nor pain for man He does in that nothing against his reason which is one part of his nature and it is agreeable to the body which is the other This conformity is inseparable from man in this world Nor is the state of innocence it self free from it The second is the consequence and punishment of sin It consists in the reign of our passions over us the disorders of body and senses which rebell against the law of the mind and in all the share lust claims in the propagation of nature This state is natural to beasts and shameful to man because he is a stranger to it 'T is a shame for him that passions should command when reason must give laws that he should not master his own senses that he should covet what is not his own and love what he is convinced he should not nay sometimes that which he would not love Man is naturally no less stranger to the third than to the second So many labours incident to his life so many sufferings and distempers that end but with him cannot naturally fall upon an innocent creature He must have been guilty to be afflicted Nor can the Irreligious instance the sufferings of beasts who are innocent after their manner Why must man the most excellent creature upon earth who was to command beasts be twice more miserable than they First in the multitude and diversity of his pains which come from the infimite number of his wants Secondly The quicker and more galling sentiments of his pains Beasts are afflicted with no evil but the present Man fears besides and foresees the future He who is condemned to die dies a thousand times before his execution He feels infamy which outvies any grief And by the help of memory is galled at the privation of a state the happiness whereof he knowes most exactly and desires most earnestly Beasts are incapable of any of those pains and nothing but a cause stranger to mans nature such as is sin could have subjected him to them Sin alone could let into the world wars distempers and death And God could not punish the pride of man with greater justice than to make him so like beasts in sensible things as they seem even to obscure the immortality of his nature CHAP. VII The difference between Man and Beast THe chief difference between Man and Beast is reason which comprehends memory of things that are past and foresight of those that are to come Hence arises speech which is not only proper to man but a general means to communicate thoughts covering them with such sounds that men applied their notions to Speech is divided into all sorts of Languages nor is there any Nation but makes use of it to keep up civil society Hence arise also Sciences Arts Commerce Societies and Kingdoms The second is liberty an indifference of doing and not doing what he pleases Whereas beasts are determined in all their actions by a predominant instinct they cannot resist Hence arise Laws to secure private men and promote publick interest which are grounded only upon liberty there being no room for them in a nature determined to the same thing Hence also arise vertues which result from the good use of liberty and obedience to the Laws Nay man is discernable by his vices The love of Glory and the desire of Commanding distinguishes us from beasts though our condition be not a jot the better for it since all desires not overswayed by reason render us more miserable and misery is never an argument to raise our selves above any other Now the question is whether besides so many palpable differences there is not yet some other invisible that distinguishes man in his duration August 1st To consider the thing it self it is already very possible that amongst so many external differences there is some internal unknown to us There is great probability that souls so contrary in all things are so too in their duration and in their essence How could man do things so far beyond the reach and capacity of beasts were not his nature nobler and perfecter than theirs This supposition is very probable 2ly If we survey attentively all the advantages of man above beasts they do all imply a natural tendency to immortality The nature of the soul is spiritual This appears from her thoughts which represent to her spiritual objects and from general ideas from private images of things But if the being of the soul be spiritual it is also immortal Since a being totally independent from matter is subject to no alteration 3ly If we examine reason which is the character of the soul it is bound within no compass of time By the help of memory and foresight nothing is future or past to man Memory recalls precedent ages foresight sets before our eyes events that are to come Reason enacts laws to order matters of men if 't were possible for ever Books shall teach posterity as long as men live Dying people intend by their last will to dispose to all future ages of the goods that are in their power There is no man but desires eternal life and happiness None but fears infamy after his death Nay those very men wish for immortality who desire their souls to be immortal Are not these prejudices strong enough to move any man We have a clear notion of immortality Our mind foresees our heart wishes for every body aspires to it It is therefore at least to be concluded in the number of possible things And the contrary opinion cannot be received unless it brings along with it an evidence equal to that of having seen a soul annihilated which never happened and never shall Our eyes saies the Irreligious are not witnesses of the