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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42238	The truth of Christian religion in six books / written in Latine by Hugo Grotius ; and now translated into English, with the addition of a seventh book, by Symon Patrick ...; De veritate religionis Christianae. English	Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645.; Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1680 (1680)	Wing G2128; ESTC R7722	132,577	348

and piety And that they might confirm this to be their sense of the Divinity they bid the Jesuites observe one part of the Altar in their Temple to be void of Images and to be hid in an obscure and dark place which they said was the proper seat of the most high God the Maker of Heaven and Earth who could not be represented in any form and shape and that the Images which stood about that place were the representations of their Intercessors with Him who having great power with the most high God did obtain many gifts and blessings for those that invocated them How this differs from the notions of the Roman Church I do not see unless it be in this that they have sometimes adventured to represent God himself in a shape Otherwise the worship is the very same the dead Men who are the objects of it only changed and may very well justifie us if we say and therein we speak very moderately that their worship is an Image at least of the ancient Idolatry And moves them to make the resemblance more perfect unto the very same rage and violence which was in the Pagans against all those that differ from them and cannot consent to worship God in that way prosecuting them with all manner of cruelty as if they were utter enemies of God and of all Religion By which we may certainly know that they are so far from being the only true Christians that they are a very degenerate part of Christs Church wanting that great mark of his faithful Disciples to love one another even as Christ loved us To which they are such strangers that quite contrary they not only hate and persecute but endeavour as I said to root out those from the face of the Earth who obediently believe all that they can find our Lord and his Apostles have delivered and profess they are ready with all their hearts to receive and do whatsoever any body can further teach them to be his mind Nay are very desirous and diligent to know it sparing no pains to understand the whole Truth as it is in Christ Jesus SECT XV. Answer to what they say about Miracles THEY pretend indeed abundance of Miracles wrought in their Church as a sufficient condemnation of those who obstinately refuse to invocate Saints to worship their Images and the consecrated Hoste to believe Purgatory and all other things for the proof of which these wonders are alledged But herein also they imitate the Pagans who were guilty of the like deceit and the same answer will serve here which Grotius gives there L. iv Sect. 8. in his confutation of the old Idolatry For First the wisest Men among them have rejected many of these Miracles as not supported by the testimony of any credible witnesses nay as plain fictions Others also of them which are pretended to be of better credit hapned in some private place in the night before one or two Persons whose eyes crafty Priests as he speaks might easily delude with false shows and counterfeit appearances of things And further there are others which only raise admiration among People ignorant of the nature of things and are no true miracles I deny not but there may have things been done among them which no humane power could effect by the strength of natural causes and yet no Divine that is omnipotent Power be needful to their production For those Spirits which are interposed between God and Man are able by their nimbleness cunning activity and strength to make such strange application of things very distant one to another as shall astonish the Spectators with wonderful effects But there is too great reason to think they are not good Spirits that do these feats because they revive hereby the ancient superstition or uphold the Image of it still in the Christian World to the great dishonour of our Saviour and the indangering the Souls of his People Who have been so far misled as not only to fancy great Virtue in the Images of the Saints and to cry up also some Images particularly of our Lady of Loretto for instance as indued with some singular power and vertue which is not to be found in others but to honour them so highly as for one Miracle said to be done by a Crucifix to report a hundred to be wrought at such or such a Shrine of hers It is very considerable also to omit the rest which he notes in the V. Book out of the Law of Moses that it supposes God might permit some wonders to be done only for their trial whether the People would persist in the worship of the true God which had been confirmed by undoubted and far greater and more numerous Miracles Read Deuteron xiii 1 2 3 c. This is excellently expressed and with advantage by a great Man of our own in these words or to this effect The Doctrine which we believe that is the Bible hath been confirmed as is confessed on all sides by innumerable supernatural and truly Divine Miracles and consequently the Doctrine of the Roman Church which in many points is plainly opposite to the Bible is condemned by them I mean the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles And therefore if any strange things have been done in that Church they prove nothing but the truth of Scripture which foretold that God's Providence permitting it and the wickedness of the World deserving it strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false doctrine that they which love not the Truth might be given over to strong delusions So that now we have reason rather to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false Doctrine than much to regard them as certain arguments of Truth Neither is it strange that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude those who have forged so many wonders to deceive the World SECT XVI Answer to another Objection BUT it is not likely they say that Religion should be thus depraved in the Roman Church because their Ancestors were Men of greater vertue and honesty than to suffer the least alteration Which is the very thing that is alledged by the Jews why they should not believe our Saviour was unjustly condemned and his Religion rejected by their Priests and Elders as Grotius observes in the Vth. Book Out of which I might produce several things as I have done out of the foregoing to prove the vanity of the Romish Traditions as well as of the Jewish and show also how they have brought back Judaism in a great measure by the vast burden of Rites and Ceremonies wherewith they have incumbered Christian Religion But I shall wave all this because I would make this Book as short as the rest and only observe in answer to what was now pretended that whosoever shall consider as he speaks of the Ancestors of the Jews what kind of Men for several Ages sate in the Chair of Rome and how ignorant the People generally were he

found or have anciently been found consenting with the Books of the Hebrews touching Joshua and others seeing that whosoever gives credit unto Moses which to do no Man can without great impudency refuse the same must needs confess that there were indeed wonderful Miracles anciently wrought by God which is the thing we here chiefly go about to declare As for the Miracles of after Ages suppose of Elijah and Elisha and others there is the less reason to think them counterfeit because in those times Judaea was both more known than formerly and upon the account of diversity of Religion was extreamly hated by their Neighbours Who might have very easily blasted the fame of such Miracles if they had been lies as soon as it began to be spred abroad The History of Jonah who lay three days in the Whale's belly is to be read in Lycophron and Aeneas Hazous save only that in stead of Jonah they have put the name of Hercules whom they so much honoured that to make him appear the more illustrious they were wont as Tacitus and Servius and others have noted to report of him whatsoever magnificent things they heard of in any other places Certain it is that Julian who was an enemy of the Jews as much as of Christians was forced by the evidence of History to confess that such Men lived amongst the Jews as were inspired with the holy Spirit of God and that Fire descended from Heaven upon the Sacrifices of Moses and Elias And verily 't is well worth our observation that amongst the Hebrews there were not only grievous punishments appointed for such Men as did falsly assume to themselves the Prophetical Function but also many Kings and great Men that might have by that means purchased authority to themselves and likewise very many learned Men as was Esdras and others that never durst arrogate to themselves this dignity nor any Man else for divers Ages before the times of Jesus SECT XVI The same is proved by the Oracle and Predictions BUT more unlikely it is that so many Thousand People should be imposed upon in the avouching of a perpetual and publick Prodigy as we may call it to wit the holy Oracle which after a resplendent manner shined from the brest-plate of the High-Priest The truth whereof was so strongly believed by all the Jews to have continued until the destruction of the first Temple that out of all doubt their Ancestors had certain knowledge concerning the same Like to this from miracles there is another argument as forcible and effectual to prove GOD's providence taken from those predictions of future events which among the Hebrews were many and manifest Such was that prophecy of his being made Childless who should attempt to re-edifie Jericho and that of the overthrow of the Temple at Bethel by a King named Josiah foretold above Three Hundred Years before the thing came to pass So likewise the very name and chief acts of Cyrus foretold by Esaiah the event of Hierusalems siege by the Chaldeans foreshown by Jeremiah So also Daniel's prediction touching the translation of the Empire of the Assyrians unto the Medes and Persians then from them unto Alexander of Macedon whose Empire should afterward in part be divided among the Successors of Ptolomy and Seleucus And what evils also the Hebrew Nation should suffer from all these but especially from Antiochus Epiphanes which were so clearly foretold that Porphyry who compared with these Predictions such Grecian Histories as were extant in his time could no otherwise tell how to shift them off than by saying that those things which were fathered upon Daniel were written after such time as they came to pass which is all one as if one should deny that that was written in the time of Augustus which hath been published in Virgil's name and was always reputed for Virgil's work For there was never any more scruple made of the former amongst the Hebrews than of this latter amongst the Romans To these things we may add very many and most famous Oracles among the People of Mexico and Peru which foretold the coming of the Spaniards into those Countreys and the calamities which should thereupon follow And hither also may be referred not a few dreams so exactly agreeing with the events which both in themselves and in their causes were wholly unknown to them that dreamed that they cannot without great immodesty be referred to chance or to natural causes of which kind Tertullian in his Book Of the Soul hath collected illustrious examples out of the most approved Authors Spectres also or apparitions belong to this head which have been not only seen but heard to speak as those Historians relate who are the farthest from superstitious credulity and is reported by Witnesses of our own Age who have lived in China and in Mexico and other parts of America Nor are publick trials of innocence by touching of red hot Plow-shares to be despised which the Histories of so many German Nations and the Laws themselves have remembred SECT XVII The Objection is answered why Miracles are not now to be seen NEITHER is there any reason to object against such Miracles because there are not the like to be seen in these days neither the like predictions heard of For 't is a sufficient proof of Divine providence that such things did come to pass at any time which being once granted it will follow that God may be believed with as much providence and wisdom now to cause them to surcease as anciently he used the same Neither stands it with reason that those Laws which were given to the Universe concerning the natural course of things and uncertainty of future events should be lightly or always transgressed but only at such a time when either there was a just cause as when the worship of the true God was almost banished out of the World residing only in a little part thereof to wit in Judaea where it necessarily was to be as it were fortified with new aids against the impieties wherewith it was compassed about or when Christian Religion whereof by and by we shall speak more particularly was first by God's decree to be published thorowout the whole World SECT XVIII And that now there is such liberty in offending THERE are those who are wont to doubt of the Divine Providence because they see so much wickedness hath like a Deluge overspread the face of the whole Earth which Divine Providence they contend if there were any would have made its chiefest business to restrain and suppress But this is easily answered considering that when God had created Man with freedom to do good and evil reserving absolute and immutable goodness to himself it had not been reasonable to have put such a stop to evil actions as should have been contrary to that liberty Howbeit to keep Men from sin God useth every kind of means which is not repugnant to the liberty aforesaid Such is the ordaining and publishing of the

and Apparel we ought to content our selves with so much as will suffice nature and the like Or if happily there be some points in Christianity hard to be believed yet the like also is found amongst the wisest of the Heathen themselves as before we have shewn concerning the immortality of Souls and of the Resurrection of Bodies Thus Plato as he learned from the Chaldeans distinguished the Divine nature into the Father and the mind of the Father which he calls also the branch of God the Maker of the World and the Soul or Spirit which keeps together and preserveth all things Julian as great an enemy as he was of Christians thought that the Divine Nature might be joyned to the humane and gave instance in Aesculapius whom he imagined to have descended from Heaven to the end he might teach Men the Art of Physick The Cross of Christ offendeth many But what do not the Pagan Writers tell of their Gods that some of them waited upon Kings and Princes others were Thunder-struck others cut in sunder And the wisest of them say that the more it costs us to be honest the more joy and delight it affords us To conclude Plato in the second Book of his Common-wealth as if he had been a Prophet saith for a Man to appear truly just and upright it is requisite that his vertue be bereaved of all outward ornaments so that he be by others accounted a wicked wretch and scoffed at and last of all hanged And indeed that Christ might be the Pattern of greatest Patience could no otherwise be obtained The Fifth Book OF THE TRUTH OF Christian Religion SECT I. A refutation of the Jews beginning with a speech unto them or prayer for them JUST like that glimmering between light and darkness which appears to those who by little and little are endeavouring to get out of a dark Cave or Dungeon such doth Judaism present it self to us who are stepping out of the thick mist of Paganism of which we have been discoursing as a part and beginning of Truth I request the Jews therefore not to be averse to hear us We are not ignorant that they are the off-spring of holy Men whom God was wont to visit both by his Prophets and by his Angels Of this Nation sprang our Messias and the first Doctors of Christianity It is their Tree whereinto we are ingraffed they are the keepers of God's Oracles which we do reverence as much as they and with St. Paul sigh unto God for them and pray that the day may quickly come when the Vail being taken away which hangs over their Faces they with us shall see the fulfilling of the Law And when as it is in their Prophecies every one of us that are strangers shall lay hold on the Cloak of him that is an Hebrew desiring that we may together with a pious consent worship the only true God who is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. SECT II. The Jews ought to account the Miracles of Christ sufficiently proved FIRST of all then we must intreat them not to think that to be unjust in another Man's case which they judge to be just and equitable in their own If any Pagan demand of them why they believe that Miracles were wrought by Moses they can give no other answer save that there was always so constant a report thereof among their Nation that it could not but proceed from the testimony of such as had seen the same Thus that the Widows Oyl was increased by Elisha that Naaman the Syrian was suddenly cured of the Leprosie that the Womans Son in whose House he lodged was restored to life and other such like are believed by the Jews for no other reason than because witnesses of good credit have recorded to posterity that such things were done And they believe Elias his taking up into heaven only for the single testimony of Elisha as a Man beyond all exception But we produce twelve witnesses of unblameable life to testifie that Christ ascended up into Heaven And many more that saw him upon the Earth after his death Which things if they be true then necessarily Christs doctrine is true also and indeed nothing at all can be alledged by the Jews for themselves which by equal right or more just title may not be applyed to us also But to omit further testimonies it is the confession of the Authors of the Talmud and other Jews themselves that strange wonders were wrought by Christ which ought to suffice for this particular For God cannot any way more effectually gain authority unto a doctrine published by Man than by the working of miracles SECT III. And not believe that they were done by the help of Devils THESE Miracles of Christ some said were done by the help of Devils But this calumny hath been confuted before when we shewed that wheresoever the doctrine of Christ was taught and known there all power of the Devils was broken in pieces Others reply that Jesus learned Magick arts in Egypt but this slander hath no more nay not so much colour of truth than the like accusation by the Pagans framed against Moses whereof we read in Pliny and Apuleius For that ever Jesus was in Egypt doth not appear save only out of the Writings of his Disciples who add further that he was an Infant when he returned thence But it is certain by his own and others report that Moses lived a great part of his time after he was grown to Mans estate in Aegypt Howbeit the Law as well of Moses as of Christ frees them both from this crime plainly forbidding such arts as abominable in the sight of God And without all question if in the time of Christ and his Disciples there had been either in Egypt or any where else any such Magical art whereby Men might have been enabled to do the like marvels as are related of Christ to wit giving speech to the Dumb on a suddain making the Lame to walk and the Blind to see then would Tyberius Nero and other Emperors have found it out who spared no costs and charges in the inquiry after such like things Nay if it were true which the Jews relate how that the Senators of the great Council were skill'd in Magick arts that they might convince them that were guilty of that iniquity then surely they being so mightily incensed against Jesus as they were and envying the honour and respect which he obtained chiefly by his miracles would either themselves have done the like works by the same art or by sufficient reasons would have made it appear that the works of Christ proceeded from no other cause SECT IV. Or by the Power of Words and Syllables MOreover that is not only a meer fable but impudent lye which some of the Jews have invented concerning the Miracles done by Christ which they ascribe to a certain secret name which as they say being placed in the Temple by Solomon was preserved safe by two Lions