Taurican Chersonesus who sacrificed all the Strangers they could lay hands on to Diana quoting for this Enripedes That pair-royal of Friends Pylades and Orestes had died no other death if they had slain their Keepers and stolen away the Goddess Lucian Toxaris The next whom Clemens instanceth in are the Thessalians among whom the Inhabitants of Pella sacrifice an Achaean to Releus and Chiron for which he quotes Maninius in his Collection of Wonders The Cretensians among whom the Lycians sacrifice men to Jupiter for this he quotes Anticlides in reditibus The Lesbians who as Dosidas saith pacified Bacchus with humane Hostes. The Phocensians whom Pythocles in his third Book de Concordia affirms to have sacrificed Men to Diana Taurica The Athenians among whom as Demaratus writes in his first Book of Tragical Things Ericthonius for the pacifying of Proserphone sacrificed his own Daughter And the Romans among whom as Dorotheus relates in his fourth Book of the Affairs of Italy Marius sacrificed his Daughter Diis Averruncanis To the Gods that expel mischief Lactantius de falsa Relig. lib. 1. cap. 21. proves this to have been an ancient Custom in Italy to precipitate Men from the Milvian Bridge for the appeasing Saturn's wrath out of Ovid's in Fastis quotannis Tristia Leucadio sacra peracta Deo And to sacrifice to the same God their own Children After whose Dialect Micah 6. 7. the Prophet introduceth apostate Judah querying Shall I give my first born for my trangression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul to which the Spirit returns this pat answer He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what the Lord requires of thee viz. to do justly and love mercy neither of which can be done in this barbarous inhumanity to thy own Bowels and to humble thy self to walk with thy God not to outrun God in thy hastening to bring forth a Saviour before the fulness of Time c. In the same place the same Lactantius relates out of Poscennius Festus this Story That the Carthaginians being overcome by Agathocles King of Sicily and conceiving that to be the effect of God's displeasure against them for the rendring of Heaven propitious sacrificed two hundred Noblemens Sons Of the same bran saith he are the Rites of the Mother of the Gods whose Priests attone her with the Blood of their Genitals and of Bellona wherein her Priests lance and slash their own shoulders with Swords which they carry in both their hands as they run like frantick men about her Altars the very same Oratory which the Priests of Baal used who in their contest with Elijah when he lent a deaf ear to the sound of their Prayers lifted up to him the voice of their blood as that they doubted not but would obtain for them a favourable audience Herodotus in his Euterpe pag. 128. relates how at Busiris in the Festivals of Isis after the Sacrifice the whole Company being many thousands lash themselves till blood come and that in Papremis the Company that assemble to worship the Deity of that place fall together by the ears and wound yea kill one another Dion Roman histor lib. 43. reports that Julius Caesar to propitiate Mars caused to be sacrificed to him two of those Mutineers who raised a commomotion in the Camp because of Caesar's Prodigality in his exhibiting showes and Plays to the Senate and People grudging that so much water should run beside their Mill for which he saith he had neither Sibylline nor any other express Oracle but only Custom Pliny lib. 36. writes that the Moors sacrificed Men to Hercules others say to Saturn as Plato by name in his Minoe and Dionysius Halicarnassus as also Theodoritus Cyrenaeus Tacitus de moribus Germanorum saith That the Germans do on certain stated days appease Mercury with humane Sacrifices That the Semnones the most ancient Stock of the Suevians on certain anniversary holy Days meet together in a sacred Grove and begin the solemnity of the day with sacrificing a man for the Common Good for so I translate his caeso publicè homine That the Reudigni Aviones Angli Varini Eudoses Snardones Nucthones in the service they perform'd to the Mother of Gods whom they call Hertham that is Earth the very English of the Grecian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drowned those that had officiated in the Procession The same Historian Tacitus an 14. fol. 207. tells us that Suetonius Paulinus at the taking of the Ifle of Man found Groves devoted there to bloody Superstition for they used to sacrifice Captives at their Altars and to look into their inwards by way of Auguration Dictys Cretensis who was comrade to Idomenoeus in the Trojan War wrote a Journal of that War which Paxis presented to Nero and Septimius Romanus translated into Latin in which Treatise de Bell. Troj lib. 1. we are told that for the appeasing of Dianas displeasure against Agamemnon for slaying the Hart that was feeding in her Grove his Daughter Iphigenia was required in sacrifice Upon this ground Euryphylus in Virgil perswades the Grecians when they were returning from Troy to appease the angry Deity with humane Blood with the blood of Polixena Aeneid lib. 2. Sanguine placastis ventos virgine caesa Cùm primùm Iliacas Danai venistis ad auras Herodotus Melpomene relates how the Getes the most morallized of all the Scythians send every year to their God Zamolxis a Man whom they had first sacrificed And how the Messagetes immolate in their old Age all Persons of note counting none happy but them that die that kind of death Herod Clio. And lastly how the whole Scythian Nation do sacrifice to Mars whom they esteem the chief God one of every hundred Captives whose Blood they gather into a Basin and with it besmear a Fauchion which with them is the Idol or Representation of Mars Herodot Melpomene This Custom reached to the farthest Western Nations as Plutarch de superstitione observes who if they had Children of their own sacrificed them to Saturn if not bought other mens Children to that purpose as men buy Lambs or Chickens While they were sacrificing their Mothers were to stand by and look on who if they shewed any sign of sorrow they were ever after accounted opprobrious persons Yea as far as the then reputed World's end Hercules Pillars as Timaeus the Historian affirms in his rebus Deliacis for the Inhabitants near to those Pillars saith he use to sacrifice their Kinsfolks if they reach the seventieth year Strabo lib. 11. reports that in Albania a Country near the Caspia◠Sea they used to sacrifice to the Moon their supreme Deity those of their initiated servants that had most of that Goddess in them after they had been sumptuously feasted a whole year before These two last I report upon the Credit of Natalis Comes Mytholog l. cap. 17. de victimis not out of penury for to the best of my knowledge there is not an old Historian extant that gives
six her eye more narrowly upon Emergencies there as things of highest State-concern in respect of that then famous Eastern Prophecy of one to arise at that time in Judea who should be King of the Universe § 4. At that time when the Erection of an Universal Monarchy was according to that Prophecy expected appeared Persons of a more Lordly Spirit amongst the Romans than any former Age had brought forth Caesar and Pompey ' s Ambition sprung from this Prophecy The then greatest Spirits courted the Jews favour and used means that they might be that oriundus in Judaea § 5. The arts which the Roman Candidates for the Universal Monarchy used to bring the World into an opinion that they were designed by Heaven to something extraordinary Julius his Dream his cloven-footed Horse his Mules his Triton his pressing to have the Title of King because the Sybils had prophesied one at that time would be King of all the World The Fathers quotations of Sybils vindicated § 6. Augustus had his Education amongst the Velitri who had a Tradition of the tendency with the Eastern Prophecy that one of that City should obtain the Kingdom of the whole World The Roman Prodigy before his Birth His Mother Atia conceives him by Apollo Her Snake-mole Nero ' s Bracelet Atias Dream of her Entrals Nigidius his Prognostication The Prediction of the Thracian Priests His Fathers Vision Cicero ' s Dream § 7. Tiberius his Omens Scribonius ' s Prediction Livias crested Chick The Altars of the conquering Legions His Dye cast into Apon ' s Well Galba ' s Mock-prophecy § 8. Titus and Vespasian ' s Motto Amor deliciae in English the desire of the Nations The Prodigy of Mars his Oak The Gypsies Prediction Dirt cast by Caligula into his Shirt The Dog bringing a Man's hand The Oracle of the God of Carmel His curing the blind and Lame c. CHAP. X. The more open Practices of soaring Spirits in grasping at the Judean Crown their hopes to obtain it and as to some of them their Conceit of possessing it § 1. Cleopatra ' s Boon begg'd of M. Antony denyed Herod ' s Eye Blood-shot with looking at the Eastern Prophecy § 2. Vespasian jealous of Titus The Eastern Monarchy the Prize contended for by both Parties in the Jewish Wars Mild Vespasian cruel to David ' s Line § 3. Domitian jealous of Davids Progeny Genealogies Metius Pomposianus his Genesis and Globe his Discourse with Christ's Kindred about Christ's Kingdom Clancular Jews brought to light Trajan puts to death Simeon Bishop of Jerusalem for being of the Royal Line § 4. Glosses upon the Eastern Prophecy under Adrian involve the Empire in Blood Jewry in Desolation Fronto taxeth benumm'd Nerva for conniving at the Jew CHAP. XI St. Paul's Apology before Nero was in Answer to some Interrogatories put to him through the Suggestion of his Adversaries touching the matter of the Eastern Prophecy Ex. Gr. Is not this Jesus whom thou preachest to be risen again from the Dead that Jesus of Nazareth whom ye call King of the Jews § 1. Tertullus his Charge against St. Paul a Ring-leader of Nazarites Lysias his Interrogatory art not thou that Alexandrian Egyptian Nero put in hopes of that Kingdom which St. Paul preach'd Christ to have obtained Poppaea Nero's Minion Disciples slink away § 2. Why St. Paul stiles Nero a Lion of the Kingdom of God The Lions Courage quails at St. Paul's Apology Nero after that trusts more to his Art than Gypsies Prophecies § 3. St. Pauls Appearance within Nero ' s Quinquennium Pallas Foelix his Brother and Advocate out of Favour in Nero ' s third Festus hastens St. Paul ' s Mission to Rome the Jews his Trial. § 4. Nero not yet a Lion in Cruelty but in opinion Judah ' s Lion St. Paul ' s Doctrine tryed to the bottom before Nero desponds An Apology for this Pilgrimage through the Holy Age its Use. CHAP. XII As no Age was less like to be Cheated than that wherein the Apostles flourish'd so no Generation of Men was less like to put a Cheat upon the World than the Apostolick and Primitive Church § 1. The Apostles and Primitive Churches Veracity evinc'd by their chusing Death rather than an Officious Lye to save their lives Pliny ' s testimony of them § 2 3. They hide not their imperfections nor the Truth to please Parties or to avoid the Worlds taking offence The offence which Heathens took at some Gospel-passages § 4. All false Religions make lyes their Refuge Pagan Forgeries § 5. Papal Innovation founded on lying Legends Sir Thomas Moor upon St. Austin Gregory Turonensis and Simeon Metaphrastes devout Lyars The Story of the Baptist ' s Head BOOK II. THE ARGUMENT As they could not nor would not delude others so they were not themselves deluded persons or Men of crazy Intellects but propounded to the World a Religion so every way fitted to the Dictates of Common Reason of the most Refin'd Philosophy and of pre-existent Religion as it was impossible for them to have fram'd had they not been of perfect Memory and sound Minds THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. The Gospel's Correspondency with Vulgar Sentiments § 1. The Testimony of the Humane Soul untaught to the Truth of the Christian Creed in the Articles touching the Unity of the Godhead his Goodness Justice Mercy The Existence of wicked Spirits § 2. The Resurrection and Future Judgment Death formidable for its Consequence to evil Men No Fence against this Fear proved by Examples § 3. In hope of future Good the Soul secretly applauds her self after virtuous Acts. This makes the Flesh suffer patiently CHAP. II. Reason nonplus'd help'd by Religion acquiesceth in her Resolutions § 1. Man's Supremacy over the Creatures the Reason of it not cognoscible by Natural Light § 2. Yet generally challenged even over Spirits whom men command to do what themselves disgust § 3. The way of Creation a Mystery Reason puzzel'd to find it out can but conjecture § 4. Divine Revelations touching both acquiesc'd in as soon as communicated Scripture-Philosophy excels the Mechanick Plato's Commendation § 5. Nothing but the God of Order's Grant can secure States from Anarchical Parity and Club-law § 6. Heathens assented to the Reasons of both assigned by Scripture CHAP. III. Natural Conscience Ecchoes to Christian Morals § 1. A Dispraise to dispraise Virtue or praise Vice The Comicks Liberty restrained § 2. How the worst of Men became to be reputed Gods § 3. Men were deified for their Virtues Vice ungodded Gods § 4. Stage-Gods hissed at The Infamy of Players The Original of Mythology CHAP. IV. Christian Religion concords with the highest Philosophical Notions § 1. Divine Knowledge coâ—â—unicated from the Church to travelling Philosophers Our Religion elder than Heathenism by Heathens confession § 2. Christian Articles implied in Pagan Philosophy's Positions Man's happiness through Communion with God and Conformity unto God § 3. This Conformity and Communion effected by God-man God manifest in
built the two Books De miraculis Martyrum writ by Gregory Turonensis who shuts up his first Book thus It behoves us therefore to desire the Patronage of Martyrs c. and his second thus We therefore well considering those Miracles may learn that it is not possible to be saved but by the help of Martyrs and other Friends of God But Simeon Metaphrastes deserves the Whet-stone from all that ever professed this holy Art of Lying for the advantage of Truth who notwithstanding that in his Preface to the strange Romance of Marina he blames others for forging Stories of the Saints and polluting their true Memorials with most evident Doctrines of Devils and Demoniacal Narratives yet himself splits upon the same Rock and so Shipwracks his Credit with all Intelligent Persons as Baronius himself is ashamed of him in notis ad martyrologium Roman Jul. 13. I need not multiply Instances the World swarms with lying Legends Their avowed Doctrine of Mental Reservation of Equivocation to promote the Cause of Religion casts up as wide a Gulf betwixt Gospel-Tradition and theirs as is betwixt Heaven and Hell the God of Truth and the Father of Lyes Quomodo Deus Pater genuit filium veritatem sic Diabolus genuit quasi filium Mendacium August 42. tract in Johan 8. 44. these introduc'd by Persons that account it meritorious of Heaven to forge the grossest Fables so it be in service of the Church which the Apostle calls speaking Lyes in Hypocrisie 1 Tim. 4. 2. vide Meed in locum Those publish'd by Men who less fear'd dying than lying who chose rather to suffer the cruellest Death to lay themselves obnoxious to the Calumnies of captious Adversaries through their Parasie their Freedom of Speech then to tell the most innocent and officious Lye and therefore the unlikeliest Men in the World to abuse the World with Figments and devised Stories and Persons from whose Hand a Man might with more safety and security have taken a Cup suspected to have Poyson in it than a Cup of Wine from the Hand of the most Divine Philosoper as Apollodorus said of Socrates in comparison of Plato Athenaeus dyprosoph l. 11. c. 22. Christian Religions APPEAL To the BAR of Common Reason c. The Second Book The Apostles were not themselves deluded no Crack'd-brain Enthusiasticks but Persons of most composed Minds CHAP. I. The Gospel's Correspondency with Vulgar Sentiments § 1. The Testimony of the Humane Soul untaught to the Truth of the Christian Creed in the Articles touching the Unity of the Godhead his Goodness Justice Mercy The Existence of wicked Spirits § 2. The Resurrection and Future Judgment Death formidable for its Consequences to evil Men No Fence against this Fear proved by Examples § 3. In hope of future Good the Soul secretly applauds her self after virtuous Acts. This makes the Flesh suffer patiently § 1. WHat Exception can be made against so impartial a Relation of Men possessed with such a mortal Detestation of Forgery made to an Age so well accommodated against Delusion by all internal and external Fortifications imaginable cannot in my shallow Reason be conjectured except it be that of Celsus and his Modern Epicurean Disciples That the Apostles themselves were deluded or which is worse infatuated For who but raving and dementate Persons would have ventured to put off Adulterate Wares to so knowing an Age But then how could they have framed the Doctrine and History of Christ in such a Decorum in so exact a Symmetry of Parts not only among themselves but to the great World as Lactantius argues Abfuit ergò ab iis fingendi voluntas astutia quià rudes fuerunt quis possit indoctus apta inter se cobaerentia fingere cùm Philosophorum doctissimi ipsi sibi repugnantia dixerint haec enim est mendaciorum natura ut coherere non possint illorum autèm traditio quià vera est quadrat undique ac sibi tota consentit ideò persuadet quià constanti ratione suffulta est Lactant de justicia lib. 5. cap. 3. The Apostles had neither Will to feign nor any crafty Design upon the World because they were plain Men and what illiterate Man can have the Art to make Fictions square to one another and hang together seeing the most learned of the Philosophers have spoke things jarring amongst themselves for this is the Nature of Untruths that they cannot be of a Piece But the Tradition of the Apostles because it is true one part falls out even with another and it agrees perfectly with it self and therefore gains upon Mens Minds because it is underpropp'd with that stedfast reason and on every side Squares with Principles of Reason Origen useth this Argument Cont. Cels. l. 3. willing him to consider if it were not the Agreeableness of the Principles of Faith with common Notions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that prevailed most upon all candid and ingenuous Auditors of them For how can that be the Figment of deluded Fancies the issue of shatter'd Brains that 's so well shap'd as it bears a perfect Proportion to and Correspondency with whatsoever hath had the common Approbation of Mankind Being calculated 1. To the Meridian of common Sentiments to the Universal Religion of the whole World to the Testimony of every natural Soul to whose Evidence Christian Religion appeals by her Advocate Tertullian in his admirable Treatise De Testimonio Animae I call in saith he a new kind of Witness yet more known than any Writing more tost than all Learning more common than any Book that 's put forth greater than whole Man that is the All that is of Man Come into the Court Oh Soul whether thou beest Divine and Eternal as most Philosophers think and by so much the rather not capable of telling a Lye Or not Divine but Mortal as Epicurus thinks and so much the rather thou oughtest not to lye for Fear of distracting thy self at present with the Guilt of so Inhumane a Vice whether thou art received from Heaven or conceived of Earth whether thou art made up of Numbers or Atoms whether thou commences a being with the Body or art infused after the Body from whencesoever and howsoever thou makest Man a Rational Creature most capable of Sense and Science But I do not retain thee of Council for the Christian such as thou art when after thou hast been formed in the Schools and exercised in Libraries thou belchest forth that Wisdom thou hast obtained in Aristotle's Walks or the Attick Academies No I appeal to thee as thou art raw unpolish'd and void of acquired Knowledge such a one as they have that have only a bare Soul such altogether as thou comest from the Quarry from the High Way from the Looms I have need of thy Unskilfulness for when thou growest never so little crafty all men suspect thee I would have thee bring nothing with thee into this Court but what thou bringest with thy self into Man but
deaths approaches Nero hath this Character given him by Suetonius Religionum usquequaque aspernator he perfectly contemned all Religion yet his Mothers Ghost dogg'd him into an acknowledgement of Judgment to come for after his Matricide he was scar'd with dreams terrified with visions wherein sometimes he hears the Apparritors voice summoning him to appear before the divine Tribunal sometimes he thinks the Furies arrest him and hale him into close and dismal Dungeons those antipasts of approaching vengcance drive him quite off his Stoicism in his last Act put him beside the Lesson his Master Seneca had taught him he could handle his Weapon dexterously in the Artillery-garden but he cannot find his hands in the pitch'd Field 'T is one thing to bark at the Lions Skin in the Hall another thing to meet the Lion in the Wood. He cannot at his death with all his Charms of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Age excita teipsum how ill do these fears become the Scholar of Seneca Caesar where art thou go too stir up thy courage Nero conjure down the terrours of death nor keep them within the Circle of his own heart but they break out in those gastly stareings of his Eyes as strike the Spectators with horrour Extantibus rigentibusque oculis usque ad horrorem visentium Sueton. Nero. so true is that of St. Cyril Jerus Catech. 18. Thou maist deny it with thy lipps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but thou carriest the Conscience of the Resurrection about with thee Epicurus made it his business to obliterate the Notions of the Souls Immortality and the Judgment attending us in the other World yet Cotta in Cicero de nat deor lib. 1. gives this Testimony of him Nec quenquam vidi qui magis timeret ea quae timenda esse negaret mortem dico Deos I never knew man that more fear'd what he said was not to be fear'd to wit Death and the Deity There is no Antidote strong enough to repel the thought of future Judgment from soaking into the spirits of those men that would most glad ly quit themselves of those thoughts The Atheist in heart cannot persevere to be an Atheist in Judgment he may cross the Book but the Debt is still legible he cannot make his Soul rasam tabulam not rase out of it the native Impresses of a righteous Deity he may think he has barrocado'd all the ways to his Soul and secured it from all Assaults of Fear that he has sufficiently immur'd his Judgment and made it impregnable but Judgment has a Party within will betray the Fort a self-accusing Conscience Conscia mens ut cuique sua est ità concipit intrà pectora pro facto spémque metúmque suo He may think he has extinguish'd the Fire but the Sparks of the Fiery Day are only raked up in the Embers and lie glowing on the bottom of the Hearth He may beat the thoughts of Eternal Vengeance from the Out-works and base Town the lower and bestial part of the Soul Fancy that 's only mur'd by Sense but they are so fortifyed in the Fort Royal in the white Tower of the rational Faculties as there they stand at defiance against all his Artillery as thence they make frequent Sallies and put all the Arguments wherewith they are beleaguered to the Rout thence they discharge whole Vollies of mortal Shot against the Atheist's Head if he once but dare to peep up above those Trenches under the Covert of which his Disbelief lurks To be sure the Dust that riseth under the Charriot Wheels of approaching Death blown into the most refractory A theist's Eyes will cure him of that his Purblindness of that Indisposition whereby he could not see afar off so far off as Judgment to come § 3. Articl 5. The Soul's Antipasts of the Resurrection to Eternal Life To whose Discipline we will leave him and attend to what the Soul speaks about that other part of glad Hope after Death whence comes that secret Applause she gives her self when she acts well that Exultancy of Spirit which ariseth from her reflecting upon her vertuous Actions Seneca speaks the Peasant's Sence as well as the Philosopher's when he saith Animum divina aeterna delectant nec ut alienis interest sed ut suis distrabe hoc inestimabile bonum non èst vita tanti ut sudem ut aestuem Upon the performance of Noble and Heroick Actions the Soul contemplates those Eternal Rewards that attend them in the World and delights and enjoys her self in those Rewards not as things she hath nothing to do with but as her own peculiar Portion without which Fore-tasts of Eternal Retribution which the Divine Justice will award to Pious Actions this present Life were not worth the while our sweating and toiling here were but lost Labour exactly to the Apostle's Sense 1 Cor. 15. 19. If in this Life only we had Hope we were miserable Men If the Soul did not think that the Body shall reign with her with what Equity does she put it upon suffering for her Would not the Flesh grumble to be rid by her through Brush and Brake if she did not rest in hope of sharing with the Soul in the Reward of well doing Would Scoevola's Hand if it had not laid fast hold of Eternal Life have been kept so steady in that Fire wherein he sacrificed it for his Countrey 's Service then which as my Author saith the immortal Gods never saw a more noble one laid upon their Altars nor more bespeaking the Attention of their Eyes Could Pompei have perswaded his Finger to have the Patience to be burnt to the stump in the Flame of a Candle to convince King Gentius that no Torture could rack him to confess the Senates Counsel if he had not pointed it to its future Reward With what else could Theodorus charm his Tongue to hold its Peace while he tired his Tormenters and wore out the Rack with his Patience Or Alexander's Page his Arm not to shrug while it was carbonadoing with that live Coal that fell into his Sleeve out of that Censer he held while his Master was sacrificing till the smell of his burnt Flesh exceeded that of the Incense and till Alexander had fulfill'd those Rites which he lengthen'd out on purpose to delight himself with the Prospect of that invincible Manhood in a Boy With what else do the Indian Gymnosophists obtain of their Bodies a Compliance with their Austere Discipline of going naked in Frost and Snow all their Life long of hardning them with the Frosty Rigour of Caucasus one while and another while throwing them into the Fire under all which Burdens the poor Beast never groans nor expresseth the least Disgust against its Rider But would a good Man be thus merciless to his Beast were he not perswaded with that Strippling Martyr in the Book of Maccabees 2. 7. these I had from Heaven and for his Laws I despise them and from him I hope to have them again These
this Sovereignty over the rest of the Creatures why is not the Ape or Baboon honour'd as next to us in this our Kingdom being next to us in proportion of Face and other Members Simia quà m similis turpissima bestia nobis Ennius How is natural invention baffled here and non-plus'd in seeking out the reason in assigning the ground of Mans Dominion over the meanest Creatures § 2. Men challenge a Royalty over Spirits And yet we will not let go our claim though we can show no evidences we persist in the Conclusion though we see not the Premisses from which it is infer'd Yea though we cannot tell how we became Lords of the visible we challenge a Royalty over the intellectual World Dii immortales ad usum hominum fabricati penè videntur Cicero de natur deor 1. p. 9. The immortal Gods saith Tully that is the Angels seem to have been created most-what for the use of men We will not allow Spirits to be exempt from our Jurisdiction but account them obnoxious to our Laws What else were Charms and Magick invented but to extort from Spirits that service which we think they owe us What mean we by summoning them as it were to our Courts but to let them know they owe us Fealty Why else do we amerce them for Non-appearance Would the Furies have been by us so imperiously commanded to whip others if we had not thought that Alecto her self stands in awe of the Conjurer's Whip Had not Mortals deemed the Inhabitants of the other World to have been at their devotion could they have expected an observance from them of such harsh Commands as the performance thereof was deemed more painful than the Infernal sufferings Witness the groans they are conceived to utter while they are pricked on to draw in so uneasie a Yoke as we put upon them Abire in atrum carceris liceat mei Cubile liceat si parùm videor miser Mutareripas alâ—eo medius tuo Phlegeton relinquar igneo cinctus freto Seneca Thyestes Cries the Ghost of Tantalus in the Magick Circle And Thyestes his Ghost groans almost as lowd when that is evocated to attend the pleasure of the black Artist Incertus utras oderim sedes magis Libet reverti nonne vel tristes lacus Incolere satius Sen. Agamemnon Unpleasant work and such as from the dolour that Spirits made when they were called to it the Art whereby they were constrained to it had its name Goetia as a great proficient in that Art Porphyry thinketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from that lamentable din the Ghosts made about their Sepulchres when they were evocated and yet it was a Vulgar Opinion that the Spirits might be forc'd thus against the hair by the Negromancers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Goetia is an Art to constrain the dead by invocation Suidas referente Le Vives in August eivitat Dei 10. 9. It cannot now be imagin'd but that the Humane Soul should hunt every way to find out the grounds of this her claim of Superiority over the whole Creation methinks I hear her upon the quest thus mouthing it Oh that I could see the Charter by which we are estated in this privilege who will shew me those Letters Patents by vertue whereof we are invested with this power for nothing I have yet seen will stand good in Reasons Law as a justifiable Plea § 3. Reason non plus'd in its Conceptions about the way of the Creatures existing But why do I wonder at my blindness as to the ground of title to what I poffess when I am a perfect stranger to the way of my own Being and cannot tell how it came to pass that I am or how the rest of Creatures first received Being Reason taught Heathens that the World had a Beginning Questio quae multorum cogitationes de ambigenda mundi aeternitate solicitat c. Nam quis facilè mundum semper fuisse consentiat cùm ipsa historiarum fides multarum rerum cultum emendationémque vel inventionem ipsam recentem esse fateatur c. Macrobius in som. Scipio 2. 10. From the growing of Arts by degrees and the obscurity of former times the Epicurean himself concluded the World to have had a beginning Lucretius l. 5. si nulla fuit genitalis Origo Terrarum Coeli sempérque aeterna fuére Cur suprà bellum Trojanum funera Trojae Non alias alii quoque res cecinere Poetae Quà tot facia virùm toties cecidere nec usquam Aeternis famae monumentis insita florent Recénsque Natura est mundi neque pridem exordia cepit Quare etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur Nunc etiam augescunt nunc addita navigiis sunt Multa c. Reason I say convinc'd Heathens that the World was not eternal but how it received its being they could not tell How is Aristottle puzzl'd to determine whence Animals had their first beginning whether they were ingender'd as Worms and Insects or hatch'd of Eggs for one of these ways saith he they must of necessity have beengenerated de Generation animantium lib. 3. cap. ult 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hear we the discourse of Cicero upon this Subject I am told there was one before me and I believe it but if we shall procede in drawing up our line in infinitum we shall at the long run unmake our selves and annihilate all Creatures that live by succession for if there was not in every kind one first there could be no second nor third and at last we our selves that now exist would not be at all Whence then had the first in each succession his beginning in what Forge was he framed and what pre-existent Metal Did the Elementary Bodies beget him of Mother Earth But who begat and brought forth them Rowze up thy self O Soul rub thine Eyes look round about thee stand upon thy Tiptoes lift up thy Head see if thou canst find an Answer to these Expostulations an Answer will satisfie thy self By whom were the Foundations of the Earth laid who laid the measures thereof who stretched the Line upon it whereupon were the Foundations thereof fastened or who laid the Corner-stone thereof Quae molitio quae ferramenta qui vectes quae machinae qui ministri tanti operis fuerunt What Grindle-stone had that Architect to sharpen his Tools upon what Tools had he to work with what Levers what Eugins what Journey-men what Apprentices In what Grove grew Timber enough for such a Fabrick In what Mould were the Heavens cast on what Looms were the Balancies of the Clouds wrought Who will teach us what to say to these things for we cannot order our speech by reason of Darkness These were the highest flights Reason could make it lay not in her power by Arguments or Discourse to come to any Certainty or so much as Probability in these matters So that after all her boasting Prologues uttered by such as Democritus who in the Preface to his
Heroes of Assyria His custom of sacrificing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was observ'd by Alexander and the Romans who upon no other account sacrificed at Jerusalem to the God of the Jews when they sojourned there as out of Apollonius Rhodius his Scholiast is observed by Scaliger in Eusebii chronic num 1685. Upon this account the Crime which Creon charged Polinices with was That he attempted to overthrow the Land of the Theban Gods and their Laws their Laws extended no further than their Lands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 took their name Sophoclis Antigone § 5. How far this supposition of Gods assigning the Regions of the World to the Guardianship of particular Angels may stand with Scripture-grounds either according to Mr. Meed's Scheme who applies to this purpose that Text of Zachary These are the serene eyes that run to and fro through the world or according to the compute of some of the Ancients who apply to it that Text of Moses When the most high divided to the nations their inheritance when he separated the sons of Adam he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel in the Exposition of St. Jerome in Daniel cap. 7. vis 6. That is as Israel was divided into Twelve Tribes so the World was parted into Twelve majores Gentes Ancient Nations and an Angel set as President over each of them one of them conceived by Daniel to be called the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia Jerom in Dan. 10. Princeps autem regni Persarum restitit mihi 21 diebus Videtur mihi hic esse Angelus cui Persis credita 〈◊〉 juxt à illud Quando dividebat altissimus gentes statuit terminos gentium juxt à numerum Angelorum Dei faciens pro credit â sibi Provincia nè captivotum omnis populus dimitteretur enumerans peccata populi Judeorum quòd dimitti non deberent But the Prince of the kingdom of Persia resisted me one and twenty days This seems to me saith St. Jerome to be that Angel to whom Persia was concredited according to that When the Almighty divided the nations he appointed their bounds according to the number of the Angels of God an Agent for that Province that was committed to his trust pleading by commemorating before God the sins of the Jews that they might not be dismist out of Captivity to the Persian Empire And because there were Twelve ancient Nations hence these Presidents are altogether stiled by the Gentiles Duodecim Dii majorum gentium the Twelve Gods of the ancient Nations How far I say this Hypothesis in general and which of these ways of applying it is grounded on Scripture would carry me too far out of my way to discuss Origen lib. 5. contrà Celsum hath an excellent discourse upon this subject whom they that have a mind may consult That which at present I am commending to my Reader is the abstraction of Plato's Sentence from the Errors of those times wherewith he was born down yet so abstracted it may afford us the Genuine sence of the Philosophers touching the end of God's Incarnation viz. To communicate divine Oracles and to relieve Mankind by suffering that is to be in the Christian Dialect our Priest and Prophet our Lord-saviour Whether this is to be perform'd by piece-meal for several Nations by diverse Gods incarnate or at once for all by one according to the Dictates of the Philosophical Schools where they speak under the Rose out of the hearing of the Vulgar and are not biass'd with fear of going against the Current of the Popular Opinion is another Question and comes next to be discuss'd And let Plato's School determine it By the mouth of his Scholar Porphyry as malicious and potent an Adversary as the Christian Cause hath met with who affirms as he is quoted by St. Austin de Civit. 10. 23. that this was the Respond from the divine Oracle That the humane Soul cannot be purged by the most perfect Sacrifices offer'd to the very chief of the Celestial Gods the Sun or Moon but only by a Principle Upon which St. Austin hath this Animadversion Thou mightest have spared the labour of telling us that nothing can purge the Soul but a Principle after thou hadst said The Sun or Moon sollicited by the purest and every way compleatest Sacrifices could not do it for if they cannot who are the chief of the Heathen Gods sure 't is out of the reach of the underlings to do it Observe by the way rhat Ludovicus Vives translates Telesmata perfect Sacrifices but Selden makes them all one with Teraphims that is Images which were thought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 replenished with the Deities of those Gods they were dedicated to and whom they invocated after the performing of sacrifice before them Such an one was Pope Gerebert taught to make by the Saracens of Spain and our Bacon falsly reported to have erected Saving that the Teraphim was the head of a Man bearing the name of one Deity alone but the Telesmata had the Images and Names of all the Gods they could think of Such were those of Apollonius Tyaneus mention'd by Justin Martyr respond orthodox 24. such as Scaliger in his Epistle to Casaubon affirms he had frequently seen This therefore is manifestly the importance of Porphyry's Dictate That the most religious worshippers of all the known Gods cannot thereby be purged But what means Porphyry by a Principle That will best be discerned by observing with St. Austin that the Platonicks held Three Principles the Father the Intellect Mind or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father and the bond of these viz. the Spirit not the Soul of Man as Plotinus misinterprets it for that must have been postpon'd to the Father and his Mind whereas Plato interpones it that is makes the Spirit the bond or tie betwixt them Vide testimonium Platonis in Epimenide de Patre Filióque Plotini verba in libro quem inscripsit de tribus hypostasibus citata ab Eusebio in Praepar Evang. 11. 10. Numenii testimonia de Trinitate de primo Deo Deo Creatore Spiritu vivificante Thus also Zeno affirms Fate that is the necessary Being to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word God and the Soul And Plato himself in his 6. Book de Legibus brings in Socrates after he had discoursed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the one Good that is God telling Glaucus he will speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of him that is both the begotten of that Good and his express Image and in his Epistle to Hermius he hath these expressions swearing by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the maker of all things and the Lord-father of that Principle and Cause And in his Epinomides he mentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word the most divine of all things by which the World was framed whom a wise man admiring is
inflam'd with desire to understand how he may be happy in this Life and the future As to the Third Principle he saith he knows not what Name to give it except he should call it the Soul of the World because it gives Life and Being to all Creatures And in his Epistle to Dionysius he tells him that he writes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Trine Divinity that is as Porphyry alledged by St. Cyril against Julian expounds him Three Subsistances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Essence of the Divinity Consonant to which Platonick Dictate is that Respond which the Oracle of Serapis gave to Thales King of Aegypt at the time of the Trojan War inquiring who was happier than he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus Macrobius stiles the First Person The truly chief God the Second the Mind or Thinking of that God the Third The Soul or Spirit proceeding from that Mind Anima ex Mente processerat Mens ex Deo procreata est Macrob. in som. Scip. 1. 17. These Allegations bid fair for the proof of this Opinion That the Philosophers were not wholly strangers to the Mystery of the Trinity And in the last of them Macrobius makes confession of the Trinity in as plain terms as we Christians do and of the Order and Manner of the Procedure of the divine Persons plainer than the Grecian Church would yield or the Latin Church could prove the sacred Scriptures to declare I appeal to their Contests about the word Proceeding and the Clause de Filióque And to Macrobius a Greco-latin Platonick his so clearly asserting That the Mind was begotten of God the First Person and the Spirit proceeded from the Mind But that 's more than I do or need to produce them for the use that I have for them is only to give testimony that the Platonicks vouchsafed the name of a Principle to nothing but God the Father God the Word and God the Spirit and therefore it is not even by their Principles in the power of any other God by his Mediation to bring the Soul by Purgation into Conformity to or Communion with God nothing but a Principle can effect that and there are but three Principles Father Son and Spirit say the Platonicks To this Platonick Notion of a Principle our Saviour seems to allude John 8. 25. where to the Jews asking who he was he answers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. in St. Austin's de Civitate 10. 24. and others St. Ambros. Hexameron lib. 1. cap. 4. of the Fathers judgment That he was the Beginning respondit se esse Principium To be sure the Platonicks did in a peculiar Notion denominate God the Word the Principle Which made Amelius when he read the Beginning of St. John's Gospel In the beginning was the Word apud Deum esse Deum esse per ipsum omnia facta esse the Word was with God and was God and by him were all things made cry out Per Jovem barbarus iste cum nostro Platone sentit Verbum Dei in ordine Principii esse This Barbarian is of our Plato ' s Opinion that the Word of God is in the rank of Principles c. And that other Philosopher whom Simplicianus B. of Millain informs St. Austin of de civitate 10. 29. to protest Those words of St. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deserved to be writ in Letters of Gold and to he hung up in the most conspicuous places in all Churches and St. Austin in his Confessions say that he had read the beginning of St. John's Gospel in the Platonick Books in sence though not in the very same words lib. Confess 7. cap. 9. procurasti mihi quosdam Platonicorum libros ibi legi non quidem his verbis sed hoc idem omninò There I read saith he and found proved by various Reasons That in the beginnning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God that by it all things were made Multis multiplicibus suaderi rationibus quòd in principio erat Verbum Verbum erat apud Deum There in the Platonick Writings I read That the Soul of man though it bear testimony of the Light is not the Light but God the Word of God is that true Light that Et quòd hominis anima quamvis testimonium perhibeat de lumine non est tamen ipsa lumen sed Verbum Dei Deus est lumen verum quod illuminat omnem hominem And that he was in this World and the World was made by him and that the World knew him not quia in hoc mundo erat mundus per eum factus est mundus eum non cognovit But that he came unto his own and his own received him not I did not read there Quià verò in suos venit sui eum non reciperunt quotquot autem receperunt eum dedit illis potestatem filios Dei non legi ibi There also I read that God the Word was not born of flesh or blood nor of the will of man or the will of the flesh but of God Item ibi legi quià Deus Verbum non ex carne non ex sanguine non ex voluntate viri neque ex voluntate carnis sed ex Deo natus est But that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us I did not read there Sed quià Verbum caro factus est habitavit in nobis non ibi legi In those Platonick Writings I found it said in various and many forms of speech That the Word the Son is in the form of the Father counting it no robbery to be equal to God because he is by nature God Indagavi quippe in illis Platonicis literis variè dictum multis modis quòd sit Filius in forma Patris non rapinam arbitratus esse aequalis Deo quià naturaliter id ipsum est But that he emptied himself taking the form of a servant to the death of the Cross is not mentioned in those Books Sed quià seipsum exinanivit formam servi accipiens in similitudinem hominum factus c. non habent illi libri Indeed that before and beyond all thine only begotten Son incommutably continueth coeternal with thy self and that mens Souls do out of his fulness receive what makes them happy and by participation of that wisdom that rests in him are made wise is affirmed in those Platonick Books Quòd enim ante omnia tempora suprà omnia tempora incommutabiliter manet unigenitus Filius tuus coaeternus tibi quia de plenitudine ejus accipiunt animae ut beatae sint quia participatione manentis in se sapientiae renovantur ut Sapientes sint est ibi c. This is a Testimony so weighty as we cannot question the truth of it being given in his Confessions made to God and so full as it not only proves this Particular That the Platonicks conceived
the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the Son of God by whom he made the World to be in the Order and Degree of a Principle which was all I produc'd it for in this Section but my general Position laid down in the first Section of this Chapter That what the Gospel asserts in Thesi of our Jesus the Platonick School asserted in Hypothesi concerning him that was to relieve Mankind Plato's Doctrine of Purgation came so near ours saith St. Austin de vera Religione cap. 4. as many Platonicks upon that account turn'd Christian Paucis mutatis verbis sententiis aut si hoc non facerent nescio utrùm possent ad ea ipsa quae appetenda esse dixerunt cum istis faecibus viscóque revolare ex Platonis Phaedro de Legibus Timaeo With the alteration of a few words and sentences and if they had not I cannot tell how they could with the Birdlime and dregs of those their Errors which Christian Religion confuteth have flown back to that good they said was to be desired and those their sound Principles which both we and they joyntly hold The only thing they disgusted being the application of those things to Christ they stumbling at the same Stone at which the Jews stumbled the Cross of Christ and taking it in scorn that so mean a man as Jesus of Nazereth should be reputed to be the Saviour to be that Principle that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Son of God that was to enlighten every one that comes into the World out of whose fulness all our wants were to be supplied by the participation of whose Wisdom we are made wise c. For St. Austin when he saith He could not find in their Books that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was come into the World came to his own and his own received him not took upon him the Form of a servant and humbled himself to the death of the Cross. Must not be understood to deny that it was to be found or that himself had found in the Platonick Writings that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in order to humane Redemption was to come into the World to assume our nature to be wounded for our Transgressions for whoever it was by one or more that man-kind was to be relieved that one or more must as we have heard the Oracle the God of Philosophers as they stiled him deliver descend from his or their supercelestial place into his Dungeon of Earth and in 〈◊〉 or their assumed body or bodies endure all the miseries of this life c. as Sect. 3. cap. 4. hath been quoted out of which sentence not only of Plato but of all that exchanged not the old Traditional Philosophy for the Kitching-Experiments of Greece whom Jamblicus compares to Ships without Balast for that they had emptyed themselves of what they had received by the old Tradition de mysteriis tit de nominibus sacris we have been all this while boulting the Bran of their conceipted Multiplicity of God-saviours by the Sierce of their more sober and considerate Doctrine poured out into the bosom of their friends sequestred from the Censure of the Vulgar before whom it was not safe to speak all they thought Difficile est negare credo si in concione quaeratur sed in hujusmodi concessu facillimum Cicero de natura deorum lib. 1. It is an hard matter I confess to deny this in the hearing of the multitude but very easie in such a select Assembly of friends and Philosophers And have thereby gain'd from them the unforc'd confession of this Evangelical Truth That man's restauration unto Communion with and Conformity to God cannot be obtained by the Incarnation of separate Spirits or blessed Souls but of God himself descending into the Dungeon of this Earth assuming our Nature and in that Nature suffering what was due to us and delivering to us the Divine Oracles Plato therefore in assigning this effect to a Multiplicity of holy Souls or Spirits coming down from Heaven in several Ages and Countreys was a popular Complyance with the vulgar Errour either out of fear to in 〈…〉 his Master Socrates his fortune or out of design to have the World believe as some of his great admirers did that himself was one of those officious Spirits or if he spake as he thought it was the froth and ebullition of that vanity of mind judicially inflicted upon such as knowing God did not worship him as God That this was his Errour and such an Errour as himself in his lucid Intervals renounc'd and was forsaken in by his own followers hath been sufficiently cleared if the weight of this point and the dissatisfaction of some most deservingly eminent Modern Divines did not make it shake upon its strongest supporters and as it were by its nods becken to us to strengthen it by Buttresses I shall therefore beg my Readers patience which I doubt not but to obtain of him if he can but construe that of the Epigrammatist Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis Sed tu Cosconi disticha longa facis Mart. while I make it yet more manifest CHAP. V. None of their Local Saviours were able to save § 1. Their white Witches impeded in doing good by the black Lucan's Hag more mighty than any of their Almighties § 2. None of their Saviour's Soul-purgers § 3. Porphiry ' s Vote for one universal Saviour not known in the Heathen World Altars to the unknown Gods whether God or Goddess § 4. The unknown God § 5. Great Pan the All-heal his death § 6. Of their many Lords none comparable to the Lord Christ to us but one Lord. § 1. POrphyry Aug de Civitat 10. 9. 10. reference from experience confesseth the inability of those reputed good Spirits or God-Saviours to whom the Heathen applyed themselves for cure to gratifie the commerce to them their most severe worshippers in their desired Soul-purgations in that they were often impeded by their Superiours and their Superiours manacled in the Conjurers bands so as they durst not effect the desired Purgations so terrified by the black Witch as the white Witch could not loose them from that fear and set them free to do that good to which their own natures inclin'd them and their most religious Votaries solicited them Whereupon St. Austin facetiously thus explains Ergo ligavit iste iste non solvit O animae praedicanda purgatio ubi plus imperat immunda invidentia quà m impetrat pura beneficentia ubi plus valet malevolus impeditor quà m beneficus purgator animae The Cacodemon it seems could bind and the good Angel could not lose Oh praise-worthy purgation of Soul where unclean Envy obtains that power which pure Bounty cannot where the malicious opposer is of more strength than the liberal purger of the Soul But however ridiculous either the opinion or grownd of it were This Doctrine the Platonicks grounded upon that complaint which a
with non-sence may put into a fright The same Platonick introduceth Apollo giving Responds against the hair 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To spare the labour of particularizing the Thessalian Hag in Lucian lib. 6. boasts that she could charm what Gods she pleased to whatsoever involuntary acts she pleased 1. Not only the bad Spirits from doing the ill they are inclin'd to or to do the good they are averse to with power the Saviour of Mankind must be invested in or those malicious Spirits of whom the Platonicks make frequent mention would prove too hard for him And therefore sacred Records inform us That God bound up the lying and forc'd a true Prophetick Spirit upon Baalam contrary to the grain of his covetous inclination from which he could not extricate himself by all the sacrifices he could offer or shifting of place supposing belike the Daemon that bound him might possibly be some God of the Vallies or if of the Hills his Territories might not reach to all those upon which he sought for inchantments And that our Saviours substitutes his Ministers sent forth for the good of his people Gabriel and Michael dan. 10. 13 20 21. vide Bullingerum in locum in decadibus though for some while impeded by the Princes of the Kingdom of Persia and other Nations that is those Caco-demons to whose lot by their own choice and Divine Justice saying Amen to their choice they were fallen yet at last cast off those bonds and break through the thickest files of their united force to bring relief to Immanuel's people 2. Nor the good spirits to exert their salvifick Powers as Moses detain'd the Angel of Gods presence and Jacob the Angel that wrastled with him 3. But the very best fairest and most beneficial of their Gods from granting the just desires of their most religious Worshippers and to gratifie the most impious requests of malicious Conjurers A clear confession that the best and greatest of those reputed God-saviours were so far from being able to purge Souls as themselves stood in need of being purged from the pest of fear St Austin ingeniously Mirum est autem quòd benignus ille Chaldaeus qui Theurgicis sacris animam purgare cupiebat non invenit aliquem superiorem Deum qui vel plus terreret atque ad benefaciendum cogeret territos Deos vel ab eis terrentem compesceret ut liberè benefacerent sic tamen Theurgo bono sacra defuerunt quibus ipsos Deos quos invocabat animae purgatores prius ab illa timoris peste purgaret de Civitate 10. 10. It is strange that that Chaldean did not find out some superiour God who could either by greater terror force the terrified Gods to do good or to drive from them him that terrified them and yet so far was that good conjurer destitute of sacred Rites by which he might purge those soul-purging Gods themselves of the Plague of their own fear A passion which he who undertakes the rescue of men's Souls if he be not absolutely exempted from he is render'd utterly incapable to perform the office of Redemption § 2. Upon these Considerations Porphyry de sacrificiis grounds this Assertion That as these reputed God-presidents had no power of releiving but within their own respective Jurisdictions so the purgation of the humane Soul was wholly out of their reach The spiritual part of the Soul saith he which takes in the Images of Corporeal things from the Fantasie inform'd by the common Sense may by the cooperations of those Daemons with certain Magical Consecrations be made capable to receive the Images of those Spirits and to see those kinds of Gods But the Intellectual Soul wherein is received the Verity of intelligible things that have no resemblances of Bodies cannot receive by such Consecrations any such Purgation as renders it fit to see its proper God or those things that are true Yet Porphyry in the same place takes down the efficacy of these Saviours one Pegg lower and leaves them nothing to put forth their salvifick power upon but Temporal Concerns and the goods of the Body or Fortune and therefore counts it madness in Plilosophers to make any application to them though perhaps and but perhaps it be necessary for Cities to procure their favour and make them by material Sacrifices propitious to them for the sake of that external and corporeal good they may confer upon those who place their well-being in the affluence of such things The fairies may drop a Teaster into the good huswise's shoe and that 's the summ of their rewards And yet these Saviours cannot save to themselves this poor pittance of power denied to them notonly by St. Austin who in his five first Books de Civitate not only proves but proves out of Pagan Records that those Saviours can neither do good nor hurt But by the most sage Philosophers and Philosophizing Poets there quoted by him to which quotation I refer my Reader and procede to another Argument for the proof of the agreement of the Platonicks with us Christians in this Point That none of those by the Vulgar reputed blessed Spirits who became incarnate to redeem Mankind were qualified for that Work which was therefore to be laid upon one more mighty than them all able to grapple with all opposite Infernal Powers an undauntable Lion who would not faint nor be discouraged by Lions in the way a Passion to which all their known God-saviours were subject and thereby rendred incapable to accomplish the end of their supposed Incarnation § 3. Porphyry in his first de regressu animae professeth himself of this Opinion That God was not so deficient in his care of Man as not to provide as general a way of Purgation as the Infection was and make the Plaister as broad as the Sore which universal way of Redemption he confesses had not been communicated to the World as far as he could learn either by the Customs of the Indians the Disciplines of the Chaldeans or the Philosophical Schools there being something of what in common Reason was required in order to the effecting of the Cure wanting in all those ways of Soul-purgation to which the most inquisitive Persons had applied themselves Upon which that great Light of Africa St. Austin de civitate 22. 27. hath this Note Had Plato and Porphyry compared Notes they would have turn'd Christian that is had Plato dared to have spoken as freely as his Scholar did for an Universal Saviour and had not Porphyry forsaken his Master in that point of Truth which he asserted touching the Incarnation and sufferings of the Saviour they would have joyned hands with the Christian and have subscribed to his Hypothesis This very Notion was the ground of their erecting Altars and preferring Prayers to the unknown God Hence the Mariners call every man upon his God and lest they might all mistake the true God-saviour they awaken Jonah to call upon his God for
of Holiness that 's set before us This they that would might have received as their encouragement then they that took the pains to crack the Nut found this Kernel of heavenly within the Shell of those earthly inducements In Christ's Manger there 's clean Provender fann'd and winnowed to our hand in the Crib of Moses the Corn was in the Chaff yet so as they that had their senses exercised to discern did seperate the Corn from the Chaff Now the framing of Gospel-motives so as they clash not with but are superordinated to yea extracted out of those of the Law as their spirits speaks the Compilers to have been men of well composed Minds To take at that hint which Moses gave of God's intending some better thing than Canaan in his informing us that the whole earth whereof Canaan was a part was accursed for Man's sake and Canaan not only actually under the effects of that Curse for it bore Briers and Thistles but the most cursed part of the whole Earthly Globe then when the promise of it was made to Abraham as being contaminated with the abominations of its Inhabitants more than any other Countrey Or at those hints which the Patriarchs gave of their looking beyond an earthly Canaan in that promise in their confessing themselves to be pilgrims and strangers even when they were setled in Canaan I am a sojourner as all my fathers were Psal. 39. In their not taking those many opportunities which were offer'd them of returning thither after the end of the Famine during the whole time of Joseph's Presidency or of those Kings who knew Joseph but chusing rather to stay in Goshen than to go back into Canaan where for all its fertillity they had been famish'd if Egypt had not releiv'd them enough singly to have convinc'd them that some better thing was involv'd in the Promise To take I say at such hints and thence to conclude so irrefragably as they do that the Patriarchs saw by faith a Land beyond that even an heavenly Their presenting the Church in such a posture as Christ's left hand is under her head while his right hand doth embrace her as St. Jerom from the Fathers expounds that place Can. 2. 6. in his comment upon Zachary cap. 4. So as the two Olive-trees Law on left Gospel on right hand pour Oyl into the golden Candlestick the Church argues the Apostle's discoursive faculty to have been very sound 2. Which may be further evidenc'd by their giving such an account of Christ's improvement of Moses his Morals in some Branches that were virtually in the Bole or Root though they did not actually put forth till they fell under the vegitating influence of the Sun of Righteousness as neither speaks Moses unfaithful in his omitting of them nor Christ austere in his requiring some things that under Moses were dispensed with Christus praecepta supplendo conservavit auxit Tertul. Cont. March l. 4. Christ in supplying the defects of the Law did as well preserve it as enlarge it As in the cases of Polygamy divorce retaliation deportment toward enemies c. By their imputing Moses his giving of dispensations to the hardness of that peoples heart for whose benefit and whose temper his Laws were framed who were tolerated in less to prevent their breaking out into greater sins Mat. 19. 8. And his not imposing some and those the most spiritual and heroick Duties to the Childishness of the Synagogue being under age till the Fulness of Time Gal 4. 1. The Christian Age is thence stiled by St. Chrisostom tom 3. pag. 93 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the age ripe for greater commands Both which being removed by Christ hardness of heart by the plentiful pourings out of his Spirit and childishness by making us men in knowledg through his most manifest revelation of spiritual and Eternal life As also that heavy Yoke of carnal Ordinances sutable to the Necks of that carnal People who minded not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eternal and natural rules of Justice and Piety Just. Martyr 〈◊〉 and therefore imposed upon them as we send Children to School to keep them employed To impose some checks and stops in their course of carnality to find them work as Justin Martyr tells Tryphon the Jew and out of the way of those harms they are otherwise prone to run into From which divine Impositions they took occasion of becoming more childish relying for acceptance with God more upon those bodily Exercises than substantial Holiness These Incumbrances I say being taken away by Christ it cannot be counted an act of Austerity that he should evacuate all dispensations to sin and having eased us of the burden of carnal Commandments grievous to an ingenious and generous spirit such as the Gospel infuseth should lay so much more weight upon us of noble work congenial to every humane and delightful to every evangelized Soul Christ being come our brangling and babling work was less wherefore we had also a greater Task as having greater assistance given us Theophilact in Rom. 6. 14. for I interpret his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wrestling of Boys in the Fencing-school and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the exercises of men and experienc'd Practitioners as is manifest from the opposition they are set in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. in 1 Cor. 9. 21. Having a Law more sublime than the old Law viz. the Law of Christ. 3. By their presenting Moses in some of them as prescribing Laws Politick for the outward Man not Spiritual to the Conscience and therefore dispensing with them in curia soli non coeli before Man's not God's Tribunal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isid. Pel. Epist. 134. lib. 4. The Old Testament made Laws for the Hand the new for the Heart that regulated the Action this the Thought An hint of which St. Matthew gives as that divine Critick Dr. Hamond observes in his prefacing those passages in Christ's Sermon on that Mount where he publish'd his royal Law which concern retaliation and loving of friends and hating enemies with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye have heard but leaving out the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by or to them of old thereby signifying those Doctrines to have been Doctrines of Moses his Law but not of the Decalogue not moral Precepts wherein Conscience was concern'd but belonging to Policy and the humane Court wherein Moses intending to prevent the first injury as the learned Isidore observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fear of suffering the like Isidor Pelusiot lib 4. epist. 209. tit in illud oculum pro oculo the offended person was allowed to implead the offender and to have a Tooth for a Tooth an Eye for an Eye August contr Adamant Man cap. 5. saith Constitutus est eis primus lenitatis gradus ut injuriae acceptae mensuram nullo modo dolor vindicantis superaret Sic enim domare aliquando posset injuriam qui eam primò non superare didiscisset Unde dominus
frightning men to obedience by menacies of Hell-fire c. But all will not be won by Love the fear of approaching death was of more avail to perswade Celsus his Master Epicurus that there is a God than all the sweet morsels he cramb'd his belly with Let the Antinomian here acknowledge his first Father Besides saith he lib. 6. 19 Do not the Christians charge God with want of Power or Foresight in his permitting the Serpent so far to deface his Image in Man as that in order to the restoring of it he is forc'd to send his only Son to become Man's Advocate God knew how to use his Power and VVisdom better than in prevention of that evil viz. by bringing a greater good out of it Conceived by the Holy Ghost Touching the Christian's belief that Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost he hath this Animadversion lib. 6. cal 35. What need was there that the Holy Ghost should over-shaddow the Virgin and frame Christ a Body in her womb could not God have shaped him a Body he could not have a Body of the Seed of the Woman without the Seed of the Woman without immersing his own Spirit into so great contamination Celsus might have learn'd better Language of Proclus the Pagan Philosopher Secundum nihil omnino providentiam ex gubernatis accipere nec eorum natura repleri nec eis alicubi commisceri non enim ex eo quòd omnia disponit admiscetur proptereà gubernatis Proclus de anima daemone tit providentia per singula percurrit interim nullis addit pag. 191. If he had been conceiv'd by the Holy Ghost his Body would have excelled all othets in Stature in Form in Strength in Voice nec vox hominem sonat in Majesty and in Elocution for it is incredible that he who had so much Divinity who was formed by so divine an hand should not surpass all men but Christ as the Christians confess was but like to if not inferiour to other men His face according to Prophecy was to be mar'd more than any man's low mean humble yea deformed Why should the holy Spirit be sent to one in a corner of the World in Judea and not be inspired into all men man must let the work of Redemption alone for ever if God have a purpose to save all men As to the last clause of this Article he brings in a Jew lib. 1. cal 20. thus scoffing at Christ for chusing to be born of so mean a Woman at so mean a Town he was to be born in the form of a servant and Bethlehem-Judah was the least of the Cities of Judea as Bethlehem c. did her beauty her inward Beauty being full of Grace invited God to chuse her for the Mother of the Son of God before others invite God into her embraces how could she conceive and bring forth a Son without the knowledg of man c. which Origen retorts thus how do the Vultures breed as your own Pagan Writers report without companying with the Male why could not God make the second Adam without a Father as well as the first without either Father or Mother and lastly that we Christians are not the only men who embrace such admirable stories is manifest from your believing that Plato was conceived by Apollo and born of his Mother Amphictione yet a Virgin before her Husband Aristo had knowledg of her being prohibited by a Vision to touch her At the same point the Seeker whom Volusianus mentions strains August ep 2. Who is there among you saith he so well versed and established in the Christian Religion as can resolve me where I stick I wonder how the Lord of the Universe could take up his lodging in the body of a spotless Virgin how she could go out her ten Months and then bring forth a Child and after that continue a Virgin how could he lurk in the little body of a Vagient Infant whom the Heavens are not able to contain how could the Ancient of days endure to undergo so many years of Infancy of Childhood of Youth of Man-hood or the everlasting God that faints not neither is weary submit to sleep to hunger and thirst to cold and wearisomness and the rest of humane weaknesses cease this wondring man Christ did all this to make it manifest that he was the Son of Man as well as of God Jam illud quòd in somnos solvitur c. hominem persuadet hominibus quem non consumpsit utique sed assumppsit August epist. 2. Volusiano and as to her continuing a Virgin St. Austin answers Ipsa virtus per inviolatae Mariae virginea viscera membra infantis eduxit quae posteà per clausa ostia membra juvenis introduxit that power which brought Christ through the shut door did bring him out of the shut womb It is St. Austin's Observation that the Philosophers in questioning the truth of the Church touching the Incarnatlon overthrew their own Principles It is their Assertion saith he de civit 10. 29. that the intellectual Soul may by purging become consubstantial paternae menti with the Father's Mind which they confess to be the Son of God what absurdity then can there be in the Christian Belief that one individual soul being the purest that ever was created for the salvation of many was assumed into Union with the Son of God Now that the Body must adhere to the Soul that he may be a perfect man we learn by the Testimony of Nature it self which Union of Body and Soul if it were not usual would be less credible than the union of an Humane Soul to the Mind Word or Son of God For 't is casier to be believed that an incorporeal should be united to an incorporeal than that a corporeal and incorporeal Being should conflate into one And Tertullian observes Apol. priùs citato that nothing was more common in the Heathen World than Virgin-births of divine Conceptions and yet they had been more common if some like Olympias had not been jealous of Juno's Jealousie after whose Copy she return'd this answer to her son Alexander's Letter thus superscribed King Alexander the Son of Jupiter Hammon to his Mother Olympias all health I pray thee Son do not traduce me and accuse me to Juno as one that had been naught with her Husband for I shall never be able to bear the burden of that her spightful jealousie which she will conceive against me upon thy writing thy self the Son of Jove and thy insinuating me to be his Whore Agellius Noct. Attic. lib. 13. cap. 4. This Text of St. Austin Ep. 2. beside that that I quoted it for points to a great many Circumstances in the History of the blessed Jesus mention'd in the Gospel all which are from this allegation of the Adversaries acknowledged to have been the Doctrine of the Apostolical as well as Modern Church § 4. Article 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilat was crucified dead and buried and descended into Hell
his Canopy and perceived saith Josephus that this Bird was the Angel or Messenger of Calamity a German Southsayer having foretold him that when he saw that Bird again which was then a Messenger of glad tidings to him as he interpreted an Owls sitting upon a Tree on which Herod Agrippa lean'd and rested his weary body born down with grief of mind to be he must expect death within five days Antiq. l. 18. 13. § 4. It would be too large a Digression here to discuss the Art or rather Craft of this kind of Divination the Vanity of it has already been discovered and is sufficiently evinc'd by this Example for this German promis'd Herod an happy Death and that he should leave his Children in the possession of his Wealth neither of which proved true his Son being kept many years from the possession of his Fathers Crowns during which time he was the Emperours Beads-man and his Soul passing out of his Body through those faetid Pores the Worms made in his Entrails Though God permitted the Augure to hit the point of truth in his Prediction that within five dayes after his second sight of that Bird he should die as he did the Witch of Endor's Familiar in Samuels mantle to tell Saul the sad tidings of his next days loss of Field and Life the divine Wisdom ordering mens Curiosity and Credulity in such cases to be their torment That other Point of Apparitions of Spirits this Text of Iosephus forceth me to speak to that I may illustrate his Paraphrase upon St. Luke and proceed upon clear grounds in paralleling the remaining parts of the story But yet I shall not be so prodigal of my Readers patience as to discuss whether this Angel of Herods mishap this Messenger of his death sate upon his Canopies Cord or only upon his Optick Nerve that is whether a Spirit assumed this form upon it self or painted it on Herod's Fancy For 't is all one as to our Case whether the File was a real one upon the Book or a painted one upon the Spectacles Nor whether good Angels appear in any but august Forms and by consequence whether this was a good or an evil Spirit I profess not to cure the itch of mens Curiosity but only to shew the agreement of St. Luke and Josephus in sence while one calls that an Owl which the other calls an Angel in order to which it will be sufficient to observe That good Spirits are more obedient than to refuse any form that God bids them take for the service of his Providence or the Ministry of his Saints as this was for St. Luke reports it as an occasion of the growth and multiplying of the Word why then should a good Angel more scruple at appearing in this homely form than a whole host of them did at appearing in the shape of Centaures and Chariot-horses for the encouragement of one poor servant of the Prophet nay than the eternal Spirit did at the appearance in the form of a Dove Is there not infinitely more distance betwixt the holy Ghost and an Arch-angel than is betwixt a Dove and an Owl Nay hadst thou been of Gods council what form couldst thou have advised him to command his Angel to take whom he sent to bring message to Herod of his approaching Death to torment him in the midst of his jollity with the fore-thought of it than of that Creature which he being perswaded of the Infallibility of the German Oracle in the last by experiencing the truth of the first part of it thought as verily to see five days before his Death as Simeon hoped to see the Lord Christ before his departure But that the Sceptick may not laugh in his sleeve at my transforming an Angel into an Owl though had he so much of Athenian Learning as he boasts of he would not think Minerva's Squirell so contemptible a Bird but that an Angel might assume her form and therein be more congruously plac'd than his so brutified a Soul as it lives by nothing but Sense is in an humane Body I do not positively assert this to have been a good Angel for as the heavenly attend as Voluntiers so the infernal Spirits as prest Soldiers are at the command of the Lord of Hosts and when he imploys them they are his Messengers the Angels of the Lord. God march'd through Aegypt when the First-born were slain with the Pestilence in the head of an Army of evil Angels Psal. 78. 50. by sending evil Angels among them he weighed his anger distributed it by a just proportion to the Egyptians while the Israelites were passed over and among the Egyptians so as it fell upon the First-born of Man and Beast while the rest escap'd they were given over to the Pestilence by the immission of so many Asmodei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Septuagint Sent by the hands of evil Angels Chald. Indeed which of his Creatures can God more properly make use of to be the Executioners of his wrath than evil Angels and yet the destroying Angel is called the Angel of the Lord 2 Samuel 24. 16. the Hangman is the Kings Officer Be this therefore a good or bad Angel it was that Angel of the Lord that smote Herod as both St. Luke stiles this Apparition and Josephus conformably unto him To proceed now in his Story therein the blewness of the Wounds this Messenger gave him is apparent both upon Herod's Soul and Body for as soon as he perceiv'd this ill-boading Angel he is struck to the heart with grief ex intimis praecordiis indoluit and his belly with gripings secuta sunt ventris tormina whereupon turning his eyes to his Parasites Behold saith he I whom ye called a God am commanded to depart this life fatal Necessity proves you layrs and I whom you stiled immortal am posting to the Chambers of Death with his speech his pain increaseth they therefore forthwith carry him to his Bed where after five days racking and gnawing pain in his Bowels he gives up his weary Ghost § 5. This part of Josephus his Text agrees with St. Luke's 1. In his assigning this stroak to a supernatural hand as inflicted upon him by the Angel of the Lord so palpably as Herod himself perceived that Spectrum to be the Messenger of God upon sight whereof he received these stroaks in Mind and Body as proved mortal of this supernatural immission Josephus speaks not so dubiously as he does of the last and mortal disease of Herod the Great Bel. Jud. 1. 8. upon whom the same malady of worms was as he saith by some conceived to be inflicted assiduis vexabatur coli tormentis inflatio ventriculi putredoque virilis membri vermiculos generans in revenge of Judas not he of Galilee but the Son of Sepphoraeus and Matthias the Son of Margalus whom that Herod a little before his Death as this a little before his slew St. James had put to death for taking down that Golden Eagle which Herod
resembles the gnawing of VVorms Vermina dicuntur dolor corporis cùm quodam minuto motu quasi à vermibus scindatur Festus Hence because the pain that attends the Dropsie resembles that of the VVorms and hath this name sometimes alotted to it grew that dangerous mistake of Eusebius that Herod the great dyed of the dropsie who yet if I mistake not affirms that Herod Agrippa dyed of the same Malady in that opposing Josephus in this both him and St. Luke And verminatio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Luke's word in the Text is used to signifie in general any gripings in the inwards like to the gnawing of VVorms which it particularly signifies Vossii Etymologicon Can this common notion of both Greeks and Latines hint to us any thing less then this that the tormina in the Bowels are commonly vermina the grief of the VVorms and properly a Symptom thereof except it appear by other Symptoms joyn'd with it that it is not that Distemper and I am perswaded were the Symptoms of Herod's Disease propounded to a skilful Physician and the question put what distemper the patient was afflicted with he would without any long pause resolve that he who is held as Josephus represents Herod must as St. Luke reports him be afflicted with Worms § 6. If it might not be thought a digression and which I more fear a culpable singularity I would shew mine opinion of St. Paul's Thorn in the slesh 2 Cor. 12. 7. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the hyperbole of the Revelations there was given me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet me It s proximity to Herod's Case will alleviate the first and the plausibleness of the Reasons inducing me to it together with my propounding it as a matter of Opinion not Faith the second crime with candid Readers in which presumptions I shall hint these brief Observations There was given me a thorn in the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. They that make this Thorn to be Concupicense should do well to consider how they can free God from being the Author of Sin while they make it his gift to St. Paul for mine own part I shall not need to put into my Letany from such gifts of God good Lord deliver me for I am well assured that that God whom I serve cannot by reason of his Holiness open such a Pandora's Box can no more tempt than he can be tempted to evil and if he were such an one as bestows such Gifts as Concupiscence upon his friends I would bless my self from him and chuse to be listed among his enemies As also how such an immission can be a gift for any man's good to him that receives it as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies this was for St. Paul's advantage Besides how Concupiscence which is the Fleshes right Eye and right Side can be a Thorn to it to grieve and prick it how that can be a Thron in its eye a Goad in its side which is the very Life and Soul of it is so hard to conceive or else I am so dull of apprehension as I cannot with a Pitch-fork thrust that Fancy into my head any more than Musculus could into his who thus staves us off from embracing the Antinomian Gloss. Non simpliciter dicit esse sibi stimlum sed esse sibi datum stimulum utique non allunde quam à Deo ipso loco videlicet antidoti quae à medico contrà periculum pestis datur Musc. in locum He does not say simply that he had a thorn but that a thorn was given him It proceeded therefore from none but God by whom it was bestowed as an antidote against the danger of that plague which St. Paul might possibly have caught after his Rapture Disertè dicit datus est mihi stimulus ut significet illum reputari à se pro 〈…〉 sâ—ngulari Dei dono Of which he therefore saith expresly there was given me a thorn that he might give us to understand that he reckon'd it for a singular benefit of God 2. It must therefore imply the infliction of the evil of pain not of sin some sad and sharp affliction some pricking anguish immitted by some instruments of Satan Irenaeus lib. 4. cap. ult Theodoret and Theophilact on the place think some of the Gnosticks the Followers of Simon Magus that great Sorcerer to have been the instrument of buffeting St. Paul Vide Dr. Hamond in locum whose Teachers in the stile of this Apostle were Minsters of Satan 2 Cor. 11. 15. as vying with the Apostles in their lying Wonders wrought by a Satanical power 2 Thes. 2. 9. Chrysostom names Alexander the Copper smith Himenaeus and Philetus as those among whom we may likeâ—iest find this Messenger of Satan And judicious Musculus singles out Alexander as that Minister of Satan that was given to St. Paul for a Thorn as it were sticking in his flesh and every where pricking and afflicting him But I am not solicitous to determine the numerical Instrument it will give more light to the Text if we can resolve what this pungent affliction was wherewith St. Paul was kept humble since it could not be Concupiscence for that had been to cast out Satan by Satan to expel one Devil by bringing in seven nay the whole legion of unclean Spirits the Body of Sin to subdue one Member St. Chrysostom thinks Epist. 15. to 7. pag. 101. this Thorn was the Calumnies the Persecutions raised against the Apostle But these were 1. So usual and daily and so universally inflicted by all the enemies of the Cross of Christ as will hardly comport with this Thorn in the Text which as it was signally given upon this special occasion so it was inflicted by some particular emiment Tool of Satan 2. It will not be easie to conceive how this kind of Physick could be proper for this distemper but should rather imp the Apostles Wings for an higher flight of self exultation and occasion him to think that those Consolations in Christ in the Anticipations of Paradise were set to counterballance his afflictions for Christ if not God's rewarding his sufferings They guess most probably in mine Opinion that conceive this Thorn to have been some corporeal Disease whether the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or some Iliac Passion is not much material the buffeting that is beating about the ears or head favouring the first and the Thorn in the flesh the second That as Job was delivered for his Trial to Satan to inflict what Diseases he would upon his Body provided they were not mortal and as the Apostle in mercy to men's Souls and in order to their recovery from some fowl Lapses gave some over to Satan for the destruction of the Flesh that their Spirits might be saved that they reflecting upon the sad Effects of the Apostolical Rod might study to reconcile themselves to the Church 1 Cor. 5. 5. so the Lord in favour to St. Paul
after Aarons order made upon the Altar of his Cross by the oblation of himself a full and perfect Propitiation for the sins of the whole World and was then actually inflicted when in the virtue of that Attonement God sent him as a Priest after the Order of Melchisedech to bless the Nations by turning them from their sins If this God of Israel hath where he is invocated any Priests taken from among the Gentiles but those of Christs Institution that call themselves and are called that is known by the name of the Priests of the Lord. He may find this name scorned by such punie Antichrists as the Gospel tells us have ever been and foretells us will ever be in the Church but not of the Church who being under a Form of Godliness deny the Power and either out of a blind zeal or for a cloak of Covetousness decry the Evangelical Priest-hood casting contempt upon and practising to abolish that Name which the God of Israel hath said the Evangelical Ministers should be called by doing what in them lay to overturn the Foundation of Christian Faith For if there be not an order of Men taken out from the rest from among the people called the Priests of the Lord the Gentiles are not yet called nor that God whom we invocate the God of Israel nor that Jesus whom we worship the Christ the promised Messiah for of the days of Messias it is prophesied Is. 66. 8. I will gather all Nations and Tongues and they shall come and see my glory and this I will do by setting a Sign amongst them by erecting the Standard of the Cross For those that escape those of the Jews that save themselves from the untoward Generation by embracing Christ I will send to the Nations disperse them over the World to Tarshish Pul and Lud to Tubal and Javan to the Isles afar off that have not heard my fame neither have seen my Glory and they shall declare my Glory Preach Christ the Brightness of my Glory Heb. 1. 3. among the Gentiles And they shall bring all your Brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all Nations and of them that shall be converted out of all Nations I will take for Priests and Levites For as the new Heavens that I create remain before me so shall your Seed and your Name remain for ever And again Isa. 61. 6. Ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord men shall call you the Ministers of our God See here what tender Consciences those tender ear'd men have and how well those Laodicean Church-men consult the promoting of the honour of Christ and the salvation of Souls through his Blood that rather than we should offend the itching ears of those white Devils would have us wave the use of so harsh a word so grating a name as that of Priests though it be of the mouth of the Lords naming and the bearing of it among the Gentiles one of those Demonstrations of the Spirit of Prophesie that Christ is come and that he whose Priests we are is the God that made Heaven and Earth Not but that the Romish Sacrificers have Sacrilegiously abused this name to the abetting their Sacrifice of the Mass or as if names or things whose use is not necessary may not be laid aside when abused as God took the name of Baal out of his peoples mouth after it had been appropriated to Idols and Hezechiah broke the Brazen Serpent after the Idolatrous use of it Yet he that upon that pretence would banish the name of Jehovah or other Names of God out of Christian use would leave us never a Name to call him by for all his Names that the Gentiles could get at the Tongues end they applied to their Idols and should we exterminate every Word or Thing that has been made an evil use of we must speak by Signs renounce our Creed our Meat Drink and Sleep How much more cautious should we be of entertaining those Principles of a squeasie and mis-inform'd Conscience as induce us to a disuse of that Name which God himself hath stampt upon the Ministers of the Gospel as their Memorial for ever But Odi prophanum vulgus arceo I should blame my self for making this excursion before the Atheist if it were not to inform him that in case while he is seeking for the accomplishment of this Prophesie he meet with such as disclaim this and call themselves by another Name and thereby be confirm'd in his Atheism the Church is free of his blood for there never hath been any Christian Church upon Earth whose Ministers are not known and called by the name of the Priests of Israel's God § 3. Let him enquire what Sacrifices and Oblations have been offered him since his Name was Great in all the World but that commemorative one of the great Propitiation which our high Priest made once for all That Thanksgiving-Sacrifice of the Eucharist that well-pleasing Sacrifice of a sweet odour we tender him in our Works of Charity in our honouring him with our substance that living and reasonable Service wherein we offer up our selves Souls Bodies and Spirits to the disposal of his Royal Law What Incense hath been burnt before him but Prayer from a Devout and flaming Heart What Libations have been powred out in his presence but penitential Tears flowing from a contrite spirit Let him travel Aegypt through and through he will find no Altar there erected to the God of Israel but that Table-throne of Grace whereon we offer to him his Creatures of Bread and Wine and make a Commemoration of his Son's Death No Pillar there set up to the Lord but the eternal Monument of his dear Love the Triumphant Standard of the blessed Cross. He will find the Jew the Assyrian the Aegyptian serving the God of Israel joyntly in the practise of no Religion but the Christian. And then I leave it to the Atheists Discretion to judge whether it be conceivable that that God who was so wise as to foresee and so powerful as to effect this great Change we see wrought in the World by the Gospel should be so far wanting to himself and those of Mankind that most sincerely love him as to have none to worship him in a way of his own Institution this sixteen hundred years ever since he by his Providence hath made it impossible to tender him that Worship himself had formerly commanded the place being destroyed where God will only accept of such like services and the Jews having been terrified from rebuilding it under Julian so as they never since durst reattempt it The Story of which their Consternation is thus reported by Greg. Nazianzen Oratione 48. in Julianum 2. Julian invited the Jews to return into Judaea and rebuild their Temple whereupon multitudes of them repair thither and busie themselves in that work with as much zeal as our City-Matrons exprest When those Forts and Lines of Communication were cast up whereby they
excluded themselves from the Protection of the best of Kings and cooped up themselves to be a prey to the worst of Tyrants for as ours then so the Jewish Matrons now spared neither their tender Limbs nor fine Cloaths nor richest Jewels but as they expended their Treasures in hiring Labourers so they themselves did not disdain to serve the Workmen by carrying Baskets of Rubbish till both Masons and Servitours were forc'd from their work by Balls of Fire issuing from the trembling and gaping Earth by which they that were not kill'd had their Garments or Bodies inured with the Sign of the Cross by which Marks of God's displeasure many of them were so far convinc'd that no other Religion was acceptable to God but the Christian as they with one voyce invocate the help of Christ and were by Baptism initiated in the Christian Faith The substance of this Story I have elsewhere alledged out of Ammianus Marcellinus one of Julian's Captains And Nazianzen affirms that when he wrote this Oration these Prints and Marks upon their Cloaths were still to be seen Is 't then I say imaginable in reason that ever since the disannulling of the Mosaical Service of Legal Sacrifices God has been no where worship'd in a way of his own institution Or is it possible to point out any People upon Earth save the Christian Church that worship him in that way which God himself foretold he would erect at the vacateing of the old § 4. The fourth and last instance I shall give of Prophecies touching meer Contingencies that have been so palpably fulfill'd as the Effect of the accomplishment is now existing is of those which foretold That after Israel had cast off their Messiah and their God cast off them and taken the Gentiles to be his People Those Gentiles as they came into Christ should cast a way all their former Idol-Gods so as never again to return to them Of which Tenour are those Texts Isa. 2. 18. 20 21. The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day and the Idols shall he utterly abolish and they shall go into the holes of the Rocks and into the Caves of the Earth for fear of the Lord and for the Glory of his Majesty when he ariseth terribly to shake the earth In that day shall a man cast his Idols of Silver and Gold which they made each one for himself to worship to the moles and to the batts This day is that when all Nations shall flow unto the Mountain of the Lords House c. ver 1. The same Prophecy is repeated Is. 31. 7. and the Effect of it dated when the Lord the Shepherd of Israel shall rise up against the multitude of Shepherds called forth against him the whole Crew of Idols erected by the Gentile world to affront the Majesty of Heaven and make no more of them than a Lyon doth of unarmed Shepherds who would scare him away with their voyce when he comes to take their Flock from them and when those Flocks shall be turned unto that God from whom the Children of Israel have deeply revolted In that day shall every man cast away his Idols c. And Isa. 45. and 46. Chapters When all the ends of the Earth shall look unto God when to him every Knee shall bow every Tongue shall swear c. Then Bel boweth down Nebo stoopeth their Idols were upon the Beasts your carriages were heavy laden they are a burden to the weary Beasts they stoop they bow down together they could not deliver the burden but themselves are gone into Captivity That is the Heathen Great Pontiffs and Philosophers shall not be able to maintain the Cause of those false Gods whom by office and inducement of State they are bound to support but shall fall down under the weight of that Vanity and Impiety the Gospel shall charge them with and throw off their load and themselves become Christs Captives so mighty were the Weapons of the Apostles Warfare to cast down those vain Imaginations that had exalted themselves against the knowledge of the true God and to bring into obedience to Christ the strongest holds that Satan by his Deputies held in the Heathen World And Zech. 13. 2. In that day when a Fountain should be open'd to those Inhabitants of Jerusalem to that House of David that should mourn every Family apart over him whom they had pierced which cannot be meant of the Jews after the Flesh for it was the Gentiles that pierced Christ it was the Roman Soldiers that platted the Crown of Thorns and set it upon Christs Head that Nailed his Hands and Feet to the Cross that peirced his Side with a Spear to which external peircing of Christs Body and not to that Sword which the unthankful Jew ran through his Soul the Evangelist applies this Text John 19. 37. The Spirit of Grace and Supplication is not promised to the breakers of his Heart but Bones the Gentiles Heart that broke his Bones shall be broken when the spirit convinceth them of that sin but the Jews generally lost under Judicial blindness in that day I say that the spiritual Judah shall repent and be baptized St. Jerom expounds this Fountain to be Christian Baptism that Laver of Regeneration It shall come to pass saith the Lord of Hosts that I will cut off the names of the Idols out of the Land c. and cause the unclean spirits to pass out of the Land Was ever any thing foretold with more plainness and perspicuity most of those Oracles and a great many more which for brevity sake I omit are as transparent as if they had been writ with a Sun-beam in this copious variety of expressions there is not one ambiguous Word not one dark Syllable a Child may run and read these Visions Would then such eminent Persons as their Prophets were in their several Generations have run the hazard of having their Memories traduc'd in after-ages by such plain speaking having no imaginable Secular Temptation to it but against it had they not been beyond all possibility of mistake assured of the Infallibility of that Spirit by which they were moved Now the same Degree of Assurance which they had à priori from the Cause we may have à posteriori from the Effect they could not by that more then Scientifical Vision of those things in the Divine Mind that essential Cognition that simple Contact and Feeling of God's Will Tactus quidam divinitatis notitiâ melior essentialis cognitio divinorum contactus quidam essentialis simplex Jamblicus de cognit divinorum be more certain that this would be than we may that it is come to pass by observing the Event For never were any Predictions more manifestly fulfill'd than these not one title of them is faln to the Earth There is not now nor has not been in any part of the World since Christian Religion was planted in it the least Relique of those numberless Pagan Gods it swarmed with before that
penitent being so essential an Attribute of good Spirits as Plato in Phaedro ascribes it to the deified soul of Helena whose anger conceiv'd against Stesichorus for his invectives against her was expiated by this short Palinody 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c This discourse is not true neither didst thou ever come at Troy In order to his making this Recantation he was inform'd by the Muses that he had offended Helena a favour which they would not do for Homer saith Plato in the fragments of Stesichorus put out by Henry Stephens Nay Pausanias affirms that Helen sent him word of her displeasure on purpose that he might attone her so propense to mercy are deified Souls in the judgment of sober Antiquity how much more the Deity it self Pausanias Laconicis Though as to this story of Stesichorus Isocrates fathers his blindness upon his writing impiously of God Isocratis Busiris upon whose Testimony we may rank him with Theopompus and Theodectes who as Demetrius told Ptolomy were struck blind for inserting some Sentences of the Law of Moses into their prophane Writings Joseph Antique Jud. lib. 12. cap. 2. And verily if we may judge of Hercules by his foot of that Poem of Stesichorus by the Fragments remaining Helena had no cause to be angry with the Poet for there is nothing extant of his works relating to her but what is in her commendation as that in the Scholiast on Euripides where Stesichorus is said to have represented Helena in such an admirable form of Beauty the only thing wherein she prided her self as when the incensed people did but cast their eyes upon her face they let fall out of their hands the stones they had taken up to fling at her Stesichori carmina Whether in his Story of the Suns putting it self into a golden Cap and descending down through the Ocean into the infernal World to visit his Virgin-wife and dear Children he hath not perverted the Sacred Story of the Suns shadow going back on Ahaz his Dial and the Prophecy of the Virgin-birth I leave to the judicious to determine after they have perused that Fragment of his in Athenaeus But I digress These Examples show that the wisest of Heathens accounted the true God to be the avenger of Impiety § 4. Unto the same head are to be referr'd those miraculous effusions of the divine Goodness upon some Gentile Nations who were less brutified and better moralized than others and retain'd a Reverend though erronious Opinion of the Deity The Observation of Valerius Maximus cap. 1. tit 8. is in Hypothesi very sound Non mirum igitur sipro eo augendo imperio custodiendóque pertinax divina indulgentia semper excubuit quod tam scrupulosa cura parvula quoque momenta Religionis examinare videtur quia nunquam remotos ab exactissimo cultu ceremoniarum oculos habuisse nostra civitas existimanda est It is no wonder that God should work wonders for the safeguard and encrease of those Empires that are strictly Religious and scrupulous of the least matters touching the Worship of God though he and his unthankful Countrymen mist it in ascribing that indulgence in the lap whereof the antient Romans were dandled unto the Roman Gods imputing their prosperity to the favour of those Gentile Deities who favour'd nothing less than Virtue and Innocency of which every Act was an upbraiding of those beastly Gods upon their embracing of whom that State degenerated into a conformity to them in Epicurism Uncleanness Cruelty Perjury and all that Debauchery they learn'd of those Gods before their reception of whom the Roman Nation was both better manner'd and more successful Before they had any of those Gods to swear by in those Heroick Times of Rome when their Kings word or consent to a proposal exprest by the dumb shew of lifting up his Scepter perhaps of Hazel would more oblige him to keep his Promise than the most sacred Oathes could tie their Posterity Heroicis temporibus sceptrum erectum pro regum jurejurando valuisse notatum Aristot. 3. polit 14 When what the Orator flatteringly said of C. Caesar. Orat pro Deiotaro a mans right hand not stretcht out to Jupiter or any of his Fellow-Gods but to Heaven the habitation of the true God gave a greater testimony of its strength in plighting troth and forcing him that held it up to keep his promise than by handling the Martial Sword When the impresses of a Deity and innate Principles of Honesty did so ballast their heart as they naturally so far abhorr'd an impious or uncomly act as their Word was better than the Bond of their degenerate Off-spring and that infant innocent Age of Rome render'd the generality as reverable for Virtue as was that Grecian of whom Tully pro Cor. Bal. tells this lovely story Athenis aiunt cùm quidam apud eos qui sanctè graviter vixisset testimonium publicè dixisset ut mos est Graecorum jurandi causa ad aras accederet unâ voce omnes Judices nè is juraret reclamasse It needs not the Panderage of Rhetorick to obtain for it the attention of rightly affected ears I will therefore turn this Story after my wont into this plain English A certain Grecian who had lived an holy and grave Life being brought in to give testimony in a case depending and in order to his taking his Oath making his approach to the Altar as their manner is was with the general vote of the Judges dispenc'd with in that Ceremony they conceiving that the Gravity of his Life added weight enough to his bare Word Rome never experienc'd the industry of Fate the indulgence of our common Father more than during her Infancy while she went in her Mothers hand and scarce stirr'd from her side prima aetas quasi infantia qua circum matrem suam luctatus est cum finitimis quam habuit sub regibus septem quadam fatorum industrià tam variis ingenio ut reipublicae ratio utilitas postulabat Nam quid Romulo audentius tali opus fuit ut invaderet regnum Quid Numa religiosius Talem res poposcit ut ferox populus Deorum metu mitigaretur Quid ille militiae artifex Tullius bellatoribus viris quam necessarius ut accueret virtutem ratione quid aedificator Ancus ut urbem coloniâ extenderet ponte jungeret muro tueretur Jam vero Tarquinii ornamenta insignia quantam principi populo addiderunt ex ipso habitu dignitatem actus à Servio census quid effecit nisi ut ipsa se nosceret respublica Elori proeem lib. 1. cap. 8. When I say it was thus with them in point of Virtue it was best with them in point of Prosperity while they lived tollerably up to the Light of Nature they were more indulg'd as to the concerns of this Life even by the God of Israel than his own people were when they frowardly walk'd contrary to the Light of Grace Moribus antiquis res
intervention could possibly rob the lower World of its Light may easily be made appear by an enumeration of such Particulars as have been observed for this 5000 years to hinder its illuminating at once the Hemisphere of the Earth and so much more easily as the impediments are fewer than to take up a long discourse being but these two 1. The Interposition of the Body of the Moon which in that juncture could not be the impediment for at the Passover when our Saviour suffer'd the Moon was at the Full and visibly arising that evening in the East when the Sun set in the West we may therefore with as much reason charge a Theft committed at London upon a person that was in India when that fact was done as charge the Moon with this Robbery of the Suns Light I shall run no hazard of my credit before equal Judges by becoming her Compurgator in this case 2. The Cloudiness of the Skie But the Air was at that time so serene as the Stars appeared and might be seen all over the Heavens as Phlegon a Gentile Chronologer hath left upon Record Dies horâ sextâ in tenebrosam noctem versus ut stellae in caelo visae sunt Chron. Euseb. and that record probably taken out of the Roman Rolls where it was extant in Tertullian's time If the Clouds were not so thick but that the Stars might be seen through them they could not hinder the shining of that greatest Light the Sun Besides this Darkness was universal Mark 15. 33. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Darkness was over the whole Earth Erasmus indeed limits this to the Land of Judaea but Melchior Canus lib. 11. cap. 2. Doth sufficiently confute that Opinion which needs not any other Confutation than this that it was observ'd at Heliopolis in Egypt and if that Testimony of Dionysius be scrupled that of the Graecian Historians who write of it cannot be excepted against Scaliger animadvers in Chron. Euseb. But Clouds do but screen and stand in the light of some particular and small Regions so that when the Sun hath nothing else to hinder its shining it will cast its beams on one City on one part of a City when the other part is clouded This Darkness therefore could not proceed from any Natural Cause but was simply and nakedly the Effect of the suspension of its most natural power of giving Light Ex retractione radiorum solarium Voss. harmon Evang. l. 2. cap. 10. the retraction of its Beams from the unthankful World at the Will of its Creator on purpose to convince men that that Jesus who was then a crucisying was both Lord and Christ or as the Centurion from that Argument concludes the Son of God the King of Israel according to the sign given by the Prophet Zachary chap. 14. 6. In that day the light shall not be clear nor dark it shall be one day a day by it self at evening time it shall be light the Sun shall be turn'd into darkness and the Moon into blood and Joel chap. 2. 31 c as St. Peter applyed those Texts Acts 2. this is that that was spoken of by the Prophet Joel c. § 7. I will conclude with that which is both the sum of the Christian Faith and the seal of it the Resurrection of the blessed Jesus The sum of it If thou shalt believe in thine heart that God raised up Christ from the dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 10. The Seal of it whereof he hath given assurance made demonstration to all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Act. 17. 31. Shall I need to shew the demonstrableness of this Argument so cogent as he must shut his eyes against the clearest and most undoubted Sentiments of common Reason that does not acknowledge the Finger the Hand the Arm of inconquerable Omnipotency to have been at work in breaking the Chains of Death and bringing Christ thence after the pains and anguish of the Cross had exhausted his Vital Spirts and made his sacred Body inhospitable to that his precious Soul which he breathed into the hands of his Father after they who were set to watch him were so well satisfied that he was dead as they thought it needless to break his Legs and yet to make all sure ran a Spear to his Heart whence issued as an indication that there was no need of that neither in order to his dispatch but only that the Prophecies of him might be fulfill'd Water and Blood And lastly after he was buried and a Guard of Soldiers set about the Sepulchre by the procurement of his most watchful Adversaries who feared he would rise again as he had said and thereby declare himself to be the Messias These Circumstances speak a total privation of Life the extinction of the vital Flame the breaking of the golden Cord and Marriage-ring which coupled together that lovely Pair the Humane Flesh and Reasonable Soul whereof the Man Christ consisted And I appeal to common Principles to give sentence and determine those Questions Whether the Flame of Lifes Taper can be blown in again but by the blast of that Breath which blew it in at first Whether that Cord can be knit again by any hand but that which drew it Whether the Bowels of the Earth our common Mother whither Bodies return that they may see corruption be a fit Matrix wherein the Corps may be ripen'd naturally into an aptitude for the reception of the Soul In our first moulding the Spermatick Matter Courts the humane Form and when by Second Natures hand the Hand maid of the first Nature its gradually purified into an immediate fittedness for the reception of its Bridegroom God knits first the Band. And after the Band is broke the Soul after a sort courts the Corps by its propensity to a reunion to that without which it cannot be perfect But the fullen Corps is deaf to all such motions resists all methods of cure all applications of Medicines which the now more illuminated and intelligent Soul can possibly make and doubtless if an herb grew any where that could restore these beloved Mates the Souls of Philosophers that could see so well through the Casement being now in the free Air and having their eyes clarified with the dust of Death would spy it out are fruitless this work must be let alone for ever as no man can redeem his own Soul so no Soul can restore its own Body As the matter in the Womb would never have had its desires of Union to a reasonable Soul gratified if God had not infused the Soul so the Soul in a state of separation will never have its longing after reunion gratified till God restore to it its Body He that brought the Man to the Woman at first must after the sleep of Death bring the Woman to the Man or they will never meet Nay the bringing of soul and body together again after their Divorce implies that seeming Contradiction as the Disciples by
propounded as the Results of Reason as the collections of humane Ratiocination while in the mean time their Gods taught them by their Examples the quite contrary Ut ab ipso caelo traduci in terra satis idonea videatur authoritas That the inartificial argument that of divine Authority for Debauchery as drawing its extract from Heaven might counter-ballance all the most artificial perswasions to Virtue August de civitat 2. 10. Those Gods saith St. Austin Ibid c. 6. Not only permitted men to be overwhelm'd in their minds with loose opinions and to grow to the height of Villany without their interposing any terrible threatnings for they are not able to name the place or time when any of them perswaded to virtuous actions or disswaded by menacies from avarice ambition fraud cruelty luxury c. But they spurr'd them forward to all manner of licentiousness by their own Example 2. Nor prest with such Motives of eternal retribution as the Gospel propounds 3. Nor seconded with that aid of Divine Grace which attends the Preaching of the Word of Life rightly administred Hence all Philosophical Instructions became so ineffectual as it became a question Whether it was possible to discipline men to Virtue de virtute disputamus docerine possit Plutarch ethic tom 2. and though Plutarch affirms it may yet the best proof he brings of his Assertion is the absurdity of the contrary that men should learn all other Arts and Sciences and be incapable of learning the Art of right living seems to him highly absurd but he either labours with such penury of Examples or thinks those that were commonly alleadged so inconcludent as he doth not produce one for an Essay to the Probat of his Opinion but leaves the Virtuous Man for all the Culture of the Schools in the rank of black Swans even where his Antagonists had placed him Viri boni nominantur tantùm eo pacto quo hippocentauri Good men are entià rationis fancied only not really existing And â—ully after the perusal of both Greek and Latin Authors was as far to seek for a good man of the Philosophers making as Plutarch what one of the Philosophers saith Tully is so well manner'd so disposed in mind and life as reason requires which of them look upon their own Discipline not as an ostentation of science but the law of life who listens to himself or observes his own decrees you may see some of them to be persons of that light and yet supercilious carriage that they would have been better if they had never gone to school Some so coveting mony others praise and many such slaves to lust that their speech and life are at greatest enmity And his Nephew Cornelius beats upon the same string I am so far saith he from thinking Philosophy to be the Mistress of Life and that which perfects virtue as I rather incline to this Opinion that no men stand in more need of an instructor how to live than the most of them who spend their lives in discussing the rules of living well For I see the greatest part of them who in the Schools do most subtilly give Precepts 〈…〉 ing Modesty and Continency to wallow in the Mire of all nâ—thy Lusts. To this Seneca gives his suffrage in his exhortations Most Philosophers saith he are such kind of men as they are eloquent in reproaching themselves whom if you heard declaiming against Avarice Lust and Ambition you would think they had receiv'd a â—ee to plead thâ—ir own Condemnation so do their revilings of Vice which they send abroad recoile upon themselves as you cannot conceive any otherwise of them but as Physicians whose Boxes have on the outside the Titles of healthful Druggs but are within full of Poyson Yea so palpable was the inefficacy of their own Rules to make the best of them throughly honest as Seneca is forc'd to cast over them and himself for company the Cloak of this Excuse Omnia quae luxuriosi faciunt quaeque imperiti facit sapiens sed non eodem modo eodemque proposito That the wise man may do the same things which fools and the luxurious do but after another manner and to another end as if the goodness of the Intention could either rectifie the pravity of an Action in it self vitious or remove the scandal seeing the badness of the example is apparent but the drift of the mind out of sight Thus Aristippus defended his Familiarity with the Strumpet Lais by saying there was a great difference betwixt him and the rest of Lais servants for Lais had them but he had Lais. Oh brave Wisdom cries Laciantius and deserving to be imitated by good men who would not send his Children to this Philosophers School to learn to have a Whore who can assign no other difference betwixt himself and persons of profligated honesty but this That they wasted their Fortunes in that Luxury which he enjoy'd gratis In which point yet the strumpet overwitted him who so held the Philosopher for her Pandar that all the Youth being corrupted by the Example and Authority of their Master might flock unto her without any shame And yet this is he whom the Censors of Manners the Satyrists prefer before the rest of the Gown'd Crew Such an empty sound of words were all Philosophical Precepts as the Teachers of them could not hear themselves speak with an obediential Ear whom therefore Cicero affirmeth not to have sought the bettering but delighting of themselves in the study of Morals In good sooth saith he I fear that all their disquisition though it contain most plentiful Fountains of Virtue and Science yet if we compare it with their actions and things that are brought to perfection may seem only to have been a pleasant diversion from business The Emperour Antoninus Philosophus his Sanctity grew almost into a Proverb for its perfection but Julius Capitolâ—nus suspects it to be counterfeit dederunt ei vitio quod fictus fuisset nec tum simplex quod videretur and for all the oftentation of virtue which that Royal Philosopher made makes this the main point of difference betwixt him and Verus that Verus could not dissemble as he did à cujus sectâ lasciviâ morum vitae licentioris nimietate dissensit Erat enim morum simplicium qui adumbrare nihil posset Jul. Cap. verus And Lampridius hath this Note upon Commodus Sed tot disciplinarum magistri nihil ei profuerunt But Evangelical Precepts do not only gingle in the Ear but ring in the Conscience and come not in word only but in power being accompanied into the hearts of such as do not resist the holy Ghost with such a Majesty as commands Obedience like that Word whereby God called things that were not into being by vertue of that Spirit which in the Old Testament-prophecies God promiseth shall never be separated from his Word and which in the New Testament and subsequent Ecclesiastical History we find always moving upon the Face
of those sacred Waters making the Souls of men take the Impress of the Soul of the Gospel forming in them the Image of God and converting the most wicked persons that embrace it from all their Debaucheries wherein they were immerst to a life most sutable to Nature and Reason and to the practice of all Virtues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orig. Cont. Cel. lib. 1. cal 30. Whereupon to Celsus his Calumnie that Christ chose the worst of men for Apostles Origen replies that Christ thereby made it appear how Soveraign a Medicine his Doctrine is against Soul-plagues and that therefore Celsus ought rather to have admired the Physicians skill than to have upbraided him with the pristine maladies of his Patients who could do more than all Chrisippus his Rules towards the curing of unrulie Passions How many saith he did Christ recover from the Plague of their head strong Affections From the colluvies of their vitious distempers how many had their beastly Manners tamed by occasion of the Evangelical Preaching which ought to have been embraced of all men with thankfulness if not as true yet as a new and compendious Method of curing Vice and exceedingly advantagious to Humane kind He that can think the malignant Powers would contribute towards the bringing of such a Doctrine as this into credit by their Sealing to it in those wonderful Operations which gain'd it an Authority over Conscience may with an equal likelihood of Reason conceive it worth the while to milk Hee-Goats To which labour I remit him while I commend to wiser persons the conclusiveness of this last Argument for the Divine Original of the Christian Faith in general and in special for the probat of Christs Resurrection the Center wherein all the Articles of the Christian Faith meet and the demonstration of the Divine Authority and heavenly Mission of the blessed Jesus to communicate that way of Salvation to the World as being the Doctrine of Christ that dyed or rather is risen again from the dead and ascended into Heaven whence he communicates that Grace of which we have been speaking and wherein Christianity triumphs over the greatest pravities of corrupt Nature as subdued by her Discipline and overall other Methods of cure as insufficient as unable to reduce lapsed man to a state of health § 5. The strength of this Argument would be more apparent if we of this Age could make good the assumption as easily as those Primitive Christians did of whom the Patrons of the cause of Christ made these holy boasts and such as that Non aliunde noscibiles quam de emendatione vitiorum pristinorum Tertul. ad Scapulam Christians are not to be known from other Sects but by the emendation of their pristine vitious manner were we who embrace the form of those sound and healing words as much under the power of Godliness as they whom that saving Grace taught to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live godly righteously and soberly did we more study the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ so as to know him in the power of that Resurrection of his which we make profession to believe the truth of and in the fellowship of his sufferings so as to be made conformable unto his Death In which point notwithstanding that never to be enough bewail'd Apostacy of these latter times God hath not left himself without witness But reserv'd a remnant of persons who cordially embracing the truly Catholick Religion of Christ as it is profest in the Church of England and mourning over the Irregularities of and Scandals given by such as conform not to its sacred Precepts really exhibit to the Worlds view a Specimen of ancient Holiness in their harmless and blameless Conversation with and towards all men in their serious piety towards God their reverential observance of their Superiours their Justice Charity Love towards all men their Continency Chastity Sobriety Temperance in respect of themselves And for the rest of the Professors of the pure and undefiled Religion who deviate from the rule of this Sacred Discipline they cease to be Christians Sed dicet aliquis etiam de nostris excedere quosáam à regula disciplinae desinunt tum Christiani baberi penès nos Philosophi verò illi cum talibus factis in nomine honore sapientiae perseverant Tertul. apol 46. Some men may say that even some of ours deviate from the Rule of Discipline They cease then to be esteem'd Christians by us Philosophers with such debaucheries retain the name and honour of Philosophers Fanaticks though unrighteous unmerciful unpeaceable pass among their own Tribes for Saints but no man can pass the Muster for a Christian indeed that keeps not the Commands of Christ that conforms not to his Example The Church owns them not for hers Christ owns them not for his but will profess unto them I know yee not depart from me ye that work iniquity and will expostulate with all who hate to be reformed for their taking his Covenant in their mouths Christ has past the same Decree against all vitious Livers that Severus past against Thieves per praeconem edixit ut nemo salutaret Principem qui se furem esse nosset ne aliquando detectus capitali supplicio subderetur That none salute him with Lord Lord who knows himself to be guilty under pain of being Convict and suffering the extream punishment None must enter into his Courts any more than to the Eleusine Rites or into the Emperours Palace Nisi qui se innocentem novit but he that knows himself free of those sins which by the sanction of the Royal Law exclude from the Kingdom of Heaven And who so presume to contravene those Edicts must expect the same entertainment that Severus gave Septimius Arabinus when he came to salute him O numina O Jupiter O dii immortales Arabinus non solum vivit verùm etiam in Senatum venit fortassis etiam de me sperat tam fatuum tam sâ—ultum esse me judicat ac Heliogabalum Lampridii Alex. Severus Oh monstrous Arabinus dares come into the Senate dares appear in the Assembly of Christians does he think he can deceive me as he did the world with vain shews as he did himself with vain hopes he 's deceiv'd indeed if hetake me for such a fool if he think I will be mock'd Can he be ignorant that the sentence is past the prohibition à mulieribus famosis matrem uxorem suam salutari vetuit Id. Ib. is seal'd that none presume to joyn themselves to my Church to associate with my Love my Dove my undefiled Spouse whose Lives are infamous Christians may not eat with such and can they expect to eat bread in my Kingdom And therefore they who either by going out from us do more openly declare or by a Conversation unbecoming the Gospel while they are with us more secretly insinuate that they were not that they are not of us in an impartial judgement should neither prejudice