so stark mad as to build an Ark and take all manner of Beasts and Fouls into it out of a fantastical Fear that he should be drowned upon the dry-land you must confess he did it by virtue of a Supernatural Revelation S. Have you any other instance of the like nature L. Yes more than I shall at present take pains to enumerate but however I will gratifie your curiosity with two or three which will abundantly shew the falsity of your A s so much boasted Proposition We read in the 18th Chap. of Gen. that Sarah was informed by the Angels 10th ver That she should have a Son But who except Spinosa will say that this Prediction was accomodated to the capacity of Sarah or her Lord Abraham when Moses tells us in the 11 th and 12 th ver That Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of Women Therefore Sarah laughed within herself saying After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure my Lord being old also S. A Woman might easily imagin what she earnestly desired L. If you except against a Woman let us consider the Revelation made unto Moses which you will find to be directly contrary to the Apprehensions and above the Natural Conceptions of that mighty Prophet I would feign learn how it was at all agreeable to the natural Conception of Moses that the lifting up his Rod should be able to work all those Signs and Wonders which it did in the Land of Egypt S. Tho it was not a Conception agreeable to reason yet it might be to his Fancy and we all know the strength of Fancy in producing wonders L. Imagination without doubt has very great force upon the imagining Person but that it should be able to have force upon Objects placed without him so as to work any visible effect upon them is to me till I am better inform'd a very absurd supposition I know some of the Ancients have been possessed with an Opinion that the very Eyes of an Envious Person do dart a Kind of Poyson upon those who are in a Great Station And the Poets presum'd they had the same or like effect upon other Animals Nescio quis Teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos And my Lord Bacon says something to solve this Phaenomenon by the Effluviums of the Animal Spirits And if the matter of it were true which I do very much question his Lordships solution of it would be the best that could be given But supposing it true yet such weak Effluvia's as are engendered by the strength of imagination whatever impression they can make on the tender parts of humane Bodies yet you cannot without Madness suppose them able to turn Aarons Rod into a Serpent or to make it more like a Living Creature or turn a whole River into Blood to divide the Red Sea slay all the first Born of Egypt and do works of the like stupendious Nature S. Did not Pharaohs Magicians do something very like it L. All you can infer from thence is only this viz. that they were assisted by some invisible Powers which is more than Men of your Principles are willing to grant who deny their existence or at least their intermedling with humane Affairs S. But suppose such things done as you Divines call it by invisible Powers how shall a Man know whether those Powers are Good or Evil. L. God being the Fountain of all Goodness no Revelation is made or confirmed by him that is repugnant to the immutable Law of Nature which consists in unfeigned Love to God and to our Neighbour The Pagan Priests made great pretences to Prophesie and Miracles but it was to confirm a superstition contrary to Natural Light and therefore those seeming Signs and Wonders are justly ascribed to the Operation of Lying and Deceitful Spirits For these are known Maxims that Good cannot proceed from Evil and that a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand and we may as well conceive that light can be the Fruitful Mother of Darkness as that Satan can be the Author Abetter or Confirmer of the Precepts of the Decalogue or the most Holy Rules of Practice deliver'd by our Blessed Saviour S. Does not your own Apostle say that Satan can transform himself into an Angel of Light L. We don't say that Evil Spirits do never Encourage a seeming Sanctity that is gross Wickedness in a Religious dress but that they can't be Abetters or Promulgers of that real and genuine Sanctity which is prescribed by the Mosaick and Christian Religion and of the excellence of which we have as clear Perception as we have of the Truth of any Mathematical Proposition But to pass by Moses and descend to the other Prophets What Pre-conception by Nature could Isaiah have that Cyrus should be King of Persia that Jerusalem should be destroyed by the Chaldeans and that that very Cyrus See Isa 44. 28. Should rebuild the Temple saying to Jerusalem thou shalt be built and to the Temple thy Foundation shall be laid If Revelation was adapted only to the Capacity of the Prophet certainly Isaiah was a Person of the largest Natural Capacity that ever yet was Born into the World or as I believe ever will be Born hereafter S. You keep to instances in the Old Testament it would be more to my satisfaction to hear something of this Nature to be alledged out of the New L. What think you of the Doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God and of the Holy Trinity which are founded upon Divine Revelation These could not be adapted to the Capacity or Opinions of any one inspired Author since they are above the conception of all Mankind S. I fear you mistake this Author His meaning is not that nothing is taught in Scripture which exceeds humane conception for as he shews p. 28. The Prophets were ignorant of speculative things and were of contrary Opinions amongst themselves and therefore they might give Vent to some odd Opinions which are altogether irreconcilable to the reasonable conceptions of other Men. L. I have already examined all those places of Scripture upon which he would ground this wild assertion and I hope have plainly shewed that no such thing can be deduced from them But to come closer to the purpose Your Author must Acknowledge either that the Prophets as he calls all Divinely inspired Authors were assisted and taught by God or that they were guided by their Natural Fancy Reason and Judgment If Prophecy does come from God and if it be according to his own Definition in the very first Words of his Book the certain Knowledge of some things reveal'd to Men by God he cannot overthrow the certainty of it in Speculations as well as Practicks untill he can destroy the very Idea which all rational Men do entertain of God He must suppose him either to be nothing else but the settled course and order of Nature and then he and his
without the help of those Mediums the signification of Words why may it not also after the same or any other manner communicate the certain knowledge of Things which is all we contend for A. I wonder you will mention the Spirit of God which our Author shews is a Word of Various and consequently dubious signification The Scripture-Phrase That the Spirit of God is in the Prophets That Men are filled with the Spirit of God and the like does signifie no more than that the Prophets were good Men and that they perceiv'd the Will of God as all Men tho perhaps in a less degree must needs do by the Light of Nature But all this is but the Imagination of the Prophet considered with relation to the Apprehensions of the Vulgar And pray Sir what certainty is there in bare Imagination T. If by Imagination you understand the Power of the Mind to receive retain or frame the Images of External Objects it may be considered with relation to things present past or to come External Objects when present impress such Vivid Images upon the Brain as will not suffer the Mind to doubt of their real Existence The same Certainty tho something short of Infallibility is left upon the Mind by Objects represented to the Senses when the Objects themselves are past and gone He that sees an Horse or Elephant present by the Images impressed on the Brain knows that they are present and by reflecting on the same Images the next day he knows that they were present And thus far Imagination is a certain Repository of Knowledge though not altogether infallible because through defect of the Organs as in Mad Men the Images framed by the Mind it self are apprehended as existing without it but those who are in their Wits are never impos'd upon by their Imaginations after that manner as to think they hear Voices when they hear none or see Images of things that are not near them Men thus deluded by Imagination always shew signs of the Distemper in inconsistency of Thought and wild Rovings of Expression which I defie any man to observe in the Writings of Moses and the Prophets tho some things therein are hard to be understood and may seem uncouth to us by reason of long distance of Times Ignorance of the Customs Histories and Language of those Times and many other Reasons which I forbear to mention as obvious enough without it In short either God did send Messages to his Servants the Prophets by the visible appearance of Angels and spake to them in Voices or their Imaginations fram'd all these Appearances to it self from the shatter'd Images of other External Objects If the first of these is true your Author very impertinently concludes the Uncertainty of Prophecy from the Uncertainty of Imagination for that Faculty does faithfully enough receive and preserve the Images of things really presented to it and herein the Certainty of Imagination differs not from the Certainty of our Senses If he means the latter the Prophets then were no better than Pious Mad Men and all the Sacred Writings are mere Fictions of the Mind which owe all the little Truth that is in them to meer Chance which I perceive however disguised is the genuine meaning of your admired Author But if Moses and the other Prophets were distemper'd by a less Imagination how comes it to pass that they are all so constant in the Doctrine of Piety For I am sure our Modern Mad Men who are never consistent with themselves or one another are very much different from his description of the Ancients Or how come their Predictions to be verified by the Event Or how come the whole Nation of the Jews to be such Fools as to follow Mad Men Or how did such a Mad Man as Moses attain the power of working Miracles and of leading the Children of Israel through the Wilderness and governing them with Prudence and Moderation But if God himself made these Revelations to them it is nonsense to infer any uncertainty for the Mediums God uses for the Work For it is in his Power to create Certainty of Divine Revelation without the help of Mediums as in the case of Inspiration or by whatsoever means he pleases as those of Words of Figures A. You know very well that the Mind can compound various Images and thence conclude more Propositions than can be known by deductions from the sole Light of Reason and thence it is the Prophets teach more of Religion than can be known by Nature only T. The true Reason is this God knows more than Man what is necessary to make him happy and therefore those who are taught by God can declare more concerning the means of Salvation than those who are guided by the sole Light of Nature A. Well still I have some Reason to think that Prophecy was the pure Work of the Imagination 1. The Prophets perceived and uttered all things by Parables and Riddles expressing Spiritual things after a Corporal manner 2. It was as Imagination always is very inconstant not adhering to the Prophet but coming by fits and starts according to the unsteddy leaps of Fancy T. But I have better Reasons to perswade me that your Author is in a most egregious error for futurities i. e. things which neither are nor have been cannot make impression upon the Fancy according to the Laws of Nature which may produce any tolerable degree of Certainty and therefore when Futurities are foretold which depend not upon any necessary connexion of natural causes it must be asserted by the supernatural Power of God The Mind may indeed be impos'd upon by help of the Imagination several ways in respect to things to come as when from the remembrance of what is past it concludes that the same will happen again tho there be no necessary connexion between the Cause and the Effect Or 2. When from its vast Magazine of Images it chuses out and joyns those together which ought not to be joyned and concludes their future Existence from an ill conceived Notion of their bare possibility of Being And herein the Mind frequently imposes upon its self by its own Passions and Desires concluding such things will be which it most desires should come to pass hereafter But such possible and impossible compositions of the Fancy or conclusion of the deluded Reason of Mankind are of so vast a number that it is impossible all or any great number of them should prove true without the Predictions were made by God himself How could Imagination out of thousands of possible Circumstances of our Saviour's Birth pick out all those by the Prophets which would certainly come to pass as we can easily prove from the holy Scriptures or how could it avoid predicting something that was false if it had only probability to work upon which is the only Object of Fancy in regard to future Events which never made any impression upon it We therefore conclude the certainty of Prophecy not
Disciples must quit the Name of Deists and set up in the open Defence of Atheism Or he must bring upon the Stage an unthinking ignorant or deceitful Deity that told his Servants a parcel of Idle Contradictory and Lying Stories to amuse the world with a Noise of Divine Truths whereas they were in reality nothing else but the Erroneous conceptions of fanciful Men. But if on the other hand he Acknowledge nothing at all of Divinity in those whom we receive as inspired Authors he must then shew his Reader how the Prophesies and Miracles of those Men are reconcilable with the ordinary Course and Power of Nature S. He does shew you in his 4th Chapter that there neither is nor can be any such thing as a Miracle L. We will discourse that point more narrowly some other time but at present I will onely urge one instance more that utterly overthrows your Authors sandy Foundation We read in the 2d Chapter of the Acts that when the Apostles were all with one accord in one place there appeared unto them Cloven Tongues and sate upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other Tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Now I would feign learn from your Author who some say was a School Master and therefore ought to be well versed in the Didacticks whether there be any way in Nature to teach any one Man much less a Number of Men the Words and Idioms of many Foreign and unknown Languages in a moment or instant of time S. I must confess I cannot well conceive how such a thing could be done without the assistance of some invisible Power but still this only proves an infused knowledge of words but not of things L. If you grant an infused knowledge of words it is the greatest Folly in the World to deny the possibility of an infused knowledge of things For it is much more easy to conceive that God can declare his will to some chosen Persons and leave the manner of expressing it to their natural and acquired Abilities than that he should infuse simul semel in one instant of time the knowledge of several Languages into the minds of unlearned Men. S. I for my part am resolved never to be a Bigot in speculative Matters and since he speaks so much for Morality in all parts of his Book I cannot choose but have a good Opinion of him L. Morality and Mathematical Demonstration serve many times for canting terms to be specious covers to Wickedness and Non-sense He grants the Prophets had clear Perceptions of Morality for so may all Mankind besides but that we are not bound to believe them in any thing that is speculative that is we may Lawfully reject all the Credenda of the Mosaick or the Christian Religion As for Example according to his way of arguing when the Scripture tells You must Love the Lord your God with all your Heart with all your Soul It onely teaches you that you should be Pious but you are not bound to believe from thence that there is a God or that he Governs the World or that he alone is to be Worshipped for these according to his Hypothesis are speculative Opinions concerning which the Prophets had contrary and repugnant Notions And thus your Author would plant abundance of Piety but not one grain of the Knowledge of God in the World After the same manner when the Apostle says 2 Thes 1. 7. That the Lord Jesus Christ shall be reveal'd from Heaven with his mighty Angels v. 8. in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ v. 9. Who shall be punished with Everlasting Destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his Power We are to Learn that we are to obey the Gospel in being Just and Charitable but we must not thence infer that those who are unjust and uncharitable Shall certainly be Punished with Flaming Fire or with an Everlasting Destruction from the Face of the Lord And I will now leave it to your Judgment what Friend he can be to Piety Justice or Charity who divests them of the certainty of a future reward and leaves them no other Encouragement than what arises from the Government of the passions in this Life which tho it be a considerable part yet it cannot be the whole of humane Happiness Or whether he is not an Encourager of Impiety Injustice and Oppression and all manner of known and unknown Vices who takes away from wicked Men the Terror of being tormented with the Devil and his Angels For tho our Saviour says Mat. 12. 16. If Satan cast out Satan he is divided against himself his Kingdom cannot stand He will have this Argument only adapted to the Opinion of the Pharisees but no proof that there is a Devil or any Kingdom of malicious Spirits and so good night to your Author's Morality S. When you read his 4th Chap. you will see how earnestly he Pleads for Virtue L. If you will bring me what he says another time I will gladly admit all that is true and oppose nothing but notorious Falshoods Conference III. S. WEll Sir according to my promise I have read over the 4th Chap. of my Author passing by his third because it chiefly concerns the Jews wherein I find him to be a very zealous Advocate of true Virtue and Goodness which I value more than any Speculative Opinion so much contended for by the Sons of the Clergy L. If obedience and submission to God is the principal Law of Nature then it is as much our Duty to believe a Truth when revealed as it is to obey a Commandment when it is promulged and then it follows that what he calls Speculation is neither more nor less than a practical necessary Duty S. Your error proceeds from your false Apprehensions of a true notion of a Law He shews you in his 43d Page that the word Law absolutely taken signifies that according to which every individual or some of the same species do all or some one thing by a certain and determinate Reason and that it depends either upon the necessity of Nature or the consent or authority of Men. L. Then farewel at once to all Divine Laws but those which he fancys depend upon the necessary motions of matter or are confined by the Authority of the Civil Magistrate or receive their strength from the mutual consent of some determinate Society of Men. S. I hope you will not deny that Corporeal Necessity is a Law when all Authors speak in the same Dialect does not Cartes make mention of the Laws of Motion L. Cartes and other Philosophers have the liberty to Transfer words from their proper Signification to denote such things as are best understood by a metaphorical Expression And hence it is that those Observations which ingenious Men make of the necessary rest of motion of
Gods Providence nor at all prove that he takes any care of mankind is the third and last part of the Riddle which I humbly beg you would be pleased to unfold to me S. That I will and very briefly too We gather the Existence of God from known and received Notions but if there were any superiour Power that could alter these Notions it must necessarily destroy the very knowledge of a God or at least compel us to doubt of his Existence L. It is not by Miracles but by the very light of Nature that we understand that there is a Being superiour to our Faculties who can alter them for the better or the worse according as he pleases But then the same reason tells us that Truth is one of his most adorable perfections and from thence we conclude that he has given us right Faculties and will not become the Author of deceit But it seems your Author thinks that he can never be secure of the Truth of his Faculties if he should once believe that there is a God who is a Powerful and Voluntary Agent S. No there is a further reason for if any thing be repugnant to Nature it is repugnant to those first Principles from whence we conclude the Existence of Nature it self And what certainty is there if you destroy first Principles L. A Miracle is so far from being repugnant to first Principles that it is altogether declarative of them Is it not to be admitted as a first Principle in reason That there is a God who made the World S. Heavens forbid I should deny it L. And that can annihilate the World S. I see no reason to deny it L. If then alteration of some part of the Universe be less than annihilation you must grant it possible and what then is there in a Miracle that is repugnant to the first and most obvious Principles of Reason S. But he tells you that whether a Miracle be a work either which proceeds from Natural causes which cannot be explained or has no other cause than the immediate Will of God yet still it exceeds the reach of humane understanding and we can understand nothing from that which exceeds the very Standard of our Faculties L. There is nothing in a Miracle that exceeds the bounds of humane understanding but only the manner of the Divine Operation in the Production of it Our senses bear Witness that the work is done and our reason concludes that none but God could do it But we do not know the manner of the Divine Operation Nor no more do we comprehend the manner of the Divine Operation in the Creation of the World but does it therefore follow that Creation because it exceeds the bounds of humane understanding can give us no true knowledge of the Essence Existence or Providence of God S. I cannot well answer your last Argument but in the 72d page I think my Author argues very well viz. That if any thing was done above the power of Nature or contrary to Nature it would be repugnant to that Order which God has appointed by universal Laws to be eternal and the belief of such a thing would make us doubt of all things and bring us at last to Atheism L. And pray why so What do you understand by Nature but those Laws of Motion by which God does preserve the Vniverse in that Beauty and Order wherein we now enjoy it These we acknowledge to be sufficient to give us knowledge of the Existence and Wisdom of God vvhich vvould be knovvn by the Work of his hands tho there vvere no such thing as a Miracle Nor do vve say That a Miracle is absolutely necessary to punish ill men or to reward the good God can do that by his Providence and the setled Course and Order of things And though God does it by Miracles sometimes yet that is not for want of Power to do it otherwise but only that these Miracles may the more be considered as Testimonials of a Divine Mission Tho therefore the frequent interruption of the setled Course of Nature would render the Endeavours of those Vain who gave their minds to the study of Natural Philosophy yet the interruption of it at some certain Times and Seasons when God is pleased to communicate some particular message to mankind is no obstruction to the study of Nature and is a great and necessary introduction to a compleater knowledge of the Will of God For what proportion of time is there between the Miraculous Ages of Moses and our Saviour and the duration of the VVorld And how small is the Number of well attested Miracles in respect to all the other works of Nature S. Suppose there were real Miracles yet my Author proves from Scripture that they can lead us into no true Knowledge of God For a Prophet of the false Gods might work Signs and Wonders and yet deserve to be Stoned for his pains See Deut. 13. 1 2 3. Verses L. A Miracle is an appeal to our senses that what is done is not done by any Visible or Material Being But because there are Bad as well as Good Invisible Agents we are to Judge of the reality of a Miracle by the Good or ill Doctrines which it is alledged to support The Magicians of Pharaoh and the Pagan Priests in all Ages alledged Miracles to destroy the true Notion of a God and to loosen all the sacred Bonds of Morality but neither were these Miracles well attested nor were they to be regarded because they tended only to destroy and corrupt Natural Religion and Natural honesty too And indeed the Pagan Superstition seems to me to have been nothing else but a Diabolical Revelation of certain Names of Deities Rites and Ceremonies as might keep men furthest from God and corrupt that Idea of him which is easy enough to be deduced from the Light of Nature It is very plain that they knew not the Original of their own Religious Rites and Ceremonies for so says Antigone in Sophocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sophoc in Antigone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why should a Mortal break immortal Laws Not made by Man but by the Gods themselves That ever must remain tho none can know The Fountain whence those lasting Rivulets flow Nor indeed is it any wonder that they should not know the Original of those Rites and Ceremonies which have no Foundation in Nature nor were so much as of humane institution but shuffled into the world by the Tricks and Impostures of Evil Spirits But tho Evil Spirits may be Authors of some things that look like Prophesies Miracle or Inspiration yet they never can nor will do any thing to establish a Religion that gives a true Notion of God and Teaches a rational worship of him and tends to the good and benefit of mankind If therefore we have distinct Notions of Moral Good and Evil and of Natural Religion we must have distinct