the keepers of these Books For first of all the Ten Tribes were led away captive by the Assyrians into Media then afterward the two other Tribes And many of these also after Cyrus granted them liberty to return setled themselves in foreign Countries The Macedonians invited them with great promises to come into Alexandria The cruelty of Antiochus the civil Wars of the Maccabees together with those of Pompey and Sossius from without did disperse and scatter abroad many of them The parts of Africa about Cyrene were full of the Jews so were the Cities of Asia Macedonia Lycaonia and likewise the Isles of Cyprus Crete and others Also what a number of them there was at Rome may be learned out of Horace Juvenal and Martial Now it is not possible that such Multitudes so far distant one from another should be cozened in this kind neither could they ever accord all in the coining of an untruth Add moreover that almost Three Hundred Years before Christ at the appointment and care of the Kings of Egypt those Books of the Hebrews were translated into the Greek Tongue by those that are called the Seventy Interpreters So as then the Grecians had the sense and substance of them though in another Language whereby they were the less liable to be changed Nay more these Books were translated both into the Chaldee Tongue and into that of Jerusalem that is the half Syriac a little before and a little after the time of Christ Other Greek translations afterward there were as namely by Aquila Symmachus and Theodotion all which Origen compared with that of the Seventy Interpreters and after him others also who could find no diversity of history or of any matter worth speaking of Philo lived in the Reign of Caligula and Josephus survived the times of both the Vespasians which two Writers alledge out of the Hebrew Books the same things that we read at this day Now in these very times began Christian Religion to be more and more propagated being professed by many of the Hebrews and by sundry Persons that had learned the Hebrew Tongue who if the Jews had falsified in any notable part could have quickly discovered it by comparing more ancient Copies and so have made it publickly known But they are so far from doing this that on the other side they alledge many testimonies out of the old covenant to the same sense and meaning that they are used by the Hebrews which Hebrews may sooner be accused of any other fault than I will not say falshood but of so much as negligence about these Books which they have so religiously and exactly described and compared that they know how often any one Letter is found therein The last though not the least argument to prove that the Jews did not purposely corrupt or alter the Scripture may be because the Christians out of the very Books which are read by the Jews do evince and as they trust very strongly that their Lord and Master Jesus is that same very Messias which was anciently promised to the Jews their Forefathers Which above all things the Jews would have taken care should not have been done when the controversie arose between them and the Christians if ever it had been in their power to have changed what they listed The Fourth Book OF THE TRUTH OF Christian Religion SECT I. A particular Confutation of the Religions opposite to Christianity THE Fourth Book beginning with that pleasure which many Men are wont to take in beholding the danger wherein others are while they are in none themselves shows that it ought to be the greatest pleasure of a Christian Man in this life not only to rejoyce and bless himself that he hath found out the Truth but to lend his help also to others that wander up and down in the Labyrinths of Errour and to make them partakers of so great a benefit Which we in some measure have indeavoured to do in the former Books the demonstration of that which is true containing in it self the confutation of what is false yet in regard that all kinds of Religions which oppose themselves to the Christian Viz. Paganism Judaism and Mahometism besides that which is common to all have certain errours proper to every one of them and their peculiar Arguments which they are wont to oppose us withal it will not be amiss to make a particular Disputation against every one of these First beseeching the Readers to free their judgments from leaning to a Party and from long custome and prejudice as impediments of a good mind that with the greater indifferency they may take cognizance of what shall be said SECT II. And first of Paganisme that there is but one God Created Spirits are good or bad the good not to be honoured but as the most high God directs TO begin then against Pagans If they say that there are divers eternal and coequal Gods we have confuted this Opinion before in the first Book where we taught that there is but only one God who is the cause of all things Or if they by the name of Gods do understand the created Spirits which are superior to Men they then either mean the good or the bad if they say the good first they ought to be well assured that such are so indeed otherwise they commit a dangerous error in receiving enemies in stead of friends and Traytors for Ambassadors Then it were but reason that they should in their very worship make an evident difference between the most high God and those Spirits And likewise be satisfied what order there is among them what good may be expected from each of them and what honour the most High is willing should be bestowed on every one of them All which being wanting in their Religion it is plain from thence how uncertain that Religion is and how it were a safer course for them to betake themselves to the worship of one Almighty God which even Plato confessed was the duty of every wise Man specially for that to whomsoever God is propitious and favourable to them these good Angels must needs be serviceable and gracious being the Ministers and Servants of the most High SECT III. Evil Spirits adored by Pagans and how impious a thing it is BUT it was the bad not the good Spirits which the Pagans did worship as may be proved by weighty reasons first because these adored Angels did not throw off their worshippers unto the service of the true God but as much as in them lay laboured to abolish the same or at least in every respect required equal honour with the Almighty Secondly because they procured all the mischief they could to the worshippers of the one most High God by provoking both Magistrates and People to inflict punishments upon them For when it was lawful for Poets to sing of the murders and adulteries committed by the Gods and for the Epicures to take away all divine Providence and any other Religion though never
and piety And that they might confirm this to be their sense of the Divinity they bid the Jesuites observe one part of the Altar in their Temple to be void of Images and to be hid in an obscure and dark place which they said was the proper seat of the most high God the Maker of Heaven and Earth who could not be represented in any form and shape and that the Images which stood about that place were the representations of their Intercessors with Him who having great power with the most high God did obtain many gifts and blessings for those that invocated them How this differs from the notions of the Roman Church I do not see unless it be in this that they have sometimes adventured to represent God himself in a shape Otherwise the worship is the very same the dead Men who are the objects of it only changed and may very well justifie us if we say and therein we speak very moderately that their worship is an Image at least of the ancient Idolatry And moves them to make the resemblance more perfect unto the very same rage and violence which was in the Pagans against all those that differ from them and cannot consent to worship God in that way prosecuting them with all manner of cruelty as if they were utter enemies of God and of all Religion By which we may certainly know that they are so far from being the only true Christians that they are a very degenerate part of Christs Church wanting that great mark of his faithful Disciples to love one another even as Christ loved us To which they are such strangers that quite contrary they not only hate and persecute but endeavour as I said to root out those from the face of the Earth who obediently believe all that they can find our Lord and his Apostles have delivered and profess they are ready with all their hearts to receive and do whatsoever any body can further teach them to be his mind Nay are very desirous and diligent to know it sparing no pains to understand the whole Truth as it is in Christ Jesus SECT XV. Answer to what they say about Miracles THEY pretend indeed abundance of Miracles wrought in their Church as a sufficient condemnation of those who obstinately refuse to invocate Saints to worship their Images and the consecrated Hoste to believe Purgatory and all other things for the proof of which these wonders are alledged But herein also they imitate the Pagans who were guilty of the like deceit and the same answer will serve here which Grotius gives there L. iv Sect. 8. in his confutation of the old Idolatry For First the wisest Men among them have rejected many of these Miracles as not supported by the testimony of any credible witnesses nay as plain fictions Others also of them which are pretended to be of better credit hapned in some private place in the night before one or two Persons whose eyes crafty Priests as he speaks might easily delude with false shows and counterfeit appearances of things And further there are others which only raise admiration among People ignorant of the nature of things and are no true miracles I deny not but there may have things been done among them which no humane power could effect by the strength of natural causes and yet no Divine that is omnipotent Power be needful to their production For those Spirits which are interposed between God and Man are able by their nimbleness cunning activity and strength to make such strange application of things very distant one to another as shall astonish the Spectators with wonderful effects But there is too great reason to think they are not good Spirits that do these feats because they revive hereby the ancient superstition or uphold the Image of it still in the Christian World to the great dishonour of our Saviour and the indangering the Souls of his People Who have been so far misled as not only to fancy great Virtue in the Images of the Saints and to cry up also some Images particularly of our Lady of Loretto for instance as indued with some singular power and vertue which is not to be found in others but to honour them so highly as for one Miracle said to be done by a Crucifix to report a hundred to be wrought at such or such a Shrine of hers It is very considerable also to omit the rest which he notes in the V. Book out of the Law of Moses that it supposes God might permit some wonders to be done only for their trial whether the People would persist in the worship of the true God which had been confirmed by undoubted and far greater and more numerous Miracles Read Deuteron xiii 1 2 3 c. This is excellently expressed and with advantage by a great Man of our own in these words or to this effect The Doctrine which we believe that is the Bible hath been confirmed as is confessed on all sides by innumerable supernatural and truly Divine Miracles and consequently the Doctrine of the Roman Church which in many points is plainly opposite to the Bible is condemned by them I mean the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles And therefore if any strange things have been done in that Church they prove nothing but the truth of Scripture which foretold that God's Providence permitting it and the wickedness of the World deserving it strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false doctrine that they which love not the Truth might be given over to strong delusions So that now we have reason rather to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false Doctrine than much to regard them as certain arguments of Truth Neither is it strange that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude those who have forged so many wonders to deceive the World SECT XVI Answer to another Objection BUT it is not likely they say that Religion should be thus depraved in the Roman Church because their Ancestors were Men of greater vertue and honesty than to suffer the least alteration Which is the very thing that is alledged by the Jews why they should not believe our Saviour was unjustly condemned and his Religion rejected by their Priests and Elders as Grotius observes in the Vth. Book Out of which I might produce several things as I have done out of the foregoing to prove the vanity of the Romish Traditions as well as of the Jewish and show also how they have brought back Judaism in a great measure by the vast burden of Rites and Ceremonies wherewith they have incumbered Christian Religion But I shall wave all this because I would make this Book as short as the rest and only observe in answer to what was now pretended that whosoever shall consider as he speaks of the Ancestors of the Jews what kind of Men for several Ages sate in the Chair of Rome and how ignorant the People generally were he
old fashions and customs do number their particular times by nights not by days It was the opinion of Athenagoras that all things were ordered and disposed by the highest intelligence of Aratus that the Stars were made by God and after the Grecians of Virgil that life was infused into things by the Spirit of God and that Man was formed of Clay is delivered by Hesiod Homer and Callimachus Lastly Maximus Tyrius asfirms that by the common consent of Nations it is agreed there is but one Supreme God which is the cause of all things And the memory of the finishing the Creation in seven days space was preserved not only among the Greeks and Italians by the honour they gave to the Seventh day as we learn out of Josephus Philo Tibullus Clemens Alexandrinus and Lucian but among the Gauls and Indians who all distinguished their time by Weeks i. e. seven days as we are taught by Philostratus Dion Cassius Justin Martyr and the most ancient Names of the days of the Week Moreover the Aegyptians taught that Man at the beginning led his life in all simplicity being naked in his body and not ashamed whence came the Poets fiction of the golden age which was famous even amongst the Indians as Strabo relates The History of Adam and Eve the Tree the Serpent was extant as Maimonides tells us among the Idolatrous Indians in his time And that the same is found among the Pagans of Pegu and the Philippin Islands People of the same India the name of Adam also among the Brachmans and the account of 6000. Years being passed since the World was made among those of Siam we have witnesses of our own age which assure us AND that the lives of those who succeeded the first Men were prolonged to near a Thousand Years is reported by Berosus in his Chaldaicks Manethos in his Aegypticks Hiromus in his Phoenician records Hestiaeus Hecataeus Hellanicus in the account they have left of the Graecian affairs and among the Poets by Hesiod Which is the less incredible when we consider what is reported in the Histories of very many Nations particularly by Pausanius and Philostratus among the Greeks and Pliny among the Romans the bodies of Men were anciently far larger than they are now as was found upon the opening of some of their Sepulchres Catullus also after very many Greeks reports that heavenly visions appeared unto Men before such time as they by the multitude and heinousness of their crimes did deprive themselves of that sacred acquaintance and familiarity with God and his ministring Spirits The wild life of the Gyants which Moses mentions may be read almost every where in the Greek and in some Latine Authors 'T is to be noted of Noah's Flood that in its History the memory of almost all Nations ends even of such Nations as were unknown till of late Years whereupon Varro called all the space before the hid or unknown time But those things we find wrapt up in the licentious fables of the Poets are truly that is agreeable to Moses delivered by most ancient Writers such are Berosus of the Chaldees Abydenus of the Assyrians who mentions the sending out of a Dove as also Plutarch of the Grecians and Lucian who saith that at Hieropolis in Syria there is to be seen a most ancient History both of Noah's Ark and of those that were saved therein both Men and Beasts The same History was extant also in Molo and in Nicolaus Damascenus the latter of which had also the Name of the Ark which is found likewise in Deucalion's History in Apollodorus To which we may add that in several parts of America as in Cuba Mechoacana Nicuraga there hath been preserved the memory of the Flood of the Creatures saved from perishing in it yea of the Raven and the Dove and the memory of the Flood it self even in that part now called the Golden Castile is witnessed by very many of the Spanish Nation In what part of the World men lived before the Flood that note in Pliny of the building of Joppe before the same Flood doth testifie That the place whereon Noah's Ark rested after the Flood was in the Gordien Mountains it is manifest by the constant remembrance thereof with the Armenians from all Ages until this time Japhet the Father of the Europeans whence came Ion or as anciently they pronounced the word Iavon of the Grecians and Hammo of the Africans and such like are names which are found in Moses his writings as there are also foot-steps of the rest in the names of Nations and Countreys observed by Josephus and others And then the endeavour of climbing up to Heaven which of the Poets doth not mention The burning of Sodom is spoken of by Diodorus Siculus Strabo Tacitus Pliny and Solinus The most ancient use of Circumcision hath been related by Herodotus Diodorus Strabo Philo Biblius and now is retained by the posterity of Abraham to wit not only the Hebrews but also the Idumaeans Ismaëlites and others A certain History of Abraham Isaac Jacob and Joseph agreeing with that of Moses was anciently extant in Philo Biblius out of Sanchuniath in Berosus Hecataeus Damascenus Atrapanus Epolemus Demetrius and partly in that old Author of the aforesaid Orphean verses and now also there are some remainders thereof in Justin out of Trogus Pompaeus And almost in every one of these Authors aforenamed there is some mention made of Moses and his Acts more particularly how he was taken out of the Waters and how the two Tables was given unto him of God is plainly set down in those Orphean verses aforesaid Add unto these the testimony of Polemon also what some of the Egyptians themselves have recorded to wit Manethon Lisimachus and Chaerimon concerning the departing out of Egypt NEITHER will it enter into the heart of any wise Man to think that Moses having so many enemies both of the Aegyptians and of other Nations as the Idumaeans Arabians and Phoenicians would dare to divulge ought concerning the beginning of the World and other ancient things which either could be confuted by other more ancient Writings or were repugnant to the common received opinion in those times neither doubtless would he publish any thing touching the affairs in that Age which could be justly gainsaid or disproved by the testimonies of any then living Of this Moses there is mention made by Diodorus Siculus Strabo and Pliny by Tacitus also and after all them by Dionysius Longinus in his Book concerning sublimity of speech Likewise Jamnes and Mambres that resisted Moses in Aegypt are mentioned not only by the Authors of the Talmud but by Pliny and Apuleius Amongst others the Pythagoreans speak much of the Law it self which was given by Moses and of the Legal Rites Both Strabo and Justin out of Trogus give an excellent testimony of the ancient Jewish Religion and Justice insomuch that here me thinks 't is needless to produce any further testimony of such things as are
found or have anciently been found consenting with the Books of the Hebrews touching Joshua and others seeing that whosoever gives credit unto Moses which to do no Man can without great impudency refuse the same must needs confess that there were indeed wonderful Miracles anciently wrought by God which is the thing we here chiefly go about to declare As for the Miracles of after Ages suppose of Elijah and Elisha and others there is the less reason to think them counterfeit because in those times Judaea was both more known than formerly and upon the account of diversity of Religion was extreamly hated by their Neighbours Who might have very easily blasted the fame of such Miracles if they had been lies as soon as it began to be spred abroad The History of Jonah who lay three days in the Whale's belly is to be read in Lycophron and Aeneas Hazous save only that in stead of Jonah they have put the name of Hercules whom they so much honoured that to make him appear the more illustrious they were wont as Tacitus and Servius and others have noted to report of him whatsoever magnificent things they heard of in any other places Certain it is that Julian who was an enemy of the Jews as much as of Christians was forced by the evidence of History to confess that such Men lived amongst the Jews as were inspired with the holy Spirit of God and that Fire descended from Heaven upon the Sacrifices of Moses and Elias And verily 't is well worth our observation that amongst the Hebrews there were not only grievous punishments appointed for such Men as did falsly assume to themselves the Prophetical Function but also many Kings and great Men that might have by that means purchased authority to themselves and likewise very many learned Men as was Esdras and others that never durst arrogate to themselves this dignity nor any Man else for divers Ages before the times of Jesus SECT XVI The same is proved by the Oracle and Predictions BUT more unlikely it is that so many Thousand People should be imposed upon in the avouching of a perpetual and publick Prodigy as we may call it to wit the holy Oracle which after a resplendent manner shined from the brest-plate of the High-Priest The truth whereof was so strongly believed by all the Jews to have continued until the destruction of the first Temple that out of all doubt their Ancestors had certain knowledge concerning the same Like to this from miracles there is another argument as forcible and effectual to prove GOD's providence taken from those predictions of future events which among the Hebrews were many and manifest Such was that prophecy of his being made Childless who should attempt to re-edifie Jericho and that of the overthrow of the Temple at Bethel by a King named Josiah foretold above Three Hundred Years before the thing came to pass So likewise the very name and chief acts of Cyrus foretold by Esaiah the event of Hierusalems siege by the Chaldeans foreshown by Jeremiah So also Daniel's prediction touching the translation of the Empire of the Assyrians unto the Medes and Persians then from them unto Alexander of Macedon whose Empire should afterward in part be divided among the Successors of Ptolomy and Seleucus And what evils also the Hebrew Nation should suffer from all these but especially from Antiochus Epiphanes which were so clearly foretold that Porphyry who compared with these Predictions such Grecian Histories as were extant in his time could no otherwise tell how to shift them off than by saying that those things which were fathered upon Daniel were written after such time as they came to pass which is all one as if one should deny that that was written in the time of Augustus which hath been published in Virgil's name and was always reputed for Virgil's work For there was never any more scruple made of the former amongst the Hebrews than of this latter amongst the Romans To these things we may add very many and most famous Oracles among the People of Mexico and Peru which foretold the coming of the Spaniards into those Countreys and the calamities which should thereupon follow And hither also may be referred not a few dreams so exactly agreeing with the events which both in themselves and in their causes were wholly unknown to them that dreamed that they cannot without great immodesty be referred to chance or to natural causes of which kind Tertullian in his Book Of the Soul hath collected illustrious examples out of the most approved Authors Spectres also or apparitions belong to this head which have been not only seen but heard to speak as those Historians relate who are the farthest from superstitious credulity and is reported by Witnesses of our own Age who have lived in China and in Mexico and other parts of America Nor are publick trials of innocence by touching of red hot Plow-shares to be despised which the Histories of so many German Nations and the Laws themselves have remembred SECT XVII The Objection is answered why Miracles are not now to be seen NEITHER is there any reason to object against such Miracles because there are not the like to be seen in these days neither the like predictions heard of For 't is a sufficient proof of Divine providence that such things did come to pass at any time which being once granted it will follow that God may be believed with as much providence and wisdom now to cause them to surcease as anciently he used the same Neither stands it with reason that those Laws which were given to the Universe concerning the natural course of things and uncertainty of future events should be lightly or always transgressed but only at such a time when either there was a just cause as when the worship of the true God was almost banished out of the World residing only in a little part thereof to wit in Judaea where it necessarily was to be as it were fortified with new aids against the impieties wherewith it was compassed about or when Christian Religion whereof by and by we shall speak more particularly was first by God's decree to be published thorowout the whole World SECT XVIII And that now there is such liberty in offending THERE are those who are wont to doubt of the Divine Providence because they see so much wickedness hath like a Deluge overspread the face of the whole Earth which Divine Providence they contend if there were any would have made its chiefest business to restrain and suppress But this is easily answered considering that when God had created Man with freedom to do good and evil reserving absolute and immutable goodness to himself it had not been reasonable to have put such a stop to evil actions as should have been contrary to that liberty Howbeit to keep Men from sin God useth every kind of means which is not repugnant to the liberty aforesaid Such is the ordaining and publishing of the
Circumcision an exact rest from labour upon the Sabbath and the prohibition of eating sundry kind of meats Some of which customes the Turks have borrowed from them adding further a prohibition for drinking Wine But the Christian Religion teacheth that as God is a most pure Spirit So is he to be worshipped with pureness of mind and Spirit together with such works as in their own nature without a precept are most laudable and honest Thus the professors thereof are not to circumcise the flesh but their carnal lusts and desires not to keep Holy day by a rest from all kind of work whatsoever but only from that which is unlawful Nor are we to offer unto God the bloud and fat of Beasts but if need be even our own bloud for the testimony of the truth And what bounty or liberality soever we bestow upon poor and necessitous persons to look upon it as given to God himself We need not now abstain from any kind of meat or drink but may and ought to use them both with moderation so that our health be not thereby impaired sometimes notwithstanding subduing our Bodies to our minds by fasting that they thereby may be the better fitted and prepared for more chearful devotion But the chief point of this Religion it is every where apparent lies in a pious confidence by which being composed to a faithful obedience we rely wholly upon God and stedfastly believe the performance of his promises Whence there arises a good Hope and a true Love both of God and our Neighbours which makes us obey his Precepts not in a base servile manner for fear of punishment but that we may please him and have Him out of his great goodness our Father and Rewarder Moreover we are taught to pray not for riches or honours or such things as many times do hurt to those that wish much for them but first and chiefly that which tends to God's glory then for our selves so much of these perishing things as nature desires leaving the rest to Divine Providence and satisfying our selves that all shall be well which way soever things go But for eternal things it teaches us to pray with the most earnest desire viz. for pardon of our sins past and the assistance of his Spirit in time to come whereby being strengthned against all terrors and allurements we may constantly persist in a pious course of life This is the true worship of God in Christian Religion than which nothing can be invented more worthy of Almighty God SECT XIV Concerning the Offices of Humanity which we owe unto our Neighbour LIKE to these are the duties we owe unto our Neighbour As for Mahumet's Religion being hatcht in Wars it breaths nothing but Wars and is propagated by Wars and Hostility Thus the Laws and Statutes of the Lacedaemonians which among the Greeks were most applauded even by the Oracle of Apollo Aristotle notes and blames them for it were wholly directed to warlike force And yet the same Aristotle maintains War against Barbarians to be natural when on the contrary it is certain that Men were by nature made to friendship and society For what is more unjust and unequal than for single Murders to be punisht but to vaunt and triumph in the slaughter of whole Nations as in a glorious exploit And yet that so much celebrated Roman Common-wealth how did it come by such a Name but by Wars which oft-times were manifestly unjust as they themselves confess those were against Sardinia and Cyprus And truly generally as the best Historians have committed to memory most Nations thought robberies and plunders without the bounds of their own Country to be no disgrace at all to them The exacting of revenge Aristotle and Cicero make a piece of vertue To behold Sword-players cut and slash each other was one of the publick recreations of the Pagans And nothing more ordinary than to expose their Children Among the Hebrews indeed there was a better Law and more holy Discipline but yet to a People of an impotent anger some things were connived at and some things indulged As a violent seizure upon the seven Nations who had deserved it with which not contented they prosecuted all that differ'd from them with a cruel hatred the signs and marks of which yet remain in the prayers which they conceive against us Christians But to prosecute him that hurt them by rendring like for like and to kill by their own private hands him that had slain any of their Kindred was permitted by the Law it self Whereas the Law of Christ forbids us to revenge any injury that is done us either in words or deeds lest that wickedness which we condemn in others we should again allow by its imitation It would have us do good to all to the good indeed chiefly but to the wicked also after the Example of God who bestows the benefit of the Sun the Stars the Rain the Winds and Showres in common upon all Men whatsoever SECT XV. Of the Conjunction of Man and Woman THE Conjunction of Man and Woman whereby Mankind is propagated is a thing most worthy of the care of Laws Which part of them it is no wonder the Pagans neglected when they told such lewd stories of the Whoredomes and Adulteries of the Gods which they worshipped Nay the filthy and abominable use which one Man made of another was defended by the example of their Gods Into whose number upon that account Ganymedes was anciently put and afterwards Antinous Which flagitious wickedness is now most frequent among the Mahometans and is thought lawful by the Chineses and other Nations Yea the Philosophers of Greece seem to have made it their business to find out an honest Name for that most filthy thing Among which Greek Philosophers the most excellent commending community of Women what did they do else but turn a whole City into one common Brothel-house A most unworthy thing for since there is among some mute Animals a certain conjugal League or Covenant how much more equal is it that so holy a Creature as Man should not be born of uncertain seed with the extinction of all those mutual affections which are naturally between Parents and their Children The Hebrew Law indeed forbad all filthiness but both allowed one Man to have more Wives and gave the Husband also a right for any cause to put away his Wife Which the Mahometans at this day use and the Greeks and Latines anciently with such licence that the Lacedaemonians and Cato even lent their Wives to other Men to use for a time But the most perfect Law of Christ penetrates to the very roots of Vices and holds him who only attempts upon the chastity of any Woman or looks lasciviously upon her to be guilty before GOD the Judge and Searcher of the Hearts of that crime which though not acted yet was desired And since all true friendship is perpetual and insoluble He would deservedly have that to be such which with
and Apparel we ought to content our selves with so much as will suffice nature and the like Or if happily there be some points in Christianity hard to be believed yet the like also is found amongst the wisest of the Heathen themselves as before we have shewn concerning the immortality of Souls and of the Resurrection of Bodies Thus Plato as he learned from the Chaldeans distinguished the Divine nature into the Father and the mind of the Father which he calls also the branch of God the Maker of the World and the Soul or Spirit which keeps together and preserveth all things Julian as great an enemy as he was of Christians thought that the Divine Nature might be joyned to the humane and gave instance in Aesculapius whom he imagined to have descended from Heaven to the end he might teach Men the Art of Physick The Cross of Christ offendeth many But what do not the Pagan Writers tell of their Gods that some of them waited upon Kings and Princes others were Thunder-struck others cut in sunder And the wisest of them say that the more it costs us to be honest the more joy and delight it affords us To conclude Plato in the second Book of his Common-wealth as if he had been a Prophet saith for a Man to appear truly just and upright it is requisite that his vertue be bereaved of all outward ornaments so that he be by others accounted a wicked wretch and scoffed at and last of all hanged And indeed that Christ might be the Pattern of greatest Patience could no otherwise be obtained The Fifth Book OF THE TRUTH OF Christian Religion SECT I. A refutation of the Jews beginning with a speech unto them or prayer for them JUST like that glimmering between light and darkness which appears to those who by little and little are endeavouring to get out of a dark Cave or Dungeon such doth Judaism present it self to us who are stepping out of the thick mist of Paganism of which we have been discoursing as a part and beginning of Truth I request the Jews therefore not to be averse to hear us We are not ignorant that they are the off-spring of holy Men whom God was wont to visit both by his Prophets and by his Angels Of this Nation sprang our Messias and the first Doctors of Christianity It is their Tree whereinto we are ingraffed they are the keepers of God's Oracles which we do reverence as much as they and with St. Paul sigh unto God for them and pray that the day may quickly come when the Vail being taken away which hangs over their Faces they with us shall see the fulfilling of the Law And when as it is in their Prophecies every one of us that are strangers shall lay hold on the Cloak of him that is an Hebrew desiring that we may together with a pious consent worship the only true God who is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. SECT II. The Jews ought to account the Miracles of Christ sufficiently proved FIRST of all then we must intreat them not to think that to be unjust in another Man's case which they judge to be just and equitable in their own If any Pagan demand of them why they believe that Miracles were wrought by Moses they can give no other answer save that there was always so constant a report thereof among their Nation that it could not but proceed from the testimony of such as had seen the same Thus that the Widows Oyl was increased by Elisha that Naaman the Syrian was suddenly cured of the Leprosie that the Womans Son in whose House he lodged was restored to life and other such like are believed by the Jews for no other reason than because witnesses of good credit have recorded to posterity that such things were done And they believe Elias his taking up into heaven only for the single testimony of Elisha as a Man beyond all exception But we produce twelve witnesses of unblameable life to testifie that Christ ascended up into Heaven And many more that saw him upon the Earth after his death Which things if they be true then necessarily Christs doctrine is true also and indeed nothing at all can be alledged by the Jews for themselves which by equal right or more just title may not be applyed to us also But to omit further testimonies it is the confession of the Authors of the Talmud and other Jews themselves that strange wonders were wrought by Christ which ought to suffice for this particular For God cannot any way more effectually gain authority unto a doctrine published by Man than by the working of miracles SECT III. And not believe that they were done by the help of Devils THESE Miracles of Christ some said were done by the help of Devils But this calumny hath been confuted before when we shewed that wheresoever the doctrine of Christ was taught and known there all power of the Devils was broken in pieces Others reply that Jesus learned Magick arts in Egypt but this slander hath no more nay not so much colour of truth than the like accusation by the Pagans framed against Moses whereof we read in Pliny and Apuleius For that ever Jesus was in Egypt doth not appear save only out of the Writings of his Disciples who add further that he was an Infant when he returned thence But it is certain by his own and others report that Moses lived a great part of his time after he was grown to Mans estate in Aegypt Howbeit the Law as well of Moses as of Christ frees them both from this crime plainly forbidding such arts as abominable in the sight of God And without all question if in the time of Christ and his Disciples there had been either in Egypt or any where else any such Magical art whereby Men might have been enabled to do the like marvels as are related of Christ to wit giving speech to the Dumb on a suddain making the Lame to walk and the Blind to see then would Tyberius Nero and other Emperors have found it out who spared no costs and charges in the inquiry after such like things Nay if it were true which the Jews relate how that the Senators of the great Council were skill'd in Magick arts that they might convince them that were guilty of that iniquity then surely they being so mightily incensed against Jesus as they were and envying the honour and respect which he obtained chiefly by his miracles would either themselves have done the like works by the same art or by sufficient reasons would have made it appear that the works of Christ proceeded from no other cause SECT IV. Or by the Power of Words and Syllables MOreover that is not only a meer fable but impudent lye which some of the Jews have invented concerning the Miracles done by Christ which they ascribe to a certain secret name which as they say being placed in the Temple by Solomon was preserved safe by two Lions