People from whom alone those advantages were to be expected if any advantage at all had been sought for Nay when he let those advantages go which he had already in his hands Whereas Men in Power endeavour to keep their Authority up and to transmit it to their Posterity Moses was content to let all that Power dye with him wherewith he was vested when he govern'd the whole Jewish Nation He appointed Joshua to succeed him in his Civil Authority The great Dignity and Advantages of the Priesthood he disposed of to his Brother Aaron and his Sons As for his own Children he left them in Subjection to the Priests to officiate under them in the ordinary and mean Ministrations of the Tabernacle not alloting them one foot of Land amongst all their Kindred All which shews that from the beginning to the end Moses designed nothing but the Honour of God and the Common good of his People And that no Honour or Interest of his own could possibly sway or tempt him to violate his Integrity And what could the four Evangelists propose to themselves that should move them to deceive the world and make their Relations incredible or suspected Honours they could not aim at unless men think it an Honour to be Dishonest Nor could Interest tempt them to impose fictions on mens Belief when they were sure beforehand to receive nothing in this world but Hardship Persecutions and Death for their Reward Very poor encouragements for men to invent and spread abroad idle Stories Or if it be said that 't was for the Credit and Propagation of their Religion they must be thought the oddest men in Nature that would coin Fictions for the sake of a Religion they believed to be false and yet they could not have believed otherwise of it if they had not known it to have been confirmed by Miracles for they were the only things that could give Evidence of its Truth beyond all Contradiction 3. This I have said to shew that however some Irreligious Men have the confidence to despise the Scripture-account of Divine Miracles to common human Reason it appears sufficiently credible from the certain Knowledge and manifest Probity of the Writers and consequently that we have as fair Evidence of the Reality of Miracles in that respect as can be had of any other matter of Fact that has been done in former Ages To which let us add in the next place this third ground of Credibility viz. that others who had reason to know and were able to know the truth of the matter were sufficiently satisfied of the certainty of it Here again we must return to Moses and First it is observable that the account he gives of Miracles done by him has continually past through a long succession of Ages uncontradicted which is an Argument that the Inquisitive and Knowing men in most Nations were well satisfied of the Reality of the matter For as the Mosaick Writings contain the most Ancient Records that are extant in the world so they seem to have been perused by the most Ancient Philosophers and Historians because the things related in them were spoken of and own'd generally by the whole Heathen world though sometimes not without a mixture of Poetical Fables as the Creation of the Universe the Sanctity of the Sabbaths the Story of the Deluge and of the Ark the Right of circumcision and the like as the Learned Grotius hath particularly shew'd in his First Book of the Truth of Christianity It is very probable that the general belief of these things sprang from the general persuasion which prevailed in the world of those Signs and Wonders that Moses had shew'd that made him so great a Person in the Esteem of Mankind There were thousands ready to have disproved the Relation if the Works had not been done nor is it in the least likely that of so many Neighbouring Nations round about the Jews which mortally hated the Jews and their Religion none would have discovered the Imposture had they not been satisfied that what Moses had written was true The Honour of having such great things done for them in the eyes of the world would have been thought too much for a despised hated People to have gone away with 2. But Secondly instead of Contradicting Moses's History the most Ancient Writers among the Egyptians and Greeks did own his Greatness Insomuch that the old Egyptians would have appropriated him to themselves pretending that he was of Egyptian Parentage and a Priest of Heliopolis by name Ozarsiph changing his name afterwards to Moses Some indeed of the other Heathens as Apuleius and Numenius the Pythagorean reckon him among the old Magicians and in particular among Jannes and Jambres the famous Magicians of Pharaoh but all lookt upon him as a very wonderful Person by reason of the Plagues he brought upon Egypt 3. And then Thirdly as for the Jews nothing can be more clear than that their whole Nation have all along acknowledg'd the truth of the Miracles done by Moses For their whole Constitution was founded upon the Credit of his Divine Authority and that depended upon the Credit of his Miracles And had any of them been unsatisfied in that point those Rebels who rose up against Moses and Aaron alledging that they took too much upon them would have alledged that they pretended too much also a great deal more than what was true Nor could those People who time after time Revolted from Moses's Law have had such another Plea for their Apostacies as this would have been that the Authority of the Law giver was not confirmed by Miracles as 't was believed I have said thus much of Moses to confront some in our days who have taken the confidence to deride the Writings which go under Moses's Name and the Miracles said to have been wrought by him that thereby they may with the greater boldness deny the Existence of God though if Men will take the evidence given of any matters of Fact done at a great distance of time from them it is impossible to find better evidence of any matters than there is of these of the certainty whereof those who had Reason to know and were able to know were fully satisfied I go on now in the next place from the same Consideration to prove the Reality of those Miracles which the Evangelists ascribe to Jesus Christ And who could think themselves more concern'd to enquire into the truth of them than those great Men who made it their business to oppose his Religion And yet that many notable Miracles had been done by him and by his Apostles after him was manifest to all that dwelt at Jerusalem and they could not deny it All that they had to say for their Infidelity was that Christ did those wonderful Works by the help of the Devil but matter of Fact they own'd Hence it was that soon after the Lord went out of the World divers pretended to a power of Miracles such as Simon Magus
A DISCOURSE Concerning the EXISTENCE OF GOD. BY EDWARD PELLING D. D. Rector of Petworth in Sussex and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet street MDCXCVI THE CONTENTS THE Introduction Page 1 CHAP. 1. Concerning the Notion of God in general viz. A Being that is Eminently and Absolutely Perfect What such Perfection meaneth A more particular Notion of God drawn out by Necessary Consequences That he is a Being Independent Eternal Spiritual Intelligent Omnipotent perfectly Good and Righteous This Idea of God is Intelligible and Rational 7 CHAP. II. The Existence of this most Perfect Being proved by Four great Arguments First The Necessity of a First Independent Cause The Origine of all Motion and Life The World not Eternal but made by a Deity 37 CHAP. III. Secondly The general Consent of Mankind even the Ancient Heathens and Modern Idolaters touching One Supreme Numon The Singularity of a few Atheists of old not to be valued This Consent proceeded not from meer Tradition nor Fear nor State-Polity nor Common Compact but from a Principle in Humane Nature derived from the Great Author of it No Argument of the truth of Idolatry 54 CHAP. IV. Thirdly Extraordinary Occurrences As first Miracles Three sorts of True Miracles These Arguments of a God True Miracles have been realy done The Credibility of those done by Moses and Jesus Christ Of Strange Works done by Idolaters A distinction between Miracles in Appearance and Miracles Divine 107 CHAP. V. Then Predictions of future contingent Events Such Predictions there have been some relating to the Ancient Empires others to Jesus Christ others to some memorable Events after Christ's Ascension 161 CHAP. VI. A Fourth Argument of the Existence of God is taken from the Admirable State of the Universe And First Of the Excellent Order into which the several parts of the world are digested Their Commodious Situation Their mutual Relation And the Permanency of them in their Natures and Operations All this could not come to pass by Chance but is a Proof of the Existence of a God The Senseless Conceits of Scepticks with a Confutation of them 191 CHAP. VII A Second thing observable in the State of the Universe is the Beauty of its Parts their Multitudes Splendor Variety together with the Comeliness of their Frame The Pretences of Scepticks answer'd concerning the Operations of Plastick Nature 257 CHAP. VIII The Third is The Usefulness of the several Parts of this Visible Word First as to their Ends and Tendencies The Usefulness of the Heavenly Bodies in their Nature and Motions Of the Air of the Seas and their Saltness of Springs and Mountains and of all the Furniture of the Earth The useful Structure of things in order to their Ends particularly of Trees and Animals of Natrition and Sensation in Animals and of the Fabrication of their Parts in order thereunto The Evasion of Scepticks concerning the Uses of things answered 285 CHAP. IX The Fourth is The resemblance of Knowledge and Wisdom which appears even in Irrational Creatures The constant Regularity of them in the manner of their Operations and the seeming Sagacity of them as to their Ends. This a clear Argument of a Deity because of themselves they design no End nor do they understand the Reason or Tendency of Means nor do they deliberate about the choice of Means This too is a demonstration of the Existence of God The Shifts of Atheists as to this consider'd also 352 CHAP. X. The Fifth is The Ample Provision which is made for the good of all Needy Creatures For their Formation and Production and for their Preservation afterwards from outward Assaults and untimely Deaths Proper Food provided in all Climates and suitable to all Conditions and Tempers Proper Remedies for all Endemial Diseases 385 CHAP. XI The Sixth is The Admirable Frame of Human Nature The Excellence of the Rational Soul in its Nature and Faculties which is proved at large to be a manifestation of the Existence of a God The Evasions of Scepticks consider'd The Conclusion 419 A DISCOURSE Concerning the Existence of GOD. THE Nature of Mankind consider'd as Rational Beings is made up of such Faculties that they are not only capable of Religion that is sitted and qualified to believe that there is a Being vastly Superior to them and to know and worship that High Being in some agreeable sort and measure but they are moreover generally inclin'd to Religion prone to it and pleas'd with it as a thing which is suitable and correspondent to their Faculties so that in all Ages and in all Nations people have profest some kind of Religion or other Nay even Barbarous People rather than they would be wanting in Religious Performances have abounded in great variety of Supersitions and before they would be Atheists have been downright Idolaters adoring a plurality of Gods rather than they would own no Deity at all which shews that Religion is in some sense natural to the Soul of man and that the Corruption which is in mens Practises proceeds from a defect of Light in their Understandings from those many Ignorances and Errors wherewith they are possest Were it not for this True Religion would be the great Profession of the whole World There are especially Three Great Errors which have strangely misguided and corrupted the minds of some men and consequently have taken off that power and influence which otherwise Religion would have had over them even from natural Conscience And these relate either to the Being of God or to his Nature or to his Government of the World and Judiciary power over it 1. First Some reject all belief of God's Being or at least question very much the truth of such a Belief and so of course conceive Religion to be not of Divine but Humane Institution a piece of State-Policy devised and set up by cunning men for the better keeping of Human Societies in order and peace To such men Religion must needs seem an indifferent matter not worth their time or pains to concern themselves much about nor to care whether this or that mode of Religion be professed because they look upon all Religion as an Artifice an Invention that is alterable at pleasure as the Reasons of State and Civil Policy require 2. Secondly Some acknowledge the Being of God together with the inward Necessity Reasonableness and Excellency of Religion in general but yet are much mistaken as to the particular manner of their Religion and in their way of worshipping God because they are greatly mistaken in their notions of his Nature For they apprehend him to be not such as he really is but such a one as they would have him be either a very tame and gentle Being that is easily pleas'd with formal Professions of Respect or a very Partial Being that is kind only to one Sect of People or an Arbitrary Austere and Rigid Being that seeketh to hurt and delighteth in
most Curious Enquiries in so many Philosophical and Learned Ages This shews that the Tradition is grounded upon Principles of Nature that therefore it is common with our Nature and must be as constant and common as Humane Nature continues 2. To which I add Secondly That though Truth went along with the Tradition yet of it self alone and without the Dictates of Nature it could not have been universally received in all Places and Ages For every one is not ready to embrace Truth it self though it be never so probable and when it is received in process of time it doth often drop nor is it easy to conceive how this Truth could have gone so current as it hath gone in all parts and from hand to hand without any considerable opposition unless it had had the help of strong Reason to support it and to carry it on still No doubt but Adam taught his Children in that long tract of time the Nine hundred and thirty years of his life many Truths both Philosophical and Divine which yet are now quite lost especially to those people who have not the use of those Books which are open before us Nay though we are able by the help of Discourse to gather divers things out of Moses's Writings which the old Pagans had no knowledge at all of yet are there several matters which we our selves are to seek for because they are not evident from clear cogent Principles of Nature But this great Truth concerning the Existence of God hath been propagated all along together with Mankind and as people have every where multiplied successively from Generation to Generation Nay the higher we go to those Elder times after the Creation the less of Infidelity we find Though there were then very few Books in the World yet God was believed on and even by those who in their lives dishonoured him For in those days Nature spake with simplicity and much plainer and better than in after-times when men of wanton Wits and of base Minds used Arts and so corrupted and debauch'd their Natural Reason This shews that the Belief of God's Existence is grounded upon something in Humane Nature which hath still preserv'd it in the world notwithstanding the miscarriage of many other Traditions which our old Ancestors transmitted to their Posterity and left with them This hath escaped undestroy'd uncontradicted but by a very few Partial Conceited and Designing Men of which no other cause can be rationally assigned but that it is most consonant to the frame of our Nature a Natural Principle an Idea of God which he himself hath as it were imprinted and stamp'd upon every ones minds so that it cannot be worn out by Time it self which weareth out other Notions that are not fixt and rivetted as this is into the common Reason of Mankind and therefore it is not to be imputed to mere Tradition 2. Nor Secondly Can it be imputed to Fear which is the next Pretence For those who would destroy the Belief of a God would fain persuade the world that it is only a thing of Phancy a fictitious frightful Idea put into peoples heads by Designing Men or formed in their Brains by the power of their own Imagination and that their minds being once scared were easily bent to conceive that there is a Terrible Being over them which those bold hardy Wretches imagine to be nothing but a Bugbear without any real Existence and accordingly they bottom Religion upon groundless Fears believing Hell and Damnation and a Deity to be Figments things invented and talked of to terrify the World and so the Atheistical Author of the Leviathan represents them comparing them as he has the confidence to express it to an empty Hat upon a crooked Stick to fright Birds from the Corn. I should beg every good Christian's pardon for but mentioning such Impiety did not the Looseness of the Age we live in constrain us to take notice of the strange Notions that are got abroad The meaning whereof in short is That if people were not frighted out of their Wits they would hardly believe the Existence of a Deity for they ground that Belief upon Fear and make Popular Fear to be the cause of it And hence it is they think that this Belief hath generally prevailed in the World not from any Natural Principle in the Understanding but from a slavish foolish Passion of heart and because men have been every where taught to be fearful and timorous or have made themselves so Now to every Considerate Rational Man it is plain that Fear cannot be the cause of that Belief but is the consequence and effect of it That is Men do not believe a God because they are afraid but are therefore afraid because they believe there is one a Just and Powerful Being over all And therefore their Fears proceed from an Universal Common and Natural Principle in every ones mind touching God's Existence for otherwise it were impossible for mens Fears to be so great so universal so fixt in Humane Nature as never to be eradicated First It can never stand with common Reason to conceive how Fear should create Tormenting Apprehensions of a Being whom all Mankind have ever adored for his great Goodness and whom Heathen Philosophers themselves have discover'd by the Light of Nature to be for his Divine Perfections the most Lovely and Desirable Being in the whole world What Reverence soever the sense of his Greatness may call for disquieting Terrors of a Being so infinitely Perfect cannot spring but from an Evil Conscience And then I appeal to all Men of Sense whether that Conscience ought to be heard against God whose Interest it is to have none This is certain That there can be no fear where there is not supposed an Object to be afraid of That Object must be acknowledged not only to be but to be Angry and Threatning otherwise our Faculties would be both vain and delusory constrained to fear where no grounds of fear are which is to reproach Nature it self that is so adored by some Insidels and to impeach it for a Common Cheat. Secondly Though we should think some particular Persons imposed upon by their Fears yet how could all Men in the World fall under the same Imposture at once How could they be seiz'd with one Agony universally but from an Epidemical Principle in Humane Nature Or how could they all jump together in one Principle without the Hand of a God who made them all and intended by this means to hold them all fast to himself Thirdly If we should be so unreasonable as to suppose Mankind to have been frighted all at the same instant no body knows by whom or when or how and by that fright to have been possest with the thoughts of a Deity can we suppose too that they had no time in so many Ages to recover themselves out of that panick Distemper Fear is a cruciating and tormenting Passion which every Man is desirous to rid himself
as the Greeks first borrowed their Letters of the Jews so the best Laws at Athens and afterwards at Rome took their Original from the Laws of Moses And that Jesus Christ formerly lived in the Land of Judea is acknowledg'd even by those who were no Friends to his Religion Josephus the Jew who seems to have been our Saviour's Cotemporary saith That in the Regency of Pontius Pilate there lived one Jesus a wise Man saith he if yet it Antiq. l. 18. c. 4. be sit to call him a Man because he did many Miracles and appeared alive again the third Day after his Crucifixion That Roman Historian Tacitus Cornel. Tac. l. 15. speaking of the Christians tells us That the Author of that Name was one Christ who in the Reign of Tiberius the Emperor was put to Death by Pontius Pilate About fifty Years after our Saviour's Time Pliny the Proconsul of Bithynia sent the Emperor Trajan Plin. l. 10. Ep. 97. this Account of the Christians That their Custom was to sing Hymus to Christ as to a God Suetonius In Vit. Claud. makes mention of him too meaning not so much his Person as his Doctrine The Acts of Pilate to which the Primitive Christians were wont to appeal shew that there was such a Man once in being Those Learned Heathens who wrote against his Faith Celsus Porphyry and Julian never questioned the Truth of the History touching his Life and Death The most hardned Jews themselves that hate and reproach his Memory cannot deny but that there was such a Man and that their Ancestors killed him Nay they are sensible to this day that for that very reason they are despised and abhorred by the Christian World So that no account whatsoever of matter of fact can possibly be more attested more clear and certain than this is That Jesus Christ once lived in the World 2. The next thing is That the History of those Miracles which are said to have been done by Moses and our Blessed Saviour is also as sufficiently credible as any Historical Account can be Two Qualifications are necessary in an Historian to make his Relations sufficiently Credible Knowledge and Integrity and where both these Qualifications meet that is where a Man cannot be ignorant of the Truth of what he writes nor can be justly suspected of an intention to deceive in that case there can be no fair or tolerable reason for our disbelief 1. Now as to Moses's Knowledge 't is impossible to conceive That he knew not what he did himself or that he was not conscious of his own Actions And 't is as impossible to think that the Evangelists knew not what Jesus Christ did For Matthew and John were contiually about him attending personally upon him Eye-witnesses of all his Actions especially the latter who was admitted into his Privacies so that no Miracle is said to have been done at any time out of the common View but what John was a constant Eye-witness of And if Luke and Mark were not such Attendants upon Christ himself as the others were yet the least that is said of them is that the one was conversant with Paul who had as certain Information of all things as the rest of the Apostles had and that the other was conversant with Peter who was allowed the same Priviledge which John enjoyed and was continually one of those three special Favourites who were privy to the Lord Jesus his more secret Actions 2. This short account being given of all these Writers Knowledge the next thing to be shewed to make their Testimony sufficiently credible is their great Intergity which will soon appear to any reasonable Man that will but consider 1. First The Impartiality 2. And then the Simplicity that is observable in their Writings 1. The Evangelists have given us an Impartial Account of the Obscurity of Christ's outward Condition of the Meanness of his Disciples Quality and Fortunes of their Natural Inabilities of the Dulness of their Understandings of the slowness of their Hearts to believe of their Insirmities and Faults and particularly of the Treachery of one Apostle and of the shameful Lapse of another There are none of those things concealed which Men of Art and Partiality would hardly have made known Nay it is observable of Mark that though he was Peter's great Attondant in the Execution of his Ministry yet in relating the Story of Peter's denying his Master he tells it as plainly as Matthew doth with this little difference that he doth not take such affecting notice of his Repentance as the other doth For whereas St. Matthew saith That he wept bitterly St. Mark saith only He wept as if he lessened his Sorrow after an humble modest manner in respect to Peter whose Amanuensis he then was An instance that shews That if there was any Partiality in these Writers it was in this That they did not say enough of one anothers Virtues Such Impartiality is seen throughout the History written by Moses For therein he sets down not only the Poverty of his beginnings but even the Faults and Miscarriages he had been guilty of and how angry God was for them He relates as well the Crimes as the Infirmities of his Ancestors all along from Noah down to the Twelve Patriarchs and among them he particularly notes the Persidiousness and Cruelty of his great Grandfather Levi when he and Simeon trick'd the Sechemites out of their Lives and Fortunes for which Inhumanity their Father Jacob set a Curse upon them which Moses has very faithfully recorded in Gen. 43. In short Whereas Partial Historians are wont to seek themselves a Name by favouring and many times by slattering the Parties they belong to Moses spared not his own Nation But hath left the World a long and lasting Account of the Follies the Insidelity the Murmurings the Ingratitude the Apostacies together with the perverse and incorrigible Temper of that People the Jews neither concealing nor excusing nor extenuating their Provocations his great Design being to set forth the Glory of God's Truth and Goodness who set his love upon them and chose them not because they were better or more in number than any People for they were the fewest of all People and a Rebellious People but because the Lord loved them and because he would keep the Oath which he had sworn unto their Fathers 2. To demonstrate yet further the Integrity of Moses and the Evangelists who speak of such Miracles done let us consider Secondly their great Simplicity of Mind without any mixture of Sinister or Self-designs Men are not wont to tell Tales for nothing 'T is either Vanity or some private Interest which is the end and drift of Impostors And what could Moses propose to himself by telling stories which the Egyptians and Jews were so easily able to contradict if those Miracles had not been done among them Or what advantage can Men think he aimed at when at the same time he spake so hardly of those
the Gnosticks and especially Appollonius Tyanaeus that they might draw People off from the Profession of Christianity upon the same Motives which had induced them to embrace it Those times abounded with Magicians and Sorceres who though they could not deny the Works which Jesus Christ had done yet used all their Arts to lessen and disparage them by pretending to do the like Our Saviour had foretold his Disciples That false Christs and false Prophets would arise and would shew great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they would deceive the very elect Matth. 24. 24. Accordingly St. Paul speaking of that set of Seducers in the Singular Number as the Man of Sin saith That his coming was after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders that is with wonders that served to confirm and give testimony to false Doctrines 2 Thess 2. 9. All these Appearances were so many Imitations of the Works of Jesus intended by those men to deceive who try'd to counterfeit things which they durst not contradict for fear of being contradicted themselves by all the World Nor did those bitter Adversaries to Christianity in after-times Celsus and Julian presume to disown the Miracles of Christ for they acknowledg'd as other Heathens did that he cured the Blind and the Lame but to keep the force of this Argument from working upon mens minds they reviled his Actions as though they were done not by any Divine Power but by Arts of Magick after his return out of Egypt where they pretended he had learned his Skill Briefly Orig. cont Cels lib. 1. p. 30. In the Ages which were nearest to our Saviour's all sorts of knowing Men acknowledg'd the Miraculous things that had been wrought by Him and his Followers And had some Scepticks of our days lived then even Jews and Pagans would in that point have accused their Infidelity from notoriety of fact which was unquestionable 4. And yet there is one Consideration more that gives further Evidence of the truth of those Miracles which Moses and Jesus Christ did viz. That things of great and publick concernment were the consequents of them than which no stronger evidence can be given or desired of any matter of fact that ever was done in the world There cannot possibly be a better proof that there were formerly Wise and Good Men in England than the Government they established and the Laws they have left us Our whole Constitution is founded upon their Actions and the Polity we are under shews what Kings and Parliaments they were and what they have done though the Men are long ago dead So doth the state of Judaism and the frame of Christianity shew what Moses and what Christ did All on each hand is built upon the Miracles which were done by the one and the other and to say at last there were no such things is to accuse all their Disciples of the highest madness for following their Institutions without Grounds or Reason a censure that is too hard to be given of so great a part of Mankind who think they have the greatest Reason in the world for their Profession Moses his business was to form the whole Nation of the Jews into a Commonwealth distinct from all other Societies of Men to give them peculiar Laws to prescribe them a peculiar Form of Religion to bring their Necks under an heavy yoke under a sort of discipline that was the most strict the most cumbersome and laborious And how can we think that a froward People just delivered out of one Bondage would presently have submitted to another nay a Bondage which they thought was to last for ever had they not seen such signs and wonders done before their eyes as plainly argued that their Lawgiver came to them by immediate Commission from God Or how can we conceive that their Posterity who groan'd so often under the Curses which Moses had left them would have endured the severities of such a Taskmaster had they not well known that his Authority over them was attested from Heaven Nay How is it imaginable that the Jews at this day should not yet depart from Moses but stick to him to death and will undergo any sufferings rather than leave him though their Religion as distinct from Christianity hath no inward natural Goodness to commend it no human Power without to support it and though they themselves be the most ignominious hated People in the world The Reasons of all this must be drawn from those strong assurances the Jews have always had That to erect their Polity and to establish their Religion Moses did such Works as wore out of the Power of all Art and Nature and plain tokens that he acted in the Name of God and by the Authority of God And then as for the Christian Institution it hath been long ago Received and Professed up and down in the world though it met with and indeed carried in its nature such vast and manifest discouragements as could never have been conquer'd had not Christ shewed the Necessity and Divinity thereof by Miracles A Religion whose Author died a most reproachful Death A Religion that layeth hard Restraints upon mens natural Desires and binds them to acts of Self-denial and Mortification A Religion that makes People prefer future Expectations before all present Enjoyments and wait till the day of Judgment for their full Reward A Religion that is attended with Sorrows and Sufferings and exposeth its Professors to Death it self for the sake of a good Conscience In short a Religion that brings with it all the seeming disadvantages and discouragements that can be offered to Flesh and Blood And yet notwithstanding all inconveniences this Religion where-ever it hath been Preach'd hath continually prevailed over the hearts of all Teachable Men in the world of which no other rational account can be given but this That the Author and Finisher of our Faith proved his Authority and confirmed all his Laws and Doctrines by working Miracles by the finger of God The works that he did in his Father's name they bore witness of him Joh. 10. 25. For all people knew that he was a Teacher come from God because no man could have done those Miracles that he did except God had been with him Joh. 2. 3. So that Miracles were the foundation of every man's Faith and Obedience the great Reasons which Congregated all people into that Body which we call the Church and which still holds them firm together against all the Hardships and Storms that can be brought upon them The Christian Church is a standing visible Monument of our Saviour's Miracles as the Jewish State was of the Miracles wrought by Moses and both of them are Monuments of such vast and publick consequence as could never have been erected without them much less could they have stood against all Winds and Weather And after all to imagine as some do that no such Divine Supernatural Effects were ever done is