them that believe In my name shall they cast out Devils c. This power then in the Primitive Church had a twofold argument in it both as it was a manifestation of the truth of the predictions of our Saviour and as it was an evidence of the Divine power of Christ when his name so long after his ascension had so great a command over all the infernal spirits and that so evidently that at that time when the Christians did as it were Tyrannize over Satan so in his own territories yet then the greatest of his Magicians had no power to hurt the bodyes of the Christians which is a thing Origen takes much notice of For when Celsus saith from Diogenes Aegyptius that Magick could only hurt ignorant and wicked men and had no power over Philosophers Origen replies first that Philosophy was no such charm against the power of Magick as appears by Maeragenes who writ the story of Apollonius Tyaneus the famous Magician and Philosopher who therein mentions how Euphrates and an Epicurean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no vulgar Philosophers were catched by the Magick of Apollonius and although Philostratus disowns this History of Maeragenes as fabulous yet he that thinks Philostratus for that to be of any greater credit is much deceived of whom Lud. Vives gives this true character that he doth magna Homeri mendacia majoribus mendaciis corrigere mend one hole and make three but saith Origen as to the Christians this is undoubtedly true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This saith he we are most certain of and have found it by experience true that those who according to the principles of Christianity do worship God over all through Iesus and do live according to the Gospel being constant in their solemn prayers night and day are not obnoxious to the power of any Magick or Devils whatsoever Now then if the Devil who had then so much power over others had none upon the true followers of Christ and if in stead of that they had so great a commanding power over the Devil even in things which tended most to his disadvantage not only dislodging him out of bodies â—â—t out of his Idolatrous Temples what can be more evident then that this power which was so efficacious for the overthrowing the Kingdom of Satan must needs be far greater then the power of Satan is For it is an undoubted Maxime in natural reason that whatever is put out of its former place by force and violence is extruded by something stronger then its self for if the force on either side were equal there could be no disposses sing of either if any thing then be cast out of its former possession unwillingly it is an undenyable proof there was some power greater then his who was dispossessed Now we cannot conceive if there be such malignant spirits as by many undeniable proofs it is evident there are that they should willingly quit their possessions to such a doctrine which tends to the unavoydable ruine of their interest in the world if then the power of this doctrine hath overthrown the Devils Kingdom in the world whereever it hath been truly entertained it must necessarily follow that this power is far above the power of any damned spirits Now what folly and madness was it in the Heathens to worship those for Gods which they could not but see if they would open their eyes were under so great slavery to a power above them which could make them confess what was most to their disadvantage in the presence of their great adorers Neither ought the many counterfeits and impostures which have been in the world in this kind since the establishment of Christian Religion among the advancers of particular interests and designs make us suspect the truth of those things which were done in the first Ages of the Church of Christ. For first it stands to the greatest reason that the strongest arguments for the truth of a Religion ought to be fetched from the ages of its first appearance in the world if then the evidence be undoubted as to those first times we ought to embrace our Religion as true whatever the impostures have been among those who have apparently gone aside from that purity and simplicity of the Gospel which had so great power Then secondly if all that hath been done in this kind of ejecting Devils where Christianity is owned be acknowledged for impostures one of these two things must be supposed as the ground of it either that there was no such thing as a real possession by the Devil or else there was no such thing as a dispossessing him If the first then hereby will be seen a confirmation of our former argument that where Christianity is owned by the power of that the Devil is more curbed and restrained then where it is not or else is much over-run with ignorance and superstition Of the latter the ages of the Christian Church from the 10. Century to the beginning of the 16. current are a clear evidence Of the first all those who have been conversant in the places where Paganism or gross Idolatry do yet reign will bring in their creditable testimonies how tyrannical the power of the Devil is yet among them If it be not so then where careful endeavours have been used for retriving the ancient pâ—rity of Christian doctrine and worship we ought to impute it to the power of him who is stronger then Satan who whereever he comes to dwell doth dispossess him of his former habitations If the second then be entertained as the ground of concluding all things as impostures which are accounted dispossessions of Satan viz. that he never is really dispossessed then it must either be said that where he is once seized there is no possibility of ejecting him which is to say that the Devil hath an absolute and infinite power and that there is no power greater then his which is to own him for God or else that God suffers him to tyrannize where and how he will which is contrary to divine providence and the care God takes of the world and of the good of mankind or else lastly that those persons who pretend to do it are not such persons who are armed so much with the power of Christ nor possessed with such a due spirit of the Gospel which hath command over these infernal spirits And this in the cases pretended by the great Iuglers and Impostors of the Christian world the Popish Priests have been so notorious that none of their own party of any great faith or credit would stand to vouch them And we have this impregnable argument against all such Impostures that the matters which they by such actions would give an evidence to being so vastly different from if not in some things diametrically opposite to the first delivery and design of the Christian faith it is inconsistent with the way used for the confirmation of Christian Religion in the first publishing of
real learning or truth at all in them For this though he be sharply censured by Strabo in his first Book who undertakes to vindicate the Geography of Homer from the exceptions of Eratosthenes yet himself cannot but confess that there is a â—very great mixture of Fables in all their Poets which is saith he partly to delight the people and partly to awe them For the minds of men being always desirous of novelties such things do hugely please the natural humours of weak people especially if there be something in them that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very strange and wonderful it increaseth the delight in hearing it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which draws them on to a desire of hearing more of it And by this means saith he are children first brought on to learning and all ignorant persons are kept in awe nay and the more learned themselves partly for want of reason and judgement and partly from the remainder of those impressions which these things made upon them when they were children cannot shake off that former credulity which they had as to these things By which discourse of Strabo though intended wholly by him in vindication of Poetick Fables it is plain and evident what great disservice hath been done to truth by them by reason they had no other Records to preserve their ancient history but these fabulous Writers and therefore supposing a mixture of truth and falshood together which Strabo contends for yet what way should be taken to distinguish the true from the false when they had no other certain Records and besides he himself acknowledgeth how hard a matter it is even for wise men to excuss those fabulous narrations out of their minds which were insinuated into them by all the advantages which prejudice custome and education could work upon them Granting then there may be some truth at the bottom of their fabulous narrations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which may be gilded over with some pleasing tales as himself compares it yet how shall those come to know that it is only gilded that never saw any pure mettal and did always believe that it was what it seemed to be Had there been any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or touchstone to have differenced between the one and the other there might have been some way for a separation of them but there being none such we must conclude that the fabulous Narrations of Poets in stead of making Truth more pleasant by their fictions have so adulterated it that we cannot find any credibility at all in their narrations of elder times where the truth of the story hath had no other way of conveyance but through their fictions But though Poets may be allowed their liberty for representing things with the greatest advantage to the palats of their Readers yet we may justly expect when men profess to be historical they should deliver us nothing but what upon strictest examination may prove undoubted truth Yet even this were the Greeks far from for Strabo himself confesseth of their eldest Historians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their first Historians both of persens and things were fabulous Diodorus particularly instanceth in their eldest Historians as Cadmus Milesius Hecataeus and Hellanicus and condemns them for fabulousness Strabo condemns Damastes Sigeensis for vanity and falshood and wonders at Eratosthenes for making use of him yet this man is of great antiquity among them and his testimony used by Authors of good credit as Dionys Halycarnassius Plutarch and others Nay Pliny professeth to follow him and so he doth Aristeus Procennesius in his Arimaspia which may render the credit of his History very suspicious with whom it was a sufficient ground of credibility to any story that he found it in some Greek Authors Strabo reckons Damastes with Euëmerus Messenius and Antiphanes Bergeus which latter was so noted a lyar that from him as Stephanus tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was used as a proverb for to speak never a word of truth Aristeus Proconnesius lived in the time of Cyrus and writ a History of the Arimaspi in three Books who seems to have been the Sir Iohn Maridevil of Greece from his Stories of the Arimaspi with one eye in their foreheads and their continual fighting with the Gryphens for gold yet the story was taken upon trust by Herodotus Pliny and many others though the experience of all who have visited those Northern Climats do sufficiently refute these follies Strabo saith of this Aristeus that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one inferiour to none for juggling which cenfure was probably occasioned by the common story of him that he could let his soul out of his body when he pleased and bring it again yet this Juggler did Celsus pitch on to confront with our blessed Saviour as Herocles did on Apollinus so much have those been to seek for reason who have fought to oppose the doctrine of faith But further what credit can we give to those Historians who have striven to confute each other and lay open one anothers falshood to the world Where was there ever any such dissonancy in the sacred History of Scripture doth the Writer of one Book discover the weakness of another do not all the parts so exactly agree that the most probable suspicion could ever fall into the heart of an Infidel is that they were all written by the same person which yet the series of times manifests to have been impossible But now if we look into the ancient Greek Historians we need no other testimony then themselves to take away their credibility The Genealogies of Hesiod are corrected by Acusiddus Acusiddus is condemned by Hellanicus Hellanicus accused of falshood by Ephorus Ephorus by Timaeus Timaeus by such who followed him as Iosephus fully shews Where must we then fix our belief upon all in common that is the ready way to believe contradictions for they condemn one another of falshood Must we believe one and reject the rest but what evidence doth that one give why he should be credited more then the rest And which is a most irrefragable argument against the Graecian history their eldest historians are ackowledged to be the most fabulous for our only recourse for deciding the controversies among the younger historians must be to the elder And here we are further to seek then ever for the first ages are confessed to be Poetical and to have no certainty of truth in them So that it is impossible to find out any undoubted certainty of ancient times among the Greek Historians which will be yet more evident when we add this that there are very few extant of those Historians who did carry the greatest name for Antiquity The highest antiquity of the Greek Historians doth not much exceed the time of Cyrus and Cambyses as Vossius hath fully demonstrated in his learned book De Historiâ—is Graecis and therefore I shall spare particular enquiries into their
it to attest the truth of such things by any real miracles For so it would invalidate the great force of the evidences of the truth of Christianity if the same argument should be used for the proving of that which in the judgement of any impartial person was not delivered when the truth of the doctriâ—e of Christ was confirmed by so many and uncontrouled miracles But hereby we see what unconceivable prejudice hath been done to the true primitive doctrine of the Gospel and what stumbling-blocks have been laid in the way of considerative persons to keep them from embracing the truly Christian faith by those who would be thought the infallible directors of men in it by making use of the broad-seal of Heaven set only to the truth of the Scriptures to confirm their unwritten and superstitious ways of worship For if I once see that which I looked on as an undoubted evidence of divine power brought to attest any thing directly contrary to divine revelation I must either conclude that God may contradict himself by sealing both parts of a contradiction which is both blasphemous and impossible or that that society of men which own such things is not at all tender of the honour of Christain doctrine but seeks to set up an interest contrary to it and matters not what disadvantage is done to the grounds of Râ—ligion by such unworthy pretences and which of these two is more rational and true let every ones conscience judge And therefore it is much the interest of the Christian world to have all such frauds and impostures discovered which do so much disservice to the Christian faith and are such secret fomenters of Atheism and Infidelity But how far that promise of our Saviour that they which believe in his name shall cast out Devils and do many miracles may extend even in these last ages of the world to such generous and primitive-spirited Christians who out of a great and deep sense of the truth of Christianity and tenderness to the souls of men should go among Heathens and Infidels to convert them only to Christ and not to a secular interest under pretence of an infallible head is not here a place fully to enquire I confess I cannot see any reason why God may not yet for the conviction of Infidels employ such a power of miracles although there be not such necessity of it as there was in the first propagation of the Gospel there being some evidences of the power of Christianity now which were not so clear then as the overthrowing the Kingdom of Satan in the world the prevailing of Christianity notwithstanding force used against it the recovâ—ry of it from amidst all the corruptions which were mixed with it the consent of those parties in the common foundations of Christianity which yet disagreâ— froâ— each other with great bitternâ—ss of spirit though I say it be not of that necessity now when the Scriptures are convâ—yed to us in a certain uninterrupted manner yet God may please out of his abundant provision for the satisfaction of the minds of men concerning the truth of Christian doctrine to employ good men to do something which may manifest the power of Christ to be above the Dâ—vils whom they worship And therefore I should far sooner believe the relation of the miracles of Xaverius and his Brethren employed in the conversion of Infidels then Lipsius his Virgo Hallensis and Asprecollis could it but be made evident to me that the design of those persons had more of Christianity then Popery in it that is that they went more upon a design to bring the souls of the Infidels to heaven then to enlarge the authority and jurisdiction of the Roman Church But whatever the truth of those miracles or the design of those persons were we have certain and undoubted evidence of the truth of those miracles whereby Christianity was first propagated and the Kingdom of Satan overthrown in the world Christ thereby making it appear that his power was greater then the Devils who had possession because he overcame him took from him all his armour wherein he trusted and divided his spoils i. e. dispossâ—ssed him of mens bodies and his Idolatrous Temples silenced his Oracles nonplust his Magicians and at last when Christianity had overcome by suffering wrested the worldly power and Empire out of the Devils hands and employed it against himself Neither may we think because since that time the Devil hath got some ground in the world again by the large spread of Mahometism the general corruptions in the Christian world that therefore the other was no argument of divine power because the truth of Christianity is not tyed to any particular places because such a falling away hath been foretold in Scripture and therefore the truth of them is proved by it and because God himself hath threatned that those who will not receive the truth in the love of it shall be given up to strong de'usions Doth not this then in stead of abating the strength of the argument confirm it more and that nothing is fallen out in the Christian world but what was foretold by those whom God employed in the converting of it But we are neither without some fair hopes even from that divine revelation which was sealed by uncontrouled evidence that there may be yet a time to come when Christ will recover his Churches to their pristine purity and simplicity but withall I think we are not to measure the future felicity of the Church by outward splendor and greatness which too many so strongly fancy but by a recovery of that true spirit of Christianity which breathed in the first ages of the Church whatever the outward condition of the Church may be For if worldly greatness and ease and riches were the first impairers of the purity of Christian Religion it is hard to conceive how the restoring of the Church of Christ to its true glory can be by the advancing of that which gives so great an occasion to pride and sensuality which are so contrary to the design of Christian Religion unless we suppose men free from those corruptions which continual experience still tells the world the Rulers as well as members of the Christian society are subject to Neither may that be wonderd at when such uneveness of parts is now discovered in the great Luminaries of the world and the Sun himself is found to have his maculae as though the Sun had a purple feaver or as Kiroher expresseth it Ipse Phoebus qui rerum omnium in universo naturae Theatro aspectabilium longè pulcherrimus omnium opinione est habitus hoc seculo tandem fumosa facie ac infecto vultu maculis prodiit diceres eum variolis laborare senescentem I speak not this as though an outward flourishing condition of the Church were inconsistent with its purity for then the way to refine it were to throw it into the flames of persecution but that
was converted from Plato to Christ and then found that true which he speaks of in his Dialogue with Trypho that after all his enquiries into Philosophy speaking of the doctrine of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I found this at last to be the only sure and profitable Philosophy And when Trypho after derides him as a man of very easie faith who would leave the doctrine of Plato for that of Christ for it seems by him the Iews then had a more favourable opinion of the state of Platonists then Christians Iustin is so far from being moved with such reproaches that he tells him he would undertake to demonstrate to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Christians did not give credit to empty fables and unprovable assertions but to such a doctrine as was full of a Divine spirit and power and flourished with grace The proving of which is the subject of that discourse At Alexandria we meet with a succession of excellent persons all which were not only embracers themselves but defenders of the Christian faith for setting aside there Abilius Iustus Cerdo Eumenes Marcus Celadion Agrippinus Iulianus Demetrius and others who flourished about the second Century I shall only fix on those persons who were famous enquirers after truth and noted for excellency in Heathen learning yet these persons after all their inquiries found nothing to fix on but the Christian faith and valued no other discovery of truth in comparison with that Such was Pantaenus who as Eusebius tells us was an excellent Stoick before he became a Christian and was after so eminent a one that in imitation of the Apostles he wenâ— into India to convert the inhabitants to the Christian faith and at his return was made Rector of the School at Alexandria which as the same author tells us was much frequented by such who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 well skild in humane as well as Divine learning How excellent Pantaenus was in humane learning may appear in that Origen and Hierome both make his example their plea for the studying of it After him succeeded Clemens Alexandrinus Pantaenus his Schollar a person of great depth of learning and exquisitly skild in all Heathen Antiquities as appears by his remaining writings The Learning of Origen is sufficiently known which was in such great reputation in his own time that not only Christians but Philosophers flocked to his Lectures at Alexandria as Eusebius tells us wherein he read the Mathematicks and other parts of Philosophy as well as the Scriptures and the same author informs us that the Philosophers did dedicate their books to him and sometimes chose him as arbitrator between them in matters of dispute and Porphyrie himself in his books against the Christians vouchsafed a high encomium of Origen for his excellent learning In Origens time Heraclas a Presbyter of Alexandria for five years together frequented the Schools of the Philosophers and put on the Philosophick pallium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and was very conversant in the books of the Grecian Learning Besides these we read of Pierius and Achillas two Presbyters of Alexandria who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nicephorus Callistus speaks persons well skild in the Grecian learning and Philosophy If from Alexandria we go to Caesarea there we not only meet with a School of learning among the Christians but with persons very eminent in all kinds of learning such were the famous Pamphilus and Eusebius so great an admirer of him that ever since he is called Eusebius Pamphili At Antioch was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nicephorus speaks a person versed in all kind of ingenuous literature Anatclius Bishop of Laodicea one versed in Geometry Astronomy and all kind of Philosophy as well as in the doctrine of Christ. Thus we see how in those early dayes of the Greek Church what excellent persons many of those were who were zealous Professors of Christianity and concerning those of the Latin Church I shall only mention that speech of St. Austin who was himself an instance of the same nature and a star of the first magnitude among them Nonne aspicimus quanto auro argento vâ—ste sâ—ffarcinatus exierit de Aegypto Cyprianâ—s Doctor suavissimus Martyr beatissimus quanto Lactantius quanto Victorinus Optatus Hilarius ut de vivis taceam quanto innumerabiles Graeci quod prior ipse fidelissimus Dei servus Moses fecerat de quo Scriptum est quod eruditus fuerit omni sapientia Aegyptiorum To whose catalogue of learned persons among the Latin Christians Tertullian Arnobius and several others may be deservedly added But as St. Austin there well observes though the Israclites went rich out of Aegypt yet it was their eating the Passover which saved them from destruction so though these were accomplished with those perfections and riches of the soul the ornaments of learning yet it was their eating the true Passover which was Christ by their adhering to his doctrine was that which would be of more advantage to them then all their accomplishments would be Now then since in the first ages of the Christian Church we find not only innumerable multitudes of persons of great integrity and sobriety in their lives embracing the doctrine of Christ but so many persons that were curious enquirers after the truth of things we can certainly have no reason to distrust such a Testimony which was received in so unanimous a manner by persons as able to judge of the truth of things and as fearful of being deceived in reference to them as any now in the world can be 2. As this testimony was received by persons inâ—uisitive after the truth of things so the doctrine conveyed by it was a matter of the highest moment in the world and therefore we cannot conceive but persons ordinarily inquisitive about other things would be more then ordinarily so about this because their eternal welfare and happiness did depend upon it All persons that are truly religious must at least be allowed to be persons very inquisitive after the state and condition of their souls when they shall be dislodged from their bodyes And if we do but grant this can we in any reason think that such a multitude of persons in so many ages should continue venturing their souls upon a Testimony which they had no assurance of the truth of And that none of all these persons though men otherwise rational and judicious should be able to discover the falsity of that doctrine they went upon if at least any upon consideration of it can imagine it to be so It is not reconcileable with the general presumption of humane nature concerning Divine providence and the care God takes of the welfare of men to suffer so many persons who sincerely desire to serve God in the way which is most pleasing to him to go on in such a continual delusion and never have it at all discovered to them If all then who
of Rambam or R. Moses Maimon It is said that the King of Persia desired of him a sign and he told him that he should cut off his head and he would rise again which he cunningly desired to avoid being tormented which the King was resolved to try and accordingly executed him but I suppose his resurrection and Mahomets will be both in a day although Maimonides tells us some of the Iews are yet such fools as to expect his resurrection Several other Impostors Maimonides mentions in his Epistle de Australi regione One who pretended to be the Messias because he cured himself of the leprosie in a night several others he mentions in Spain France and other parts and the issue of them all was only a further aggravation of the miseries and captivities of the poor Iews who were so credulous in following Impostors and yet such strange Infidels where there were plain and undoubted miracles to perswade them to believe in our blessed Saviour as the true Messias We freely grant then that many pretended miracles may be done in the world to deceive men with but doth it hence follow that either there are no true miracles done in the world or that there are no certain rules to distinguish the one from the other But as Origen yet further replyes to Celsus as a Woolf doth very much resemble a dog yet they are not of the same kind nor a turtle Dove and a Pigeon so that which is produced by a divine power is not of the same nature with that which is produced by Magick but as he argues Is it possible that there should be only deceits in the world and magical operations and can there be no true miracles at all wrought Is humane nature only capable of Impostures or can none work miracles but Devils Where there is a worse there may be a better and so from the impostures counterfeits we may inferr that there are true miracles wrought by a divine power otherwise it were all one as to say there are counterfeits but no Iewels or there are Sophisms and Paralogisms but no lâ—gitimate demonstrations if then there be such deceits there are true miraclâ—s too all the business is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strictly and severely to examine the pretâ—nders to do them and that from the life and manners of those that do them and from the effâ—cts and consequents of them whethâ—r they do good or hurt in the world whâ—ther thâ—y correct mens manners or bring men to goodness holinâ—ss and truth and on this account we are neither to reject all miracles nor embrace all pretâ—nces but carefully and prudently examine the rational evidences whereby those which are true and divine may be known from such which are counterfeit and Diabolical And this now leads us to the main subjâ—ct of this Chapter viz. What rules we have to â—roceed by in judging miracles to be true or false which may be these following True Divine miracles are wrought in confirmation of some Divine Tâ—stimony Because we have manifested by all the precedent discourse that the intention of miracles is to seal some divine revelation Therefore if God should work miracles when no divine Tâ—stimony is to be confirmed God would set the broad Seal of heaven to a blank If it be said no because it will witness to us now the truth of that Testimony which was delivered so many ages since I answer 1. The truth of that Testimony was sufficiently sealed at the time of the delivery of it and is conveyed down in a certain way to us Is it not sufficient that the Chartâ—r of a Corporation had the Princes broad Seal in the time of the giving of it but that every succâ—ssion of men in that Corporation must have a new broad Seal or else they ought to question their Patent What ground can there be for that when the original Seal and Patent is preserved and is certainly conveyed down from age to age So I say it is as to us Gods Grand Charter of Grace and Mercy to the world through Iesus Christ was sealed by divine miracles at the delivery of it to the world the original Patent viz. the Scriptures wherein this Charter is contained is conveyed in a most certain manner to us to this Patent the Seal is annexed and in it are contained those undoubted miracles which were wrought in confirmation of it so that a new sealing of this Patent is wholly needless unless we had some cause of suspicion that the original Patent it self were lost or the first sealing was not true If the lattâ—r then Christian Religion is not true if the miracles wrought for confirmation of it were false because the truth of it depends so much on the verity and Divinity of the miracles which were then wrought If the first be suspected viz. the certain conveyance of the Patent viz. the Scriptures some certain grounds of such a suspicion must be discovered in a matter of so great moment especially when the great and many Societies of the Christian world do all consent unanimously in the contrary Nay it is impossible that any rational man can concâ—ive that the Patent which we now rely upon is supposititious or corrupted in any of those things which are of concernment to the Christian world and that on these accounts 1. From the watchfulness of Divine providâ—nce for the good of mankind Can we conceive that there is a God who rules and takes care of the world and who to manifest his signal Love to mankind should not only grant a Patent of Mercy to the world by his son Christ and then sealed it by divine miracles and in order to the certain conveyance of it to the world caused it by persons imployed by himself to be recordâ—d in a language fittest for its dispersing up and down the world all which I here suppose Can we I say conceive that this God should so far have cast off his care of the world and the good of mankind which was the original ground of the Grant it self as to suffer any wicked men or malignant spirits to corrupt or alter any of those Terms in it on which mens eternal salvation depends much less wholly to suppress and destroy it and to send forth one that is counterfeit and supposititious instead of it and which should not be discovered by the Christians of that age wherein that corrupt Copy was set forth nor by any of the most learned and inquisitive Christians ever since They who can give any the least entertainment to so wild absurd and irrational an imagination are so far from reason that they are in good disposition to Atheism and next to the suspecting the Scriptures to be corrupted they may rationally suspâ—ct there is no such thing as a God and providence in the world or that the world is governed by a spirit most malignant and envious of the good of mankind Which is a suspicion only becoming those Heathens among
whom it was very frequent who worshipped the devils instead of Gods 2. Because of the general dispersion of Copies in the world upon the first publishing of them We cannot otherwise coâ—ceive but that records containing so weighty and important things would be transcribed by all those Churches which believed the truth of the things contained in them We see how far curiosity will carry men as to the care of transcribing antient MSS. of old Authors which contain only some history of things past that are of no great concernment to us Can we then imagine those who ventured estates and lives upon the truth of the things revealed in Scripture would not be very careful to preserve the authentick instrument whereby they are revealed in a certain way to the whole world And besides this for a long time the originals themselves of the Apostolical writings were preserved in the Church which makes Tertullian in his time appeal to them Age jam qui voles curiositatem melius exercere in negotio salutis tuae percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud quasipsae adhuc cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesidentur apud quas ipsae authenticae corum literae recitantur sonantes vocem representantes faciem uniuscujusque Now how was it possible that in that time the Scriptures could be corrupted when in some of the Churches the original writings of the Apostles were preserved in a continual succession of persons from the Apostles themselves and from these originals so many Copies were transcribed as were conveyed almost all the world over through the large spread of the Christian Churches at that time and therefore it is impossible to conceive that a Copy should be corrupted in one Church when it would so speedily be discovered by another especially considering these three circumstances 1. The innumerable multitude of Copies wh ch would speedily be taken both considering the moment of the thing and the easiness of doing it God probably for that very end not loading the world with Pandâ—cts and Codes of his Laws but contriving the whole instrument of mans salvation in so narrow a compass that it might be easily preserved and transcribed by such who were passionate admirers of the Scriptures 2. The great number of learned and inquisitive men who soon sprung up in the Christian Church whose great care was to explain and vindicate the sacred Scriptures can we then think that all these Watch-men should be asleep together when the â—vil one came to sow his Tares which it is most unreasonable to imagine when in the writings of all these learned men which were very many and voluminous so much of the Scripture was inserted that had there been corruption in the Copies themselves yet comparing them with those writings the corruptions would be soon discovered 3. The great venâ—ration which all Christians had of the Scripture that they placed the hopes of their eternal happiness upon the truth of the things contained in the Scriptures Can we then think these would suffer any material alteration to creep into these records without their observing and discovering it Can we now think when all persons are so exceeding careful of their Deeds and the Records whereon their estates depend that the Christians who valued not this world in comparison of that to come should suffer the Magna Charta of that to be lost corrupted or imbezzeled away Especially considering what care and industry was used by many primitive Christians to compare Copies together as is evident in Pantaenus who brought the Hebrew Copy of Matthew out of the Indies to Alexandria as Eusebius tells us in Pamphilus and the Library he errected at Caesarâ—a but especially in Origens admirable Hexapla which were mainly intended for this end 3. It is impossible to conceive a corruption of the copy of the Scriptures because of the great differences which were all along the several ages of the Church between those who acknowledged the Scriptures to be Divine So that if one party of them had foisted in or taken out any thing another party was ready to take notice of it and would be sure to tell the world of it And this might be one great reason why God in his wise providence might permit such an increase of heresies in the Infancy of the Church viz. that thereby Christians might be forced to stand upon their guard and to have a special eye to the Scriptures which were alwayes the great eye-sores of hereticks And from this great wariness of the Church it was that some of the Epistles were so long abroad before they found general entertainment in all the Churches of Christ because in those Epistles which were doubted for some tâ—me there were some passages which seemed to favour some of the heresies then abroad but when upon severe enquiry they are found to be what they pretended they were received in all the Christian Churches 4. Because of the agreement between the Old Tâ—stament and the New the Prophesies of the Old Testament appear with their full accomplishment in the New which we have so that it is impossible to think the New should be corrupted unless the old were too which is most unreasonable to imagine when the Iews who have been the great conservators of the Old Testament have been all along the most inveterate enemies of the Christians So that we cannot at all conceive it possible that any material corruptions or alterations should creep into the Scriptures much less that the true copy should be lost and a new one forged Supposing then that we have the same authentick records preserved and handed down to us by the care of all Christian Churches which were written in the first ages of the Church of Christ what necessity can we imagine that God should work new miracles to confirm that dâ—ctrine which is conveyed down in a certain uninterrupted way to us as being seâ—led by miracles undoubtedly Divine in the first promulgation and penning of it And this is the first reason why the truth of the Scriptures need not now be sealed by new miracles 2. Another may be because God in the Scripture hath appointed other things to continue in his Church to be as seals to his people of the truth of the things contained in Scriptures Such are outwardly the Sacraments of the Gospel baptism and the Lords Supper which are set apart to be as seals to confirm the truth of the Covenant on Gods part towards us in reference to the great promises contained in it in reference to pardon of sin and the ground of our acceptance with God by Iesus Christ and inwardly God hath promised his Spirit to be as a witness within them that by its working and strengthning grace in the hearts of believers it may confirm to them the truth of the records of Scripture when they finde the counter part of them written in their hearts by the singer of the Spirit of God It cannot then be with any reason at all supposed
that when a Divine testimony is already confirmed by miracles undoubtedly Divine that new miracles should be wrought in the Church to assure us of the truth of it So Chrysostome fully expresseth himself concerning miracles speaking of the first ages of the Christian Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Miracles were very useful then and not at all useful now for now we manifest the truth of what we speak from the Sacred Scriptures and the miracles wrought in confirmation of them Which that excellent author there fully manifests in a discourse on this subject why miracles were necessary in the beginning of the Christian Church and are not now To the same purpose St. Austin speaks where he discourseth of the truth of religion Accepimus majores nostros visibilia miracula secutos esse per quos id actum est ut necessaria non essent posteris because the world believed by the miracles which were wrought at the first preaching of the Gospel therefore miracles are no longer necessary For we cannot conceive how the world should be at first induced to believe without manifest and uncontrouled miracles For as Chrysostome speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was the greatest miracle of all if the world should believe without miracles Which the Poet Dante 's hath well expressed in the twenty fourth Canto of Paradise For when the Apostle is there brought in asking the Poet upon what account he took the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God his answer is Probatio quae verum hoc mihi recludit Sunt opera quae secuta sunt ad quae Natura Non candefecit ferrum unquam aut percussit incudem i. e. the evidence of that is the Divine power of miracles which was in those who delivered these things to the world And when the Apostle catechiseth him further how he knew those miracles were such as they pretend to be viz. that they were true and Divine his answer is Si orbis terrae sese convertit ad Christianismum Inquiebam ego sine miraculis hoc unum Est tale ut reliqua non sint ejus cente sima pars i. e. If the world should be converted to the Christian faith without miracles this would be so great a miracle that others were not to be compared with it I conclude this then with that known saying of St. Austin Quisquis adhuc prodigia ut credat inquirit magnum est ipse prodigium qui mundo credente non credit He that seeks for miracles still to induce him to faith when the world is converted to the Christian faith he needs not seek for prodigies abroad he wants only a looking glass to discover one For as he goes on unde temporibus erudit is omne quod fieri non potest respuentibus sine ullis miraculis nimium mirabiliter incredibiliter credidit mundus whence came it to pass that in so learned and wary an age as that was which the Apostles preached in the world without miracles should be brought to believe things so strangely incredible as those were which Christ and his Apostles preached So that by this it appears that the intention of miracles was to confirm a Divine testimony to the world and to make that appear credible which otherwise would have seemed incredible but to what end now when this Divine testimony is believed in the world should miracles be continued among those who believe the doctrine to be Divine the miracles wrought for the confirmation of it to have been true and the Scriptures which contain both to be the undoubted Word of God To what purpose then the huge outery of miracles in the Roman Church is hard to conceive unless it be to make it appear how ambitions that Church is of being called by the name of him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved For had they received the Love of the Truth of the Gospel they would have believed it on the account of those miracles and signs and wonders which were wrought for the confirmation of it by Christ and his Apostles and not have gone about by their juglings and impostures in stead of bringing men to believe the Gospel to make them question the truth of the first miracles when they see so many counterfeits had we not great assurance the Apostles were men of other designs and interests then Popish Priests are and that there is not now any such necessity of miracles as there was then when a Divine testimony revealing the truth of Christian religion was confirmed by them Those miracles cannot be Divine which are done now for the confirmation of any thing contrary to that Divine testimony which is confirmed by uncontrouled Divine miracles The case is not the same now which was before the coming of Christ for then though the Law of Moses was confirmed by miracles yet though the doctrine of Christ did null the obligation of that Law the miracles of Christ were to be looked on as Divine because God did not intend the Ceremonial Law to be perpetual and there were many Prophesies which could not have their accomplishment but under a new state But now under the Gospel God hath declared this to be the last revelation of his mind and will to the world by his Son that now the Prophesies of the old Testament are accomplished and the Prophesies of the New respect only the various conditions of the Christian Church without any the least intimation of any further revelation of Gods mind and will to the world So that now the Scriptures are our adaequate rule of faith and that according to which we are to judge all pretenders to inspiration or miracles And according to this rule we are to proceed in any thing which is propounded to us to believe by any persons upon any pretences whatsoever Under the Law after the establishment of the Law its self by the miracles of Moses the rule of judging all pretenders to miracles was by the worship of the true God If there arise among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder and the sign or the Wonder come to pass whereof he spake to thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Whereby it is plain that after the true doctrine is confirmed by Divine miracles God may give the Devil or false Prophets power to work if not real miracles yet such as men cannot judge by the things themselves whether they be real or no and
ORIGINES SACRAE OR A Rational Account of the Grounds OF Christian Faith AS TO THE TRUTH AND Divine Authority OF THE SCRIPTURES And the matters therein contained By EDWARD STILLINGFLEET Rector of Sutton in Bedfordshire 2 Pet. 1. 16. For we have not followed cunningly devised Fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eye-witnesses of his Majesty Neque religio ulla sine sapientia suscipienda est nec ulla sine religione probanda sapientia Lactant. de fals relig cap. 1. LONDON Printed by R. W. for Henry Mortlock at the sign of the Phoenâ—â— in St. Pauls Church-yard near the little North-door 1662. To his most Honoured Friend and Patron Sr. ROGER BURGOINE Knight and Baronet Sir IT was the early felicitie of Moses when exposed in an Ark of Nilotick papyre to be adopted into the favour of so great a personage as the Daughter of Pharaoh Such another Ark is this vindication of the writings of that Divine and excellent Person exposed to the world in and the greatest ambition of the Author of it is to have it received into your Patronage and Protection But although the contexture and frame of this Treatise be far below the excellency and worth of the subject as you know the Ark in which Moses was put was of bulrushes daubed with slime and pitch yet when You please to cast your eye on the matter contained in it you will not think it beneath your Favour and unworthy your Protection For if Truth be the greatest Present which God could bestow or man receive according to that of Plurarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then certainly those Truths deserve our most ready acceptance which are in themselves of greatest importance and have the greatest evidence that they come from God And although I have had the happiness of so near relation to You acquaintance with You as to know how little You need such discourses which tend to settle the Foundations of Religion which you have raised so happy a Superstructure upon yet withal I consider what particular Kindness the souls of all good men bear to such Designs whose end is to assert and vindicate the Truth and Excellency of Religion For those who are enriched themselves with the inestimable Treasure of true Goodness and Piety are far from that envious temper to think nothing valuable but what they are the sole Possessors of but such are the most satisfied themselves when they see others not only admire but enjoy what they have the highest estimation of Were all who make a shew of Religion in the World really such as they pretend to be discourses of this nature vvould be no more seasonable then the commendations of a great Beauty to one vvho is already a passionate admirer of it but on the contrary vve see how common it is for men first to throw dirt in the face of Religion and then perswade themselves it is its natural Complexion they represent it to themselves in a shape least pleasing to them and then bring that as a Plea why they give it no better entertainment It may justly seem strange that true Religion which contains nothing in it but what is truly Noble and Generous most rational and pleasing to the spirits of all good men should yet suffer so much in its esteem in the world through those strange and uncouth vizards it is represented under Some accouting the life and practice of it as it speaks subduing our wills to the will of God which is the substance of all Religion a thing too low and mean for their rank and condition in the World while others pretend a quarrel against the principles of it as unsatisfactory to Humane reason Thus Religion suffers with the Author of it between two Thieves and it is hard to define which is more injurious to it that which questions the Principles or that which despiseth the Practice of it And nothing certainly will more incline men to believe that we live in an Age of Prodigies then that there should be any such in the Christian World who should account it a piece of Gentility to despise Religion and a piece of Reason to be Atheists For if there be any such things in the World as a true height and magnanimity of spirit if there be any solid reason and depth of judgement they are not only consistent with but only attainable by a true generous spirit of Religion But if we look at that which the loose and profane World is apt to account the greatest gallantry we shall find it made up of such pitiful Ingredients which any skilful rational mind will be ashamed to plead for much less to mention them in competition with true goodness and unfeigned piety For how easie is it to observe such who would be accounted the most high and gallant spirits to quarry on such mean preys which only tend to satisfie their brutish appetites or flesh revenge with the blood of such who have stood in the way of that ayery title Honour Or else they are so little apprehensive of the in ward worth and excellency of humane nature that they seem to envy the gallantry of Peacocks and strive to outvy them in the gayety of their Plumes such vvho are as seneca saith ad similitudinem parietum extrinsecùs culti vvho imitate the walls of their houses in the fairness of the outsides but matter not vvhat rubbish there lies within The utmost of their ambition is to attain enervatam felicitatem quâ permadescunt animi such a felicity as evigorates the soul by too long steeping it being the nature of all terrestrial pleasures that they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by degrees consume reason by effeminating and softening the Intellectuals Must we appeal then to the judgement of Sardanapalus concerning the nature of Felicity or enquire of Apicius what temperance is or desire that Sybarite to define Magnanimity who fainted to see a man at hard labour Or doth now the conquest of passions forgiving injuries doing good self-denial humility patience under crosses which are the real expressions of piety speak nothing more noble generous then a luxurious malicious proud and impatient spirit Is there nothing more becoming and agreeable to the soul of man in exemplary Piety and a Holy well-orderd Conversation then in the lightness and vanity not to say rudeness and debaucheries of those whom the world accounts the greatest gallants Is there nothing more graceful and pleasing in the sweetness candour and ingenuity of a truly Christian temper and disposition then in the revengeful implacable spirit of such whose Honour lives and is fed by the Blood of their enemies Is it not more truly honourable and glorious to serve that God who commands the World then to be a slave to those passions and lusts which put men upon continual hard service and torment them for it when they have done it Were there nothing else to commend Religion
to the minds of men besides that tranquillity and calmness of spirit that serene and peaceable temper which follows a good conscience whereever it dwells it were enough to make men welcom that guest which brings such good entertainment with it Whereas the amazements horrours and anxieties of mind which at one time or other haunt such who prostitute their Consciences to a violation of the Lawes of God and the rules of rectified reason may be enough to perswade any rational person that impiety is the greatest folly and irreligion madness It cannot be then but matter of great pity to consider that any persons whose birth and education hath raised them above the common people of the World should be so far their own enemies as to observe the Fashion more then the rules of Religion and to study complements more then themselves and read Romances more then the sacred Scriptures which alone are able to make them wise to salvation But Sir I need not mention these things to You unless it be to let You see the excellency of your choice in preferring true Vertue and Piety above the Ceremony and Grandeur of the World Go on Sir to value and measure true Religion not by the uncertain measures of the World but by the infallible dictates of God himself in his sacred Oracles Were it not for these what certain foundation could there be for our Faith to stand on and who durst venture his soul as to its future condition upon any authority less then the infallible veracity of God himself What certain directions for practice should we have what rule to judge of opinions by had not God out of his infinite goodness provided and preserved this authentick instrument of his Will to the World What a strange Religion would Christianity seem should we frame the Model of it from any other thing then the Word of God Without all controversie the disesteem of the Scriptures upon any pretence whatsoever is the decay of Religion and through many windings and turnings leads men at last into the very depth of Atheism Whereas the frequent and serious conversing with the mind of God in his Word is incomparably useful not only for keeping up in us a true Notion of Religion which is easily mistaken when men look upon the face of it in any other glass then that of the Scriptures but likewise for maintaining a powerful sense of Religion in the souls of men and a due valuation of it whatever its esteem or entertainment be in the World For though the true genuine spirit of Christianity which is known by the purity and peaceableness of it should grow never so much out of credit with the World yet none who heartily believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God and that the matters revealed therein are infallibly true will ever have the less estimation of it It must be confessed that the credit of Religion hath much sufferd in the Age we live in through the vain pretences of many to it who have only acted a part in it for the sake of some pâ—ivate interests of their own And it is the usual Logick of Atheists crimine ab uno Disce omnes if there be any hypocrites all who make shew of Religion are such on which account the Hypocrisie of one Age makes way for the Atheism of the next But how unreasonable and unjust that imputation is there needs not much to discover unless it be an argument there are no true men in the World because there are so many Apes which imitate them or that there are no Jewels because there are so many Counterfeits And blessed be God our Age is not barren of Instances of real goodness and unaffected piety there being some such generous spirits as dare love Religion without the dowry of Interest and manifest their affection to it in the plain dress of the Scriptures without the paint and set-offs which are added to it by the several contending parties of the Christian World Were there more such noble spirits of Religion in our Age Atheism would want one of the greatest Pleas which it now makes against the Truth of Religion for nothing enlarges more the Gulf of Atheism then that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that wide passage which lies between the Faith and Lives of men pretending to be Christians I must needs say there is nothing seems more strange and unaccountable to me then that the Practice of the unquestionable duties of Christianity should be put out of Countenance or slighted by any who own profess and contend for the Principles of it Can the profession of that be honourable whose practice is not If the principles be true why are they not practised If they be not true why are they professed You see Sir to what an unexpected length my desire to vindicate the Honour as well as Truth of Religion hath drawn out this present address But I may sooner hope for your pardon in it then if I had spent so much paper after the usual manner of Dedications in representing You to your self or the World Sir I know You have too much of that I have been commending to delight in Your own deserved praises much less in flatteries which so benign a subject might easily make ones pen run over in And therein I might not much have digressed from my design since I know few more exemplary for that rare mixture of true piety and the highest civility together in whom that inestimable jewel of religion is placed in a most sweet affable and obliging temper But although none will be more ready on any occasion with all gratitude to acknowledge the great obligations You have laid upon me yet I am so far sensible of the common vanity of Epistles Dedicatory that I cannot so heartily comply with them in any thing as in my hearty prayers to Almighty for your good and welfare and in subscribing my self Sir Your most humble and affectionate servant Iune 5. 1662. ED. STILLINGFLEET THE PREFACE TO THE READER IT is neither to satisfie the importunity of friends nor to prevent false copies which and such like excuses I know are expected in usual Prefaces that I have adventured abroad this following Treatise but it is out of a just resentment of the affronts and indignities which have been cast on Religion by such who account it a matter of judgement to disbelieve the Scriptures and a piece of wit to dispute themselves out of the possibility of being happy in another world When yet the more acute and subtile their arguments are the greater their strength is against themselves it being impossible there should be so much wit and subtilty in the souls of men were they not of a more excellent nature then they imagine them to be And how contradictious is it for such persons to be ambitious of being cryed up for wit and reason whose design is to degrade the rational soul so far below her self as to make her become like the beasts
that perish If now the weight and consequence of the subject and the too great seasonableness of it if the common fame of the large spread of Atheism among us be true be not sufficient Apology for the publishing this Book I am resolved rather to undergo thy censure tben be beholding to any other The intendment therefore of this Preface is only to give a brief account of the scope design and method of the following Books although the view of the Contents of the Chapters might sufficiently acquains thee with it How far I have been either from transeribing or a design to excusse out of the hands of their admirers the several writings on the behalf of Religion in general or Christianity in particular especially Mornay Groâ—ius Amyraldus c. may easily appear by comparing what is contained in their Books and this together Had I not thought something might be said if not more fully and rationally yet more suitably to the present temper of this Age then what is already written by them â—thou hadst not been troubled with this Preface much less with the whole Book But as the tempers and Genius 's of Ages and Times alier so do the arms and wâ—npons which â—â—theists imploy against Religion the most papular pretences of the Atheists of our Age have been the irreconcileableness of the account of Times in Scripture with that of the learned and ancient Heathen Nations the inconsistency of the belief of the Scriptures with the principles of reason and the account which may be given of the Origine of things from principles of Philosophy without the Scriptures These three therefore I have particularly set my self against and directed against each of them a several Book In the first I have manifested that there is no ground of credibility in the account of ancient times given by any Heathen Nations different from the Scriptures which I have with so much care and diligence enquired into that from thence we may hope to hear no more of men before Adam to salve the Authority of the Scriptures by which yet was intended only as a design to undermine them but I have not thought the frivolous pretences of the Author of that Hypothesis worth particular mentioning supposing it sufficient to give a clear account of things without particular citation of Authors where it was not of great concernment for understanding the thing its self In the second Book I have undertaken to give a rational account of the grounds why we are to believe those several persons who in several ages were imployed to reveal the mind of God to the world and with greater particularity then hath yet been used I have insisted on the persons of Moses and the Prophets our Saviour and his Apostles and in every of them manifested the rational evidences on which they were to be believed not only by the men of their own Age but by those of succeeding Generations In the third Book I have insisted on the matters themselves which are either supposed by or revealed in the Scriptures and have therein not only manifested the certainty of the foundations of all Religion which lye in the Being of God and Immortality of the soul but the undoubted truth of those particular accounts concerning the Origine of the Universe of Evil and of Nations which were most lyable to the Atheists exceptions and have therein considered all the pretences of Philosophy ancient or modern which have seemed to contradict any of them to which mant ssae loco I have added the evidence of Scripture History in the remainders of it in Heathen Mythology and concluded all with a discourse of the excellency of the Scriptures Thus having given a brief view of the design and method of the whole I submit it to every free and unprejudiced judgement All the favour then I shall request of thee is to read seriously and judge impartially and then I doubt not but thou wilt see as much reason for Religion as I do THE CONTENTS BOOK I. CHAP. I. The obscurity and defect of Ancient History THE knowledge of truth proved to be the most natural perfection of the rational soul yet error often mistaken for truth the accounts of it Want of diligence in its search the mixture of truth and fâ—lshood Thence comes either rejecting truth for the errors sake or embracing the error for the truths sake the first instanced in Heathen Philosophers the second in vulgar Heathen Of Philosophical Atheism and the grounds of it The History of Antiquity very obscure The question stated where the true History of ancient times to be found in Heathen Histories or only in Scripture The want of credibility in Heathen Histories asserted and proved by the general defect for want of timely records among Heathen Nations the reason of it shewed from the first Plantations of the World The manner of them discovered The Original of Civil Government Of Hicroglyphicks The use of letters among the Greeks no elder then Cadmus his time enquired into no elder then Joshua the learning brought into Greece by him page 1 CHAP. II. Of the Phoenician and Aegyptian History The particular defect in the History of the most learned Heathen Nations First the Phoenicians Of Sanchoniathon his Antiquity and Fidelity Of Jerom-baal Baal-Berith The Antiquity of Tyre Scaliger vindicated against Bâ—chartus Abibalus The vanity of Phoenician Theology The imitation of it by the Gnosticks Of the Aegyptian History The Antiquity and Authority of Hermes Trismegistus Of his Inscriptions on Pillars transcribed by Manetho His Fabulousness thence discovered Terra Seriadica Of Seths Pillars in Josephus and an account whence they are taken pag. 25 CHAP. III. Of the Chaldean History The contest of Antiquity among Heathen Nations and the ways of deciding it Of the Chaldean Astrology and the foundation of Iudicial Astrology Of the Zabiâ— their Founder who they were no other then the old Chaldees Of Berosus and his History An account of the fabulous Dynastyes of Berosus and Manetho From the Translation of the Scripture history into Greek in the time of Prolomy Of that translation and the time of it Of Demetrius Phalereus Scaligers arguments answered Manetho writ after the Septuagint proved against Kircher his arguments answered Of Rabbinical and Arabick Authors and their little credit in matter of history The time of Berosus enquired into his writing co-temporary with Philadelphus pag. 40 CHAP. IV. The defect of the Graecian History That manifested by three evident arguments of it 1. The fabulousness of the Poetical age of Greece The Antiquity of Poetry Of Orpheus and the ancient Poets Whence the Poetical Fables borrowed The advancement of Poetry and Idolatry together in Greece The different censures of Strabo and Eratosthenes concerning the Poetical age of Greece and the reasons of them 2. The eldest historians of Greece are of suspected credit Of Damastes Aristeus and others of most of their eldest Historians we have nothing left but their names of others only the
will unto the true Prophets The grand question propounded how it may be known when predictions express Gods decrees and when only the series of causes For the first several rules laid down 1. When the prediction is confirmed by a present miracle 2. When the things foretold exceed the probability of second causes 3. When confirmed by Gods oath 4. When the blâ—ssings fore-told are purely spiritual Three rules for interpreting the Prophâ—cyes which respect the state of things under the Gâ—spel 5. When all circumstances are foretold 6. When many Prophets in several ages agree in the same predictions Predictions do not express Gods unalterable purposes when they only contain comminations of judgments or are predictions of temporal blâ—ssings The case of the Ninivites Hezekiah and others opened Of repentance in God what it implyes The jewish objâ—ctions â—bout predictions of temporal blâ—ssings answered In what cases miracles were expected from the Prophets when they were to confirm the truth of their religion Instanced in the Prophet at Bethel Elijah Elishah and of Moses himself Whose divine authority that it was proved by miracles is demonstrated against the modern Iews and their pretences answered p. 177 CHAP. VII The eternity of the Law of Moses discussed The second case wherein miracles may be expected when a Divine positive Law is to be repealed and another way of worship established in stead of it The possibility in general of a repeal of a Divine Law asserted the particular case of the Law of Moses disputed against the Iews the matter of that Law proved not to be immutably obligatory because the ceremonial precepts were required not for themselves but for some further end that proved from Maimonides his confession the precepts of the Ceremonial Law frequently dispensed with while the Law was in force Of the Passover of Hezekiah and several other instances It is not inconsistent with the wisdom of God to repeal such an established Law Abravanels arguments answered Of the perfection of the Law of Moses compared with the Gospel Whether God hath ever declared he would never repeal the Law of Moses Of adding to the precepts Of the expressions seeming to imply the perpetuity of the Law of Moses Reasons assigned why those expressions are used though perpetuity be not implyed The Law of Moses not built upon immutable reason because many particular precepts were founded upon particular occasions as the customs of the Zabii many ceremonial precepts thence deduced out of Maimonides and because such a state of things was foretold with which the observation of the Ceremonial Law would be inconsistent That largely discovered from the Prophecies of the old Testament CHAP. VIII General Hypotheses concerning the Truth of the Doctrine of Christ. The great prejudice against our Saviour among Iews and Heathens was the meaness of his appearance The difference of the miracles at the delivery of the Law and Gospel Some general Hypotheses to clear the subserviency of miracles to the Doctrine of Christ. 1. That where the truth of a doctrine depends not on evidence but authority the only way to prove the truth of the Doctrine is to prove the Testimony of the revealer to be infallible Things may be true which depend not on evidence of the things What that is and on what it depends The uncertainty of natural knowledge The existence of God the foundation of all certainty The certainty of matters of faith proved from the same principle Our knowledge of any thing supposeth something incomprehensible The certainty of faith as great as that of knowledge the grounds of it stronger The consistency of rational evidence with faith Yet objects of faith exceed reason the absurdities following the contrary opinion The uncertainty of that which is called reason Philosophical dictates no standard of reason Of transubstantiation and ubiquity c. why rejected as contrary to reason The foundation of faith in matters above reason Which is infallible Testimony that there are wayes to know which is infallible proved 2. Hypoth A Divine Testimony the most infallible The resolution of faith into Gods veracity as its formal object 3. Hypoth A Divine Testimony may be known though God speak not immediatly Of inspiration among the Iews and Divination among the Heathens 4. Hyp. The evidences of a Divine Testimony must be clear and certain Of the common motives of faith and the obligation to faith arising from them The original of Infidelity CHAP. IX The rational evidence of the Truth of Christian Religion from Miracles The possibility of miracles appears from God and providence the evidence of a Divine Testimony by them God alone can really alter the course of nature The Devils power of working miracles considered Of Simon Magus Apollonius The cures in the Temple of Aeseulapius at Rome c. God never works miracles but for some particular end The particular reasons of the miracles of Christ. The repealing the Law of Moses which had been setled by miracles Why Christ checked the Pharisees for demanding a sign when himself appeals to his miracles The power of Christs miracles on many who did not throughly believâ— Christs miracles made it evident that he was the Messias because the predictions were fulfilled in him Why John Baptist wrought no miracles Christs miracles necessary for the everthrow of the Devils Kingdom Of the Daemoniaeks and Lunaticks in the Gospel and in the Primitive Church The power of the name of Christ over them largely proved by several Testimonies The evidence thence of a Divine power in Christ. Of counterfeit dispossessions Of miracles wrought among Infidels Of the future state of the Church The necessity of the miracles of Christ as to the propagation of Christian Religion that proved from the condition of the publishers and the success of the Doctrine The Apostles knew the hazard of their imployment before they entred on it The boldness and resolution of the Apostles notwithstanding this compared with heathen Philosophers No motive could carry the Apostles through their imployment but the truth of their Doctrine not seeking the honour profit or pleasure of the world The Apostles evidence of the truth of their doctrine lay in being eye-witnesses of our Saviours miracles and resurrâ—ction That attested by themselves their sufficiency thence for preaching the Gospel Of the nature of the doctrine of the Gospel contrariety of it to natural inclinations Strange success of it notwithstanding it came not with humane power No Christian Emperour till the Gospel universally preached The weakness and simplicity of the instruments which preached the Gospel From all which the great evidence of the power of miracles is proved pag. 252 CHAP. X. The difference of true miracles from false The unreasonableness of rejecting the evidence from miracles because of impostures That there are certain rules of distinguishing true miracles from false and Divine from diabolical proved from Gods intention in giving a power of miracles and the providence of God in the world The inconvenience of taking
rejected The Hellens not the first inhabitants of Greece but the Pelasgi The large spread of them over the parts of Greece Of their language different from the Greeks Whence these Pelasgi came that Phaleg was the Pelasgus of Greece and the leader of that Colony proved from Epiphanius the language of the Pelasgi in Greece Oriental thence an account given of the many Hebrew words in the Greek language and the remainders of the Eastern languages in the Islands of Greece both which not from the Phaenicians as Bochartus thinks but from the old Pelasgi Of the ground of the affinity between the Jews and Lacedaemonians Of the peopling of America pag. 533 CHAP. V. Of the Origine of the Heathen Mythology That there were some remainders of the ancient history of the world preserved in the several Nations after the dispersion How it came to be corrupted by decay of knowledge increase of Idolatry confusion of languages An enquiry into the cause of that Difficulties against the common opinion that languages were confounded at Babel Those difficulties cleared Of the fabulousness of Poets The particular ways whereby the Heathen Mythology arose Attributing the general history of the World to their own Nation The corruption of Hebraisms Alteration of names Ambiguity of sense in the Oriental languages Attributing the actions of many to one person as in Jupiter Bacchus c. The remainders of Scripture history among the Heathens The names of God Chaos formation of man among the Phaenicians Of Adam among the Germans Aegyptians Cilicians Adam under Saturn Cain among the Phaenicians Tubalcain and Jubal under Vulcan and Apollo Naamah under Minerva Noah under Saturn Janus Prometheus and Bacchus Noahs three sons under Jupiter Neptune and Pluto Canaan under Mercury Nimrod under Bacchus Magog under Prometheus Of Abraham and Isaac among the Phaenicians Jacobs service under Apollo's The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from Bethel Joseph under Apis. Moses under Bacchus Joshua under Hercules Balaam under the old Silenus pag. 577 CHAP. VI. Of the Excellency of the Scriptures Concerning matters of pure divine revelation in Scripture the terms of Salvation only contained therein The ground of the disesteem of the Scriptures is tacite unbelief The Excellency of the Scriptures manifested as to the matters which God hath revealed therein The excellency of the discoveries of Gods nature which are in Scripture Of the goodness and love of God in Christ. The suitableness of those discoveryes of God to our natural notions of a Deity The necessity of Gods making known himself to us in order to the regulating our conceptions of him The Scriptures give the fullest account of the state of mens souls and the corruptions which are in them The only way of pleasing God discovered in Scriptures The Scriptures contain matters of greatest mysteriousness and most universal satisfaction to mens minds The excellency of the manner wherein things are revealed in Scriptures in regard of clearness authority purity uniformity and perswasiveness The excellency of the Scriptures as a rule of life The nature of the duties of Religion and the reasonableness of them The greatness of the encouragements to Religion contained in the Scriptures The great excellency of the Scriptures as containing in them the Covenant of Grace in order to mans Salvation pag. 599 ERRATA PAge 11. l. 15. r. existence p. 17. l. 28. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 21. l. 19. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 22. l. 21. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 27. l. 14. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 31. l. 2. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 35. l. 16. r. 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Peristaltic p. 424. l. 15. for it r. them p. 425. l. 7. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 427. l. r. insert â—â— between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 32. r fluidane p. 443. l. 10. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 32. for Col r. l. nomine appellasse p. 464. l. 26. r. whose surface is supposed to be p. 488. l. 36. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 493. l. 5. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 28. r. coaeterna p. 502. l. 29. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 518. l. 35. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 520. l. 10. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 13. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ORIGINES SACRAE The Truth of Scripture-History asserted BOOK I. CHAP. I. The obscurity and defect of Ancient History The knowledge of truth proved to be the most natural perfection of the rational soul yet error often mistaken for truth the accounts of it Want of diligence in its search the mixture of truth and falshood Thence comes either rejecting truth for the errors sake or embracing the error for the truths sake the first instanced in Heathen Philosophers the second in vulgar Heathen Of Philosophical Atheism and the grounds of it The History of Antiquity very obscure The question stated where the true History of ancient times to be found in Heathen Histories or only in Scripture The want of credibility in Heathen Histories asserted and proved by
the general defect for want of timely records among Heathen Nations the reason of it shewed from the first Plantations of the World The manner of them discovered The Original of Civil Government Of Hieroglyphicks The use of letters among the Greeks no elder then Cadmus his time enquired into no elder then Joshua the learning brought into Greece by him ENquiries after truth have that peculiar commendation above all other designs that they come on purpose to gratifie the most noble faculty of our souls and do most immediately tend to re-advance the highest perfection of our rational beings For all our most laudable endeavours after knowledge now are only the gathering up some scattered fragments of what was once an entire Fabrick and the recovery of some precious Iewels which were lost out of sight and sunk in the shipwrack of humane nature That saying of Plato that all knowledge is remembrance and all ignorance forgetfulness is a certain and undoubted truth if by forgetfulness be meant the loss and by remembrance the recovery of those notions and conceptions of things which the mind of man once had in its pure and primitive state wherein the understanding was the truest Microcosm in which all the beings of the inferiour world were faithfully represented according to their true native and genuine perfections God created the soul of man not only capable of finding out the truth of things but furnished him with a sufficient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or touchstone to discover truth from falshood by a light set up in his understanding which if he had attended to he might have secured himself from all impostures and deceits As all other beings were created in the full possession of the agreeable perfections of their several natures so was man too else God would have never closed the work of Creation with those words And God saw all that he had made and behold it was very good that is endued with all those perfections which were suitable to their several beings Which man had been most defective in if his understanding had not been endowed with a large stock of intellectual knowledge which is the most natural and genuine perfection belonging to his rational being For reason being the most raised faculty of humane nature if that had been defective in its discoveries of truth which is its proper object it would have argued the greatest maim and imperfection in the being it self For if it belongs to the perfection of the sensitive faculties to discern what is pleasant from what is hurtful it must needs be the perfection of the rational to find out the difference of truth from falshood Not as though the soul could then have had any more then now an actual notion of all the beings in the world ocexisting at the same time but that it would have been free from all deceits in its conceptions of things which were not caused through inadvertency Which will appear from the several aspects mans knowledge ledge hath which are either upwards towards his Maker or abroad on his fellow-creatures If we consider that contemplation of the soul which fixes its self on that infinite being which was the cause of it and is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it will be found necessary for the soul to be created in a clear and distinct knowledge of him because of mans immediate obligation to obedience unto him Which must necessarily suppose the knowledge of him whose will must be his rule for if man were not fully convinced in the first moment after his creation of the being of him whom he was to obey his first work and duty would not have been actual obedience but a search whether there was any supreme infinite and eternal being or no and whereon his duty to him was founded and what might be sufficient declaration of his Will and Laws according to which he must regulate his obedience The taking off all which doubts and scruples from the soul of man must suppose him fully satisfied upon the first free use of reason that there was an Infinite Power and Being which produced him and on that account had a right to command him in whatsoever he pleased and that those commands of his were declared to him in so certain a way that he could not be deceived in the judging of them The clear knowledge of God will further appear most necessary to man in his first creation if we consider that God created him for this end and purpose to enjoy converse and an humble familiarity with himself he had then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the language of Clemens Alexandrinus Converse with God was as natural to him as his being was For man as he came first out of Gods hands was the reflection of God himself on a dark Cloud the Iris of the Deity the Similitude was the same but the substance different Thence he is said to be created after the Image of God His knowledge then had been more intellectual then discursive not so much imploying his faculties in the operose deductions of reason the pleasant toyl of the rational faculties since the Fall but had immediately imployed them about the sublimest objects not about quiddities and formalities but about him who was the fountain of his being and the center of his happiness There was not then so vast a difference between the Angelical and humane life The Angels and men both fed on the same dainties all the difference was they were in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the upper room in heaven and man in the Summer Parlour in Paradise If we take a view of mans knowledge as it respects his fellow-creatures we shall find these were so fully known to him on his first creation that he needed not to go to School to the wide world to gather up his conceptions of them For the right exercise of that Dominion which he was instated in over the inferiour world doth imply a particular knowledge of the nature being and properties of those things which he was to make use of without which he could not have improved them for their peculiar ends And from this knowledge did proceed the giving the creatures those proper and peculiar names which were expressive of their several natures For as Plato tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The imposition of names on things belongs not to every one but only to him that hath a full prospect into their several natures For it is most agreeable to reason that names should carry in them a suitableness to the things they express for words being for no other end but to express our conceptions of things and our conceptions being but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the same Philosopher speaks the resemblances and representations of the things it must needs follow that where there was a true knowledge the conceptions must agree with the things and words being to express our conceptions none are so fit to do it as those which
truths but contrary to their pre-conceptions or interests have been forbidden entrance Prejudice is the wrong bias of the soul that effectually keeps it from coming near the mark of truth nay sets it at the greatest distance from it There are few in the world that look after truth with their own eyes most make use of spectacles of others making which makes them so seldom behold the proper lineaments in the face of Truth which the several tinctures from education authority custom and predisposition do exceedingly hinder men from discerning of Another reason why there are so few who find truth when so many pretend to seek it is that near resemblance which Error often bears to Truth It hath been well observed that Error seldom walks abroad the world in her own raiments she always borrows something of truth to make her more acceptable to the world It hath been always the subtilty of grand deceivers to graft their greatest errors on some material truths to make them pass more undiscernable to all such who look more at the root on which they stand then on the fruits which they bring forth It will hereafter appear how most of the grossest of the heathen errors have as Plutarch saith of the Egyptian Fables 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some faint and obscure resemblances of truth nay more then so as most pernicious weeds are bred in the fattest soyls their most destructive principles have been founded on some necessary and important truths Thus Idolatry doth suppose the belief of the existence of a Deity and superstition the Immortality of the souls of men The Devil could never have built his Chappels but on the same ground whereon Gods Temples stood which makes me far less wonder then many do at the meeting with many expressions concerning these two grand truths in the writings of ancient Heathens knowing how willing the devil might be to have such principles still owned in the world which by his depraving of them might be the nourishers of Idolatry and Superstition For the general knowledge of a Divine nature supposing men Ignorant of the true God did only lay a foundation to erect his Idolatrous Temples upon and the belief of the souls surviving the body after death without knowledge of the true way of attaining happiness did make men more eager of imbracing those Rites and Ceremonies which canie with a pretence of shewing the way to a blessed immortality Which may be a most probable reason why Philosophy and Idolatry did increase so much together as they did for though right reason fully improved would have overthrown all those cursed and Idolatrous practises among the Heathens yet reason only discerning some general notions without their particular application and improvement did only dispose the most ordinary sort of people to a more ready entertainment of the most gross Idolatry For hereby they discerned the necessity of some kind of worship but could not find out the right way of it and therefore they greedily followed that which was commended to them by such who did withall agree with them in the common sentiments of humane nature Nay and those persons themselves who were the great maintainers of these sublimer notions concerning God and the soul of man were either the great instruments of advancing that horrid superstition among them as Orpheus Apollonius or very forward Complyers with it as many of the Philosophers were Although withall it cannot be denied to have been a wonderful discovery of Divine providence by these general notions to keep waking the inward senses of mens souls that thereby it might appear when Divine Revelation should be manifested to them that it brought nothing contrary to the common principles of humane nature but did only rectifie the depravations of it and clearly shew men that way which they had long been ignorantly seeking after Which was the excellent advantage the Apostle made of the Inscription on the Altar at Athens to the unknown God Whom saith he ye ignorantly serve him I declare unto you And which was the happy use the Primitive learned Christians made of all those passages concerning the divine nature and the Immortality of the souls of men which they found in the Heathen Writers thereby to evidence to the world that the main postulata or suppositions of Christian Religion were granted by their own most admired men and that Christianity did not race out but only build upon those common foundations which were entertained by all who had any name for reason Though this I say were the happy effect of this building errors on common truths to all that had the advantage of Divine revelation to discern the one from the other yet as to others who were destitute of it they were lyable to this twofold great inconvenience by it First for the sake of the apparent rottenness of the Superstructures to question the soundness of the foundations on which they stood And this I doubt not was the case of many considerative heathens who observing that monstrous and unreasonable way of worship obtaining among the heathen and not being able by the strength of their own reason through the want of divine revelation to deduce any certain instituted worship they were shrewdly tempted to renounce those principles when they could not but abhor the conclusions drawn from them for there is nothing more usual then for men who exceedingly detest some absurd consequence they see may be drawn from a principle supposed to reject the principle its self for the sake of that consequence which it may be doth not necessarily follow from it but through the shortness of their own reason doth appear to them to do so Thus when the Intelligent heathen did apparently see that from the principles of the Being of God and the Immortality of souls did flow all those unnatural and inhumane Sacrifices all those absurd and ridiculous Rites all those execrable and profane mysteries out of a loathing the Immoralities and impieties which attended these they were brought to question the very truth and certainty of those principles which were capable of being thus abused And therefore I am very prone to suspect the Apology usually made for Protagoras Diagoras and such others of them who were accounted Atheists to be more favourable then true viz. that they only rejected those heathen Deities and not the belief of the Divine nature I should think this account of their reputed Atheism rational were it any wayes evident that they did build their belief of a Divine nature upon any other grounds then such as were common to them with those whose worship they so much derided And therefore when the Heathens accused the Christians of Atheism I have full and clear evidence that no more could be meant thereby then the rejection of their way of worship because I have sufficient Assurance from them that they did believe in a Divine nature and an instituted Religion most suitable to the most common received notions
Which yet hath been done to very good purpose by Ioseph Scaliger and Bochartus and many others from the form of the Letters the order and the names of them It seems probable that at first they might use the form of the Phoenician Letters in which Herodotus tells us the three old Inscriptions were extant and Diodorus tells us that the brass pot which Cadmus offered to Minerva Lyndia had an Inscription on it in the Phoenician Letters but afterwards the form of the Letters came by degrees to be changed when for their greater expedition in writing they left the old way of writing towards the left hand for the more natural and expedite way of writing towards the right by which they exchanged the site of the strekes in several Letters as is observed by the forecited Learned Authors Not that the old Ionick Letters were nearer the Phoenician and distinct from the modern as Ios. Scaliger in his learned Discourse on the original of the Greek Letters conceives for the Ionick Letters were nothing else but the full Alphabet of 24. with the additions of Palamedes and Simonides Cous as Pliny tells us that all the Greeks consented in the use of the Ionick Letters but the old Attick Letters came nearer the Phoenician because the Athenians long after the Alphabet was increased to 24. continued still in the use of the old 16. which were brought in by Cadmus which must needs much alter the way of writing for in the old Letters they writ THEOâ— for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which made Pliny with a great deal of learning and truth say that the old Greek Letters were the same with the Roman Thence the Greeks called their ancient Letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appears by Harpocration and Hesychius not that they were so much distinct from others but because they did not admit of the addition of the other eight Letters which difference of writing is in a great measure the cause of the different dialect between the Athenians and Ionians properly so called We see then the very Letters of the Greeks were no elder then Cadmus and for any considerable learning among them it was not near so old Some assert indeed that History began from the time of Cadmus but it is by a mistake of him for a younger Cadmus which was Cadmus Milesius whom Pliny makes to be the first Writer in Prose but that he after attributes to Pherecydes Syrius and History to Cadmus Milesius and therefore I think it far more probable that it was some writing of this latter Cadmus which was transcribed and epitomized by Bion Proconesius although Clemens Alexandrinus seems to attribute it to the Elder We see how unable then the Grecians were to give an account of elder times that were guilty of so much infancy and nonage as to begin to learn their Letters almost in the noon-tide of the World and yet long after this to the time of the first Olympiad all their relations are accounted fabulous A fair account then we are like to have from them of the first antiquities of the world who could not speak plain truth till the world was above 3000. years old for so it was when the Olympiads began So true is the observation of Iustin Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greeks had no exact history of themselves before the Olympiads but of that more afterwards This is now the first defect which doth infringe the credibility of these Histories which is the want of timely and early records to digest their own history in CHAP. II. Of the Phoenician and Aegyptian History The particular defect in the Historys of the most learned Heathen Nations First the Phoenicians Of Sanchoniathon his Antiquity and Fidelity Of Jerom-baal Baal-Berith The Antiquity of Tyre Scaliger vindicated against Bochartus Abibalus The vanity of Phoenician Theology The imitation of it by the Gnosticks Of the Aegyptian History The Antiquity and Authority of Hermes Trismegistus Of his Inscriptions on Pillars transcribed by Manetho His Fabulousness thence discovered Terra Seriadica Of Seths Pillars in Josephus and an account whence they were taken HAving already shewed a general defect in the Ancient Heathen Histories as to an account of ancient times we now come to a closer and more particular consideration of the Histories of those several Nations which have born the greatest name in the world for learning and antiquity There are four Nations chiefly which have pretended the most to antiquity in the learned world and whose Historians have been thought to deliver any thing contrary to holy Writ in their account of ancient times whom on that account we are obliged more particularly to consider and those are the Phoenicians Chaldeans Aegyptians and Graecians we shall therefore see what evidence of credibility there can be in any of these as to the matter of antiquity of their Records or the Histories taken from them And the credibility of an Historian depending much upon the certainty and authority of the Records he makes use of we shall both consider of what value and antiquity the pretended Records are and particularly look into the age of the several Historians As to the Graecians we have seen already an utter impossibility of having any ancient Records among them because they wanted the means of preserving them having so lately borrowed their Letters from other Nations Unless as to their account of times they had been as carefull as the old Romans were to number their years by the several clavi or nails which they fixed on the Temple doors which yet they were not in any capacity to do not growing up in an entire body as the Roman Empire did but lying so much seattered and divided into so many petâ—y Republicks that they minded very little of concernment to the whole Nation The other three Nations have deseâ—vedly a name of far greater antiquity then any the Graecians could ever pretend to who yet were unmeasurably guilty of an impotent affectation of antiquity and arrogating to themselves as growing on their own ground what was with a great deal of pains and industry gathered but as the gleanings from the fuller harvest of those nations they resorted to Which is not only true as to the greatest part of their Learning but as to the account likewise they give of ancient times the chief and most ancient Histories among them being only a corruption of the History of the elder Nations especially Phoenicia and Aegypt for of these two Philo Biblius the Translator of the ancient Phoenician Historian Sanchoniathon saith they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The most ancient of all the Barbarians from whom the others derived their Theology which he there particularly instanceth in We begin therefore with the Phoenician History whose most ancient and famous Historian is Sanchoniathon so much admired and made use of by the shrewdest antagonist ever Christianity met with the Philosopher Porphyrius But therein was seen
so great uncertainty and confusion so much partiality and inconsistency with each other It remains now that I proceed to demonstrate the credibility of that account of ancient times which is reported in the Sacred Scriptures which will be the second part of our Task BOOK II. CHAP. I. The certainty of the Writings of Moses In order to the proving the truth of Scripture-history several Hypotheses laid down The first concerns the reasonableness of preserving the ancient History of the world in some certain Records from the importance of the things and the inconveniences of meer tradition or constant Revelation The second concerns the certainty that the Records under Moses his name were undoubtedly his The certainty of a matter of fact enquired into in general and proved as to this particular by universal consent and settling a Common-wealth upon his Laws The impossibility of an Imposture as to the writings of Moses demonstrated The plea's to the contrary largely answered HAving sufficiently demonstrated the want of credibility in the account of ancient times given by those Nations who have made the greatest pretence to Learning and Antiquity in the world we now proceed to evince the credibility and certainty of that account which is given us in sacred Screptures In order to which I shall premise these following Hypotheses It stands to the greatest reason that an account of things so concerning and remarkable should not be always left to the uncertainty of an oral tradition but should be timely entred into certain Records to be preserved to the memory of posterity For it being of concernment to the world in order to the establishment of belief as to future things to be fully setled in the belief that all things past were managed by Divine providence there must be some certain Records of former ages or else the mind of man will be perpetually hovering in the greatest uncertainties Especially where there is such a mutual dependence and concatenation of one thing with another as there is in all the Scripture-history For take away but any one of the main foundations of the Mosaical history all the superstructure will be exceedingly weakened if it doth not fall quite to the ground For mans obligation to obedience unto God doth necessarily suppose his original to be from him his hearkening to any proposals of favour from God doth suppose his Apostacy and fall Gods designing to shew mercy and favour to fallen man doth suppose that there must be some way whereby the Great Creator must reveal himself as to the conditions on which fallen man may expect a recovery the revealing of these conditions in such a way whereon a suspicious because guilty creature may firmly rely doth suppose so certain a recording of them as may be least liable to any suspicion of imposture or deceit For although nothing else be in its self necessary from God to man in order to his salvation but the bare revealing in a certain way the terms on which he must expect it yet considering the unbounded nature of Divine goodness respecting not only the good of some particular persons but of the whole society of mankind it stands to the greatest reason that such a revelation should be so propounded as might be with equal certainty conveyed to the community of mankind Which could not with any such evidence of credibility be done by private and particular revelations which give satisfaction only to the inward senses of the partakers of them as by a publick recording of the matters of Divine revelation by such a person who is enabled to give the world all reasonable satisfaction that what he did was not of any private design of his own head but that he was deputed to it by no less then Divine authority And therefore it stands to the highest reason that where Divine revelation is necessary for the certain requiring of assent the matter to be believed should have a certain uniform conveyance to mens minds rather then that perpetually New revelations should be required for the making known of those things which being once recorded are not lyable to so many impostures as the other way might have been under pretended Revelations For then men are not put to a continual tryal of every person pretending Divine revelation as to the evidences which he brings of Divine authority but the great matters of concernment being already recorded and attested by all rational evidence as to the truth of the things their minds therein rest satisfied without being under a continual hesitancy lest the Revelation of one should contradict another For supposing that God had left the matters of Divine revelation unrecorded at all but left them to be discovered in every age by a spirit of prophecy by such a multitude as might be sufficient to inform the world of the truth of the things We cannot but conceive that an innumerable company of croaking Enthusiasts would be continually pretending commissions from heaven by which the minds of men would be left in continual distraction because they would have no certain infallible rules given them whereby to difference the good and evil spirit from each other But now supposing God to inspire some particular persons not only to reveal but to record Divine truths then what ever evidences can be brought attesting a Divine revelation in them will likewise prove the undoubted certainty and infallibility of those writings it being impossible that persons employed by a God of truth should make it their design to impose upon the world which gives us a rational account why the wise God did not suffer the History of the world to lye still unrecorded but made choice of such a person to record it who gave abundant evidence to the world that he acted no private design but was peculiarly employed by God himself for the doing of it as will appear afterwards Besides we finde by our former discourse how lyable the most certain tradition is to be corrupted in progress of time where there are no standing records though it were at first delivered by persons of undoubted credit For we have no reason to doubt but that the tradition of the old world the flood and the consequences of it with the nature and worship of the true God were at first spread over the greatest part of the world in its first plantations yet we see how soon for want of certain conveyance all the antient tradition was corrupted and abused into the greatest Idolatry Which might be less wondered at had it been only in those parts which were furthest remote from the seat of those grand transactions but thus we finde it was even among those families who had the nearest residence to the place of them and among those persons who were not far off in a lineal descent from the persons mainly concerned in them as is most evident in the family out of which Abraham came who was himself the tenth from Noah yet of them it is said that they
of Moses and to fall into Idolatry but if there had been any the least suspition of any falsity or imposture in the writing of Moses the ringleaders of their revolts would have sufficiently promulged it among them as the most plausible plea to draw them off from the worship of the true God Can we think that a Nation and religion so maligned as the Iewish were could have escaped discovery if there had been any deceit in it when so many lay in wait continually to expose them to all Contumelies imaginable Nay among themselves in their frequent Apostacies and occasions given for such a pretence how comes this to be never heard of nor in the least questioned whether the Law was undoubtedly of Moses his writing or no What an excellent plea would this have been for Ieroboams Calves in Dan and Bethel for the Samaritans Temple on Mount Gerizim could any the least suspition have been raised among them concerning the aut bentickness of the fundamental records of the Iewish Commonwealth And which is most observable the Iews who were a people strangely suspitious and incredulous while they were fed and clothed with miracles yet could never find ground to question this Nay and Moses himself we plainly see was hugely envied by many of the Israelites even in the wilderness as is evident in the Conspiracy of Corah and his complices and that on this very ground that he took too much upon him how unlikely then is it that amidst so many enemies he should dare to venture any thing into publick records which was not most undoubtedly true or undertake to prescribe a Law to oblige the people to posterity Or that after his own age any thing should come out under his name which would not be presently detected by the emulatoâ—rs of his glory What then is the thing it self incredible surely not that Moses should write the records we speak of Were not they able to understand the truth of it What not those who were in the same age and conveyed it down by a certain tradition to posterity Or did not the Israelites all constantly believe it What not they who would sooner part with their lives and fortunes then admit any variation or alteration as to their Law Well but if we should suppose the whole Iewish Nation partial to themselves and that out of honour to the memory of so great a person as Moses they should attribute their ancient Laws and records to him Which is all that Infidelity its self can imagine in this Case Yet this cannot be with any shadow of reason pretended For 1. Who were those persons who did give out this Law to the Iews under Moses his name Certainly they who undertake to contradict that which is received by common consent must bring stronger and clearer evidence then that on which that consent is grounded or else their exceptions deserve to be rejected with the highest indignation What proof can be then brought that not only the Iewish Nation but the whole Christian world hath been so lamentably befooled to believe those things with an undoubted assent which are only the contrivances of some cunning men 2. At what time could these things be contrived Either while the memory of Moses and his actions were remaining or afterwards First how could it possibly be when his memory was remaining for then all things were so fresh in their memories that it was impossible a thing of this universal nature could be forged of him If after then I demand whether the people had observed the Law of Moses before or no if not then they must certainly know it at the time of its promulgation to be counterfeit for had it been from Moses it would have been observed before their times if it was observed before then either continually down from the time of Moses or not If continually down then it was of Moses his doing if we suppose him to have had that authority among the people which the objection supposeth if not then still the nearer Moses his time the more difficult such a counterfeiting could be because the Constitutions which Moses had left among them would have remained in their memories whereby they would easily reject all pretences and counterfeits 3. How can we conceive the Nation of the Iews would have ever embraced such a Law had it not been of Moses his enacting among them in that state of time when he did For then the people were in fittest capacity to receive a Law being grown a great people and therefore necessary to have Laws newly delivered from bondage and therefore wanting Laws of their own and entring into a setled state of Commonwealth which was the most proper season of giving Laws These considerations make it so clear that it is almost impossible to conceive the Nation of the Iews could have their Laws given to them but at the time of their being in the wilderness before they were setled in Canaan For suppose we at present to gratifie so far the objection that these Laws were brought forth long after the constitution of the government and the national settlement under Moses his name how improbable nay how impossible is it to alter the fundamental Laws of a Nation after long settlement what confusion of interests doth this bring what disturbance among all sorts of people who must be disseised of their rights and brought to such strange unwonted customs so seemingly against their interests as many of the Constitutions among the Iews were For can we imagine that a people alwayes devoted to their own interest would after it had been quietly setled in their land by Constitutions after the custom of other Nations presently under a pretence of a coppy of Laws found that were pretended to be given by one in former ages of great esteem called Moses throw open all their former inclosures and part with their former Laws for these of which they have no evidence but the words of those that told it them We have a clear instance for this among the Romans although there were great evidence given of the undoubted certainty that the books found in Numa's grave by Petilius were his yet because they were adjudged by the Senate to be against the present Laws they were without further enquiry adjudged to be burnt Was not here the greatest likelyhood that might be that these should have taken place among the Romans for the great veneration for wisdom which Numa was in among them and the great evidence that these were certain remainders of his wherein he gave a true account of the superstitions in use among them yet lest the state should be unsetled by it they were prohibited so much as a publick view when the Praetor had sworn they were against the established Laws Can we then conceive the Iewish Nation would have embraced so burdensome and ceremonious a Law as Moses's was had it been brought among them in such a way as the books of Numa
though with all imaginable evidence that it was undoubtedly his especially when they were engaged to the observation of some Laws or customs already by which their Commonwealth had been established And with all these Laws of Moses seeming so much against the interest and good husbandry of a Nation as all the neighbour Nations thought who for that accused them to be an iâ—le and slothful people as they judged by their resting wholly one day in seven the great and many solemn feasts they had the repairing of all the males to Jerusalem thrice a year the Sabbatical years years of Iubilee c. These things were apparently against the interest of such a Nation whose great subsistence was upon pasturage and agriculture So that it is evident these Laws respected not the outward interest of the Nation and so could not be the contrivance of any Politicians among them but did immediately aim at the honour of the God whom they served for whom they were to part even with their civil interests The doing of which by a people generally taken notice of for a particular Love of their own concernments is an impregnable argument these Laws could not take place among them had they not been given by Moses at the time of their unsettlement and that their future settlement did depend upon their present observation of them which is an evidence too that they could be of no less then divine original Which was more then I was to prove at present 4. Were not these writings undoubtedly Moses's whence should the neighbour Nations about the Iews notwithstanding the hatred of the Iewish religion retain so venerable an opinion of the Wisdom of Moses The Aegyptians accounted him one of their Priests which notes the esteem they had of his learning as appears by the testimonies produced out of Chaeremon and Manâ—tho by Iosephus Diodorus Siculus speaks of him with great respect among the famous Legislatours and so doth Strabo who speaks in commendation of the Religion established by him The testimony of Longinus is sufficiently known that Moses was no man of any vulgar wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chalcidius calls him sapientissimus Moses although I must not dissemble that Chalcidius hath been I think undeservedly reckoned among heathen writers though he comments on Plato's Timaeus it being most probable that he was a Christian Platonist which might more probably make Vaninus call him circumforaneum blateronem but though we exempt Chalcidius out of the number of those Heathens who have born testimony to the wisdom of Moses yet there are number enough besides him produced by Iustin Martyr Cyrill and others whose evidence is clear and full to make us undoubtedly believe that there could never have been so universal and uninterrupted a tradition concerning the writings and Laws of Moses had they not been certainly his and conveyed down in a continual succession from his time to our present age Which will be yet more clear if we consider in the second place that the national Constitution and setlement of the Iews did depend on the truth of the Laws and writings of Moses Can we have more undoubted evidence that there were such persons as Solon Lyâ—urgus and Numa and that the Laws bearing their names were theirs then the History of the several Commonwealths of Athâ—ns Sparta and Rome who were governed by those Laws When writings are not of general concernment they may be more easily counterfeited but when they concern the rights priviledges and government of a Nation there will be enough whose interest will lead them to prevent impostures It is no easie matter to forge a Magna Charta and to invent Laws mens caution and prudence is never so quick sighted as in matters which concern their estates and freeholds The general interest lyes contrary to such impostures and therefore they will prevent their obtaining among them Now the Laws of Moses are incorporated into the very Republick of the Iews and their subsistence and Government depends upon them their Religion and Laws are so interwoven one with the other that one cannot be broken off from the other Their right to their temporal possessions in the land of Canaan depends on their owning the Soveraignty of God who gave them to them and on the truth of the History recorded by Moses concerning the promises made to the Patriarchs So that on that account it was impossible those Laws should be counterfeit on which the welfare of a Nation depended and according to which they were governed ever since they were a Nation So that I shall now take it to be sufficiently proved that the writings under the name of Moses were undoubtedly his for none who acknowledge the Laws to have been his can have the face to deny the History there being so necessary a connexion between them and the book of Genesis being nothing else but a general and very necessary introduction to that which sollows CHAP. II. Moses his certain knowledge of what he writ The third Hypothesis concerns the certainty of the matter of Moses his History that gradually proved First Moses his knowledge cleared by his education and experience and certain information His education in the wisdom of Aegypt what that was The old Egyptian learning enquired into the conveniences for it of the Egyptian Priests Moses reckoned among them for his knowledge The Mathematical Natural Divine and Moral learning of Egypt their Political wisdom most considerable The advantage of Moses above the Greek Philosophers as to wisdom and reason Moses himself an eye-witness of most of his history the certain uninterrupted tradition of the other part among the Iews manifested by rational evidence HAving thus far cleared our way we come to the third Hypothesis which is There are as manifest proofs of the undoubted truth and certainty of the History recorded by Moses as any can be given concerning any thing which we yeild the firmest assent unto Here it must be considered that we proceed in a way of rational evidence to prove the truth of the thing in hand as to which if in the judgement of impartial persons the arguments produced be strong enough to convince an unbiassed mind It is not material whether every rangling Atheist will sit down contented with them For usually persons of that inclination rather then judgement are more resolved against light then inquisitive after it and rather seek to stop the chinks at which any light might come in then open the windows for the free and chearfull entertainment of it It will certainly be sufficient to make it appear that no man can deny the truth of that part of Scripture which we are now speaking of without offering manifest violence to his own faculties and making it appear to the world that he is one wholly forsaken of his own reason which will be satisfactorily done if we can clear these things First that it was morally impossible Moses should be ignorant of the things he
Now if we prove that Moses had no interest to deceive in his History and had all rational evidence of Divine revelation in his Laws we shall abundantly evince the undoubted fidelity of Moses in every thing recorded by him We begin then with his fidelity as an Historian and it being contrary to the common interest of the world to deceive and be deceived we have no reason to entertain any suspitions of the veracity of any person where we cannot discern some pecâ—liar interest that might have a stronger biass upon him then the common interest of the world For it is otherwise in morals then in naturals for in naturals we see that every thing will leave its proper interest to preserve the common interest of nature but in morals there is nothing more common then deserting the common interest of mankind to set up a peculiar interest against it It being the truest description of a Politician that he is one who makes himself the centre and the whole world his circumference that he regards not how much the whole world is abused if any advantage doth accrue to himself by it Where we see it then the design of any person to advance himself or his posterity or to set up the credit of the Nation whose History he writes we may have just cause to suspect his partiality because we then finde a sufficient inducement for such a one to leave the common road of truth and to fall into the paths of deceit But we have not the least ground to suspect any such partiality in the History of Moses for nothing is more clear then that he was free from the ambitious design of advancing himself and his posterity who notwithstanding the great honour he enjoyed himself was content to leave his posterity in the meanest sort of attendance upon the Tabernacle And as little have we ground to think he intended to flatter that Nation which he so lively describes that one would think he had rather an interest to set forth the frowardness unbelief unthankfulness and disobedience of a Nation towards a Gracious God then any wayes to inhance their reputation in the world or to ingratiate himself with them by writing this History of them Nay and he sets forth so exactly the lesser failings and grosser enormities of all the Ancestours of this Nation whose acts he records that any impartial reader will soon acquit him of a design of flattery when after he hath recorded those faults he seeks not to extenuate them or bring any excuse or pretence to palliate them So that any observing reader may easily take notice that he was carried on by a higher design then the common people of Historians are and that his drift and scope was to exalt the goodness and favour of God towards a rebellious and obstinate people Of which there can be no greater nor more lively demonstration then the History of all the transactions of the Iewish Nation from their coming forth of Aegypt to their utter ruine and desolation And Moses tells them as from God himself it was neither for their number nor their goodness that God set his Love upon them but he loved them because he loved them i. e. no other account was to be given of his gracious dealing with them but the freeness of his own bonnty and the exuberancy of his goodness towards them Nay have we not cause to admire the ingenuity as well as veracity of this excellent personage who not only layes so notorious a blot upon the stock of his own family Levi recording so punctually the inhumanity and cruelty of him and Simeon in their dealings with the Shechemites but likewise inserts that curse which was left upon their memory for it by their own Father at his decease And that he might not leave the least suspition of partiality behind him he hath not done as the statuary did who engraved his own name so artificially in the statue of Iupiter that one should continue as long as the other but what the other intended for the praise of his skill Moses hath done for his ingenuity that he hath so interwoven the History of his own failings and disobedience with those of the Nation that his spots are like to continue as long as the whole web of his History is like to do Had it been the least part of his design to have his memory preserved with a superstitious veneration among the Iews how easie had it been for him to have left out any thing that might in the least entrench upon his reputation but we finde him very secure and careless in that particular nay on the other side very studious and industrious in depressing the honour and deserts of men and advancing the power and goodness of God And all this he doth not in an affected strain of Rhetorick whose proper work is impetrare fidem mendacio and as Tully somewhere confesseth to make things seem otherwise then they are but with that innate simplicity and plainness and yet withall with that Imperatoria brevit as that Majesty and authority that it is thereby evident he sought not to court acceptance but to demand belief Nor had any such pittiful design of pleasing his Readers with some affected phrases but thought that Truth it self had presence enough with it to command the submission of our understandings to it Especially when all these were delivered by such a one who came sufficiently armed with all motives of credibility and inducements to assent by that evidence which he gave that he was no pretender to divine revelation but was really imployed as a peculiar instrument of State under the God and Ruler of the whole world Which if it be made clear then all our further doubts must presently cease and all impertinent disputes be silenced when the supream Majesty appears impowring any person to dictate to the world the Laws they must be governed by For if any thing be repugnant to our rational faculties that is that God should dictate any thing but what is most certainly true or that the Governor of the world should prescribe any Laws but such as were most just and reasonable If we suppose a God we cannot question veracity to be one of his chiefest Attributes and that it is impossible the God of truth should imploy any to reveal any thing as from him but what was undoubtedly true So that it were an argument of the most gross and unreasonable incredulity to distrust the certainty of any thing which comes to us with sufficient evidence of divine revelation because thereby we shew our distrust of the veracity of God himself All that we can desire then is only reasonable satisfactisn concerning the evidence of Divine revelation in the person whose words we are to credit and this our Gracious God hath been so far from denying men that he hath given all rational evidence of the truth of it For it implying no incongruity at all to any notions of
Christ and his Apostles were sufficient evidences of a divine spirit in them and that the Scriptures were recorded by them to be an infallible rule of faith here we have more clear reason as to the primary motives and grounds of faith and withall the infallible veracity of God in the Scriptures as the last resolution of faith And while we assert such an infallible rule of faith delivered to us by such an unanimous consent from the first delivery of it and then so fully attested by such uncontroulable miracles we cannot in the least understand to what end a power of miracles should now serve in the Church especially among those who all believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God Indeed before the great harvest of Converts in the primitive times were brought in both of Iews and Gentiles and the Church sully setled in receiving the Canon of the Scriptures universally we find God did continue this power among them but after the books of the New Testament were generally imbraced as the rule of faith among Christians we find them so far from pretending to any such power that they reject the pretenders to it such as the Donatists were and plead upon the same accounts as we do now against the necessity of it We see then no reason in the world for miracles to be continued where the doctrine of faith is setled as being confirmed by miracles in the first preachers of it There are only these two cases then wherein miracles may justly and with reason be expected First when any person comes as by an extraordinary commission from God to the world either to deliver some peculiar message or to do some more then ordinary service Secondly When something that hath been before established by Divine Law is to be repealed and some other way of worship established in stead of it First When any comes upon an extraordinary message to the world in the name of and by commission from God then it is but reason to require some more then ordinary evidence of such authority Because of the main importance of the duty of giving credit to such a person and the great sin of being guilty of rejecting that divine authority which appears in him And in this case we cannot think that God would require it as a duty to believe where he doth not give sufficient arguments for faith nor that he will punish persons for such a fault which an invincible ignorance was the cause of Indeed God doth not use to necessitate faith as to the act of it but he doth so clearly propound the object of it with all arguments inducing to it as may sufficiently justifie a Believers choice in point of reason and prudence and may leave all unbelievers without excuse I cannot see what account a man can give to himself of his faith much less what Apology he can make to others for it unless he be sufficiently convinced in point of the highest reason that it was his duty to believe and in order to that conviction there must be some clear evidence given that what is spoken hath the impress of Divine authority upon it Now what convictions there can be to any sober mind concerning Divine authority in any person without such a power of miracles going along with him when he is to deliver some new doctrine to the world to be believed I confess I cannot understand For although I doubt not but where ever God doth reveal any thing to any person immediately he gives demonstrable evidence to the inward senses of the soul that it comes from himself yet this inward sense can be no ground to another person to believe his doctrine divine because no man can be a competent judge of the actings of anothers senses and it is impossible to another person to distinguish the actings of the divine Spirit from strong impressions of fancy by the force and energy of them If it be said that we are bound to believe those who say they are fully satisfied of their Divine Commission I answer First this will expose us to all delusions imaginable for if we are bound to believe them because they say so we are bound to believe all which say so and none are more confident pretenders to this then the greatest deceivers as the experience of our age will sufficiently witness Secondly Men must necessarly be bound to believe contradictions for nothing more ordinary then for such confident pretenders to a Divine Spirit to contradict one another and it may be the same person in a little time contradict himself and must we still be bound to believe all they say If so no Philosophers would be so much in request as those Aristotle disputes against in his Metaphysicks who thought a thing might be and not be at the same time Thirdly The ground of faith at last will be but a meer humane testimony as far as the person who is to believe is capable of judging of it For the Question being Whether the person I am to believe hath divine authority for what he saith What ground can I have to believe that he hath so Must I take his bare affirmation for it If so then a meer humane testimony must be the ground of divine faith and that which it is last resolved into if it be said that I am to believe the divine authority by which he speaks when he speaks in the name of God I answer the question will again return how I shall know he speaks this from divine authority and so there must be a progress in infinitum or founding divine faith on a meer humane testimony if I am to believe divine revelation meerly on the account of the persons affirmation who pretends unto it For in this case it holds good non apparentis non existentis eadem est ratio if he be divinely inspired and there be no ground inducing me to believe that he is so I shall be excused if I believe him not if my wilfulness and laziness be not the cause of my unbelief If it be said that God will satisfie the minds of good men concerning the truth of divine revelation I grant it to be wonderfully true but all the question is de modo how God will satisfie them whether meerly by inspiration of his own spirit in them assuring them that it is God that speaks in such persons or by giving them rational evidence convincing them of sufficient grounds to believe it If we assert the former way we run into these inconveniences First we make as immediate a revelation in all those who believe as in those who are to reveal divine truths to us for there is a new revelation of an object immediately to the mind viz. that such a person is inspired of God and so is not after the common way of the Spirits illumination in Believers which is by inlightning the faculty without the proposition of any new object as it
is in the work of Grace So that according to this opinion there must be immediate inspiration as to that act of faith whereby we believe any one to have been divinely inspired and consequently to that whereby we believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God Secondly Doth not this make the fairest plea for mens unbelief For I demand Is it the duty of those who want that immediate illumination to believe or no If it be not their duty unbelief can be no sin to them if it be a duty it must be made known to be a duty and how can that be made known to them to be a duty when they want the only and necessary means of instruction in order to it Will God condemn them for that which it was impossible they should have unless God gave it them And how can they be left inexcuseable who want so much as rational inducements to faith for of these I now speak and not of efficacious perswasions of the mind when there are rational arguments for faith propounded But lastly I suppose the case will be cleared when we take notice what course God hath alwayes taken to give all rational satisfaction to the minds of men concerning the persons whom he hath imployed in either of the fore-mentioned cases First for those who have been imployed upon some special message and service for God he hath sent them forth sufficiently provided with manifestations of the Divine power whereby they acted As is most clear and evident in the present case of Moses Exodus 4. 1 2 3 4 5. where Moses puts the case to God which we are now debating of Supposing saith he that I should go to the Israelites and tell them God had appeared to me and sent me to deliver them and they should say God had not appeared unto me how should I satisfie them God doth not reject this objection of Moses as favouring of unbelief but presently shews him how he should satisfie them by causing a miracle before his face turning his rod into a Serpent and God gives this as the reason of it vers 5. That they may believe that the Lord God of their Fathers the God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob hath appeared unto thee It seems God himself thought this would be the most pregnant evidence of Gods appearing to him if he wrought miracles before their faces Nay lest they should think one single miracle was not sufficient God in the immediate following verses adjoyns two more which he should do in order to their satisfaction and further verse 21. God gave him a charge to do all those wonders before Pharoah which he had put into his hand And accordingly we find Pharoah presently demanding a miracle of Moses Exodus 7. 9. which accordingly Moses did in his presence though he might suppose Pharoahs demand not to proceed from desire of satisfaction but from some hopes that for want of it he might have rendred his credit suspected among the Israelites Indeed after God had delivered his people and had setled them in a way of serving him according to the Laws delivered by Moses which he had confirmed by unquestionable miracles among them we find a caution laid in by Moses himself against those which should pretend signs and wonders to draw them off from the Religion established by the Law of Moses And so likewise under the Gospel after that was established by the unparallel'd miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles we find frequent cautions against being deceived by those who came with pretences of doing great miracles But this is so far from infringing the credibility of such a Testimony which is confirmed by miracles that it yields a strong confirmation to the truth of what I now assert For the doctrine is supposed to be already established by miracles according to which we are to judge of the spirits of such pretenders Now it stands to the greatest reason that when a Religion is once established by uncontrouled miracles we should not hearken to every whiffling Conjurer that will pretend to do great feats to draw us off from the truth established In which case the surest way to discover the imposture is to compare his pretended miracles with those true and real ones which were done by Moses and Christ and the ground of it is because every person is no competent judge of the truth of a miracle for the Devil by his power and subtilty may easily deceive all such as will be led by the nose by him in expectation of some wonders to be done by him And therefore as long as we have no ground to question the oertainty of those miracles which were wrought by Christ or Moses I am bound to adhere to the doctrine established by those miracles and to make them my rule of judging all persons who shall pretend to work miracles Because 1. I do not know how far God may give men over to be deceived by lying wonders who will not receive the truth in the love of it i. e. those that think not the Christian Religion sufficiently confirmed by the miracles wrought at the first promulgation of it God in justice may permit the Devil to go further then otherwise he could and leave such persons to their own credulity to believe every imposture and illusion of their senses for true miracles 2. That doctrine which was confirmed by undoubted miracles hath assured us of the coming of lying wonders whereby many should be deceived Now this part of the doctrine of the Gospel is as certainly true as any of the rest for it was confirmed by the same miracles that the other was and besides that the very coming of such miracles is an evidence of the truth of it it falling out so exactly according to what was foretold so many hundred years since Now if this doctrine be true then am I certain the intent of these miracles is to deceive and that those are deceived who hearken to them and what reason then have I to believe them 3. To what end do these miracles serve Are they to confirm the truths contained in Scripture But what need they any confirmation now when we are assured by the miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles that the doctrine by them preached came from God and so hath been received upon the credit of those miracles ever since Were these truths sufficiently proved to be from God before or no If not then all former ages have believed without sufficient ground for faith if they were then what ground can there be to confirm us in them now certainly God who never doth anything but for very great purposes will never alter the course of nature meerly for satisfaction of mens vain curiosities But it may be it will be said It was something not fully revealed in Scripture which is thus confirmed by miracles but where hath the Scripture told us that anything not fully revealed
resolve the particular emergent cases concerning predictions The prediction of future events is no further an argument of Prophetick spirit then as the fore-knowledge of those things is supposed to be out of the reach of any created understanding And therefore God challengeth this to himself in Scripture as a peculiar prerogative of his own to declare the things that are to come and thereby manifests the Idols of the Gentiles to be no Gods because they could not shew to their worshippers the things to come Isaiah 44. 6 7. From this hypothesis these two Consectaries follow 1. That the events which are foretold must be such as do exceed the reach of any created intellect for otherwise it could be no evidence of a Spirit of true Prophecy so that the foretelling of such events as depend upon a series of natural causes or such as though they are out of the reach of humane understanding yet are not of the Diabolical or such things as fall out casually true but by no certain grounds of prediction can none of them be any argument of a Spirit of Prophecy 2. That where there were any other evidences that the Prophet spake by Divine Revelation there was no reason to wait the fulfilling of every particular Prophecy before he was believed as a Prophet If so then many of Gods chiefest Prophets could not have been believed in their own Generations because their Prophecies did reach so far beyond them as Isaiahs concerning Cyrus the Prophet at Bethel concerning Iosias and all the Prophecies concerning the captivity and deliverance from it must not have been believed till fulfilled that is not believed at all for when Prophecies are accomplished they are no longer the objects of faith but of sense Where then God gives other evidences of Divine inspiration the credit of the Prophet is not suspended upon the minute accomplishment of every event foretold by him Now it is evident there may be particular Divine revelation of other things besides future contingencies so that if a reason may be given why events once foretold may not come to pass there can be no reason why the credit of any Prophecy should be invalidated on that account because every event is not exactly correspondent to the prediction It is most certain that what ever comes under Divine knowledge may be Divinely revealed for the manifestation which is caused by any light may extend its self to all things to which that light is extended but that light which the Prophets saw by was a Divine light and therefore might equally extend it self to all kind of objects but because future contingencies are the most remote from humane knowledge therefore the foretelling of these hath been accounted the great evidence of a true Prophet but yet there may be a knowledge of other things in a lower degree then future contingencies which may immediately depend upon Divine revelation and these are 1. Such things which cannot be known by one particular man but yet is certainly known by other men as the present knowledge of things done by persons at a remote distance from them thus Elisha knew what Gehezi did when he followed Nâ—aman and thus the knowledge of the thoughts of anothers heart depends upon immediate Divine revelation whereas every one may certainly know the thoughts of his own heart and therefore to some those things may be matters of sense or evident demenstration which to another may be a matter of immediate revelation 2. Such things as relate not to future contingencies but are matters of faith exceeding the reach of humane apprehension such things as may be known when revealed but could never have been found out without immediate revelation such all the mysteries of our religion are the mystery of the Trinity Incarnation Hypostatical union the death of the Son of God for the pardon of the sins of mankind Now the immediate revelation of either of these two sorts of objects speaks as much a truly Prophetical spirit as the prediction of future contingencies So that this must not be looked on as the just and adequate rule to measure a spirit of Prophecy by because the ground of judging a Prophetical spirit by that is common with other things without that seeing other objects are out of the reach of humane understanding as well as future events and therefore the discovery of them must immediately flow from Divine revelation 3. The revelation of future events to the understanding of a Prophet is never the less immediate although the event may not be correspondent to the prediction So that if it be manifest that God immediately reveal such future contingencies to a Prophet he would be nevertheless a true Prophet whether those predictions took effect or no. For a true Prophet is known by the truth of Divine revelation to the person of the Prophet and not by the success of the thing which as is laid down in the hypothesis is no further an evidence of a true Prophet then as it is an argument a posteriori to prove Divine revelation by If then the alteration of events after predictions be reconcileable with the truth and faithfulness of God there is no question but it is with the truth of a Prophetical spirit the formality of which lies in immediate revelation The Prophets could not declare any thing more to the people then was immediately revealed unto themselves What was presently revealed so much they knew and no more because the spirit of Prophecy came upon them per modum impressionis transeuntis as the Schools speak and not per modum habitus the lumen propheticum was in them not as lumen in corpore lucido but as lumen in aëre and therefore the light of revelation in their spirits depended upon the immediate irradiations of the Divine Spirit The Prophets had not alwayes a power to Prophecy when they would themselves and thence it is said when they Prophesied that the Word of the Lord came unto them And therefore the Schools determine that a Prophet upon an immediate revelation did not know omnia prophetabilia as they speak in their barbarous language all things which God might reveal the reason whereof Aquinas thus gives the ground saith he of the connexion of diverse objects together is some common tie or principle which joynes them together as charity or prudence is in moral vertues and the right understanding of the principles of a science is the ground why all things belonging to that science are understood but now in Divine revelation that which connects the objects of Divine revelation is God himself now because he cannot be fully apprehended by any humane intellect therefore the understanding of a Prophet cannot comprehend all matters capable of being revealed but only such as it pleaseth God himself freely to communicate to the Prophets understanding by immediate revelation This is further evident by all those different degrees of illumination and Prophecy which the Iews and other
convince them of that which they believed already For we never read among all the revolts of the people of the Iews that they were lapsed so far as totally to reject the Law of Moses which had been to alter the constitution of their Commonwealth although they did enormously offend against the Precepts of it and that in those things wherein the honour of God was mainly concernd as is most plain in their frequent and gross Idolatry Which we are not so to understand as though they wholly cast off the worship of the true God but they superinduced as the Samaritans did the worship of Heathen Idols with that of the God of Israel But when the revolt grew so great and dangerous that it was ready to swallow up the true worship of God unless some apparent evidence were given of the falsity of those Heathen mixtures and further confirmation of the truth of the established religion it pleased God sometimes to send his Prophets on this peculiar message to the main instruments of this revolt As is most conspicuous in that dangerous design of Ieroboam when he out of a Politick end set up his two calves in opposition to the Temple at Ierusalem and therein it was the more dangerous in that in all probability he designed not the alteration of the worship it self but the establishment of it in Dan and Bethel For his interest lay not in drawing of the people from the worship of God but from his worship at Ierusalem which was contrary to his design of Cantonizing the Kingdom and taking the greatest share to himself Now that God might confirm his peoples faith in this dangerous juncture of time he sends a Prophet to Bethel who by the working of present miracles there viz. the renting the Altar and withering of Jeroboams hand did manifest to them that these Altars were displeasing to God and that the true place of worship was at Ierusalem So in that famous fire-Ordeal for trying the truth of religion between God and Baal upon mount Carmel by Elijah God was pleased in a miraculous way to give the most prâ—gnant testimony to the truth of his own worship by causing a fire to come down from heaven and consume the sacrifice by which the Priests of Baal were confounded and the people confirmed in the belief of the only true God for presently upon the sight of this miracle the people fall on their faces and say the Lord he is God the Lord he is God Whereby we plainly see what clear evidence is given to the truth of that religion which is attested with a power of miracles Thus the widdow of Sarepta which was in the Country of Zidon was brought to believe Elijah to be a true Prophet by his raising up her son to life And the woman said to Elijah Now by this I know that thou art a man of God and that the Word of the Lord by thy mouth is truth So we see how Naaman was convinced of the true God by his miraculous cure in Iordan by the appointment of Elisha Behold now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel by which instances it is demonstrable that either the faith of all these persons was built upon weak and insufficient grounds or that a power of miracles is an evident confirmation of the truth of that religion which is established by them For this we see was the great end for which God did improve any of his Prophets to work miracles viz. to be as an evident demonstration of the truth of what was revealed by him So that this power of miracles is not meerly a motive of credibility or a probable inducement to remove prejudice from the person as many of our Divines speak but it doth contain an evident demonstration to common sense of the truth of that religion which is confirmed by them And thus we assert it to have been in the case of Moses the truth of whose message was attested both among the Aegyptians and the Israelites by that power of miracles which he had But herein we have the great Patrons of Moses our greatest enemies viz the present Iews who by reason of their emnity to the doctrine of Christ which was attested by unparalleld miracles are grown very shy of the argument drawn from thence In so much that their great Dr. Maimonides layes down this for a confident maxime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Israelites did not believe in Moses our Master for the sake of the miracles which he wrought Did they not the more shame for them and if they did the more shame for this great Rabbi thus to bely them But the reason he gives for it is because there may remain some suspition in ones mind that all miracles may be wrought by a power of Magick or Incantation Say you so what when Moses confounded all the Magicians in Aegypt and made themselves who were the most cunning in these things confess it was the finger of God and at last give out as not able to stand before Moses might one still suspect all this to be done by a Magical power Credat Iudaeus Apella non ego This is much like what another of their Doctors sayes whom they call the Divine Philosopher that Elisha his raising the child to life and curing Naamans leprosie and Daniels escaping the Lions and Ionas out of the Whales belly might all come to pass by the influence of the stars or by Pythonisme Very probable but it is most true which Vortius there observes of the Iews nibil non nugacissimi mortalium fingunt ne cogantur agnoscere virtute ac digito quasi ipsius Dei Iesum nostrum effecisse miracula sua All their design in this is only to elevate the miracles of our blessed Saviour and to derogate all they can from the belief of them Hence they tell us that nothing is so easie to be done as miracles the meer recital of the tetragrammaton will work wonders that by this Ieremiah and our Saviour did all their miracles It is well yet that he did more then one of their own Prophets had done before him but where I wonder do we read that ever the pronouncing of four letters raised one from the dead who had lain four dayes in the grave or by what power did Christ raise himself from the dead which was the greatest miracle of all could his dead body pronounce the tetragrammaton to awaken its self with But Maimonides further tells us that the miracles which Moses wrought among the Israelites were meerly for necessity and not to prove the truth of his Divine commission for which he instanceth in dividing the red sea the raining of Manna and the destruction of Corah and his complices But setting aside that these two latter were the immediate hand of God and not miracles done by Moses yet it is evidence that the intent of them was to manifest a Divine
by reason of the large diffusion of a Spirit of Holiness in the days of the Gospel be set upon the bells of Horses and that the pots in the Lords house should be as bowls before the altar i. e. that when the Levitical service should be laid aside and that Holiness which was that appropriated to the Priests and Instruments of the Temple should be discerned in those things which seemed most remote from it That a Priesthood after another order then that of Aaron should be established viz. after the order of Melchisedek and that he that was the Priest after this order should judge among the Heathen and wound the heads over many Countries that in the day of his power the people should not be frighted to obedience with thunderclaps and earthquakes as at Mount Sinai but should come and yield themselves as a free-will offering unto him and yet their number be as great as the drops of the dew which distill in the morning That God out of other nations would take unto himself for Priests and for Levites that the desire of all Nations should speedily come that the Messenger of the Covenant should come into his Temple nay that seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy City that then the vision and prophecie should be sealed up that the Sacrifice and oblation should be caused to cease that the City and the sanctuary should be destroyed and the end thereof shall be with a flood and unto the end of the War desolations are determined that after three score and two weeks Messias should be cut off but not for himself that by him transgression should be finished and reconciliation for iniquity should be made and everlasting righteousness should be brought in And least all these things should be apprehended to be only a higher advancing of the Levitical worship and the way of external Ceremonies God expresly saith that he would make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not according to the Covenant that I made with their Fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Egypt which my Covenant they brake although I was an husband to them saith the Lord But this shall be the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people Can any one that now considers seriously the state of things thus described as it should come to pass ever imagine that the Levitical service was ever calculated for this State Was Gods Worship to be confined to his Temple at Ierusalem when all the Nations of the earth should come to serve him Was the High Priest to make an attonement there when an order of Priesthood different from the Aaronical should be set up Must the Tribe of Levi only attend at the Temple when God would take Priests and Levites out of all Nations that serve him What would become of the Magnificence and glory of the Temple when both City and Sanctuary shall be destroyed and that must be within few prophetical weeks after the Messias is cut off And must the Covenant God made with the Israelites continue for ever when God expresly saith he would make a New one and that not according to the Covenant which he made with them then It is so evident then as nothing can well be more that under the Old Testament such a state of Religion was described and promised with which the Levitical worship would be inconsistent and so that the Ceremonial Law was not at first established upon an immutable reason which was the thing to be proved CHAP. VIII General Hypotheses concerning the Truth of the Doctrine of Christ. The great prejudice against our Saviour among Iews and Heathens was the means of his appearance The difference of the miracles at the delivery of the Law and Gospel Some general Hypotheses to clear the subserviency of miracles to the Doctrine of Christ. 1. That where the truth of a doctrine depends not on evidence but authority the only way to prove the truth of the Doctrine is to prove the Testimony of the revealer to be infallible Things may be true which depend not on evidence of the things What that is and on what it depends The uncertainty of natural knowledge The existence of God the foundation of all certainty The certainty of matters of faith proved from the same principle Our knowladge of any thing supposeth something incomprehensible The certainty of faith as great as that of knowledge the grounds of it stronger The consistency of rational evidence with faith Yet objects of faith exceed reason the absurdities following the contrary opinion The uncertainty of that which is called reason Philosophical dictates no standard of reason Of transubstantiation and ubiquity c. why rejected as contrary to reason The foundation of faith in matters above reason Which is infallible Testimony that there are ways to know which is infallible proved 2. Hypoth A Divine Testimony the most infallible The resolution of faith into Gods veracity as its formal object 3. Hypoth A Divine Testimony may be known though God speak not immediatly Of Inspiration among the Iews and Divination among the Heathens 4. Hyp. The evidences of a Divine Testimony must be clear and certain Of the common motives of faith and the obligation to faith arising from them The original of Infidelity HAving now cleared that the Law of Moses was capable of a repeal I come to the second enquiry whether the miracles of our Saviour did give a sufficient evidence of his power and authority to repeal it I shall not to prevent too large an excursion insist on any other evidences of our Saviours being the promised Mâ—ssias but keep close to the matter of our present debate concerning the evidence which ariseth from such a power of Miracles as our Saviour had in order to his establishing that doctrine which he came to publish to the world The great stumbling-block in reference to our blessed Saviour among both the Iews and learned Heathens was the meanness of his appearance in the world not coming attended with that state and magnificence which they thought to be inseparable from so great a person The Iews had their senses so possâ—ssed with the thundrings and lightnings on mount Sinai that they could not imagine the structure of their Ceremonial worship could be taken down with less noise and terror then it was erâ—cted with And withall collecting all those passages of the Old Testament which seemed to foretell such glorious things of the dayes of the Messias which â—ither refer to his second coming or must be understood in a spiritual sense they having their minds oppressed with the sense of their present calamities applyed them wholly to an external greatness whereby
they might be delivered from the Tyranny of the Roman Power The Heathens as appears by Celsus and others thought it very strange that the Son of God should appear in the world with so little grandeur and have no greater Train then twelve such obscure persons as the Apostles were For saith Celsus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As the Sun which inlightens all other things dâ—th first discover himself so it was fitting the Son of God should do when he appeared to the world And so we say he did to all such whose minds were not blinded through obstinacy and willfull ignorance For although this Sun of righteousness was pleased for the better carrying on his design in the world to wrap up himself in a cloud yet his glory could not be confined within it but did break through that dark vail of his humane nature and did discover its self in a most clear and convincing manner His appearances indeed were not like those upon Mount Sinai because his design was not to amuse men with the glory of his Majesty and to terrifie them from Idolatry which was a great reason of those dreadful phaenomena at the delivery of the Law but he came to draw all men to him by the power and energy of his Grace and therefore afforded them all rational convictions in order to it And therefore the quality of our Saviours miracles was considerable as well as the greatness of them The intent of them all was to do good and thereby to bring the world off from its sin and folly to the embracing of that holy doctrine which he came to publish to the world Now that such a power of miracles in our Saviour had the greatest subserviency to the giving full and convincing evidence that he was the person he declared himself to be and that his doctrine was thereby so clearly attested that it was nothing but obstinacy which could withhold assent will appear by these following Hypotheses which I lay down in order to the proving it Where the truth of a doctrine depends not on the evidence of the things themselves but on the authority of him that reveals it there the only way to prove the doctrine to be true is to prove the Testimony of him that revealed it to be infallible Several things are necessary to be proved for the clearing this proposition 1. That it is not repugnant to reason that a doctrine should be true which depends not upon the evidence of the thing its self By evidence of the thing I understand so clear and distinct a perception of it that every one who hath the use of his rational faculties cannot but upon the first apprehension of the terms yeild a certain assent to it as that the whole is greater then a part that if we take away equal things from equal the remainder must be equal Now we are to observe that as to all these common notices of humane nature which carry such evidence with them the certainty of them lyes in the proposition as it is an act of the mind abstracted from the things themselves for these do not suppose the existence of the things but whether there be any such things in the world or no as whole or parts the understanding is assured that the Idea of the whole carryes more in its representation then that of a part does This is the great reason of the certainty and evidence of Mathematical truths not as some imagine because men have no interest or design in those things and therefore they never question them but because they proceed not upon sensible but abstracted matter which is not lyable to so many doubts as the other is for that a Triangle hath three Angles no man questions but whether such sensible parts of matter make a Triangle may be very questionable Now that the truth of beings or the certainty of existence of things cannot be so certain as Mathematical demonstrations appears from hence because the manner of conveyance of these things to my mind cannot be so clear and certain as in purely intellectual operations abstracted from existent matter For the highest evidences of the existence of things must be either the judgement of sense or clear and distinct perception of the mind now proceeding in a meer natural way there can be no infallible certainty in either of these For the perception of the mind in reference to the existence of things being caused so much through those Idea's or Phantasmes which are conveyed to the understanding through the impressions of sense if these may be demonstrated to be fallacious I may well question the certainty of that which I am certain I have been deceived by supposing then I should question the truth of every thing which is conveyed in an uncertain way to my mind I may soon out-go even Pyrrho himself in real Scepticism Neither can I conceive how clear and distinct perception of any thing though not coming through the senses doth necessarily infer the existence of the thing for it only implyes a non-repugnancy of it to our natural faculties and consequently the bare possibility of it For otherwise it were impossible for us to have a clear perception of any thing any longer then it exists nay then we know it to exist for existence or non-existence is all one to the understanding while it is not assured of either And it is withall evident that things imaginary may clearly affect the mind as well as real for I may have as real and distinct perception of a Phoenix in my mind as of a Partridge doth it therefore follow that the one is really existent as well as the other and it will be a very hard matter to assign a certain difference between imagination and pure intellection in such things which though not actually existent yet imply no repugnancy at all to the faculties of mens minds It is evident then that there cannot be so great certainty of the existence of things as there may be of Mathematical demonstrations And if that principle be supposed as the foundation of all Physical certainty as to the being of things viz. that there is a God who being infinitely good will not suffer the minds of men to be deceived in those things which they have a clear and distinct perception of without which supposition we cannot be assured of the certainty of any operations of the mind because we cannot know but we were so made that we might be then most deceived when we thought our selves most sure If this principle I say be supposed as the foundation of all certain knowledge then from it I infer many things which are very much advantagious to our certainty in matters of faith That the foundation of all certainty lies in the necessary existence of a being absolutely perfect So that unless I know that there is a God I cannot be assured that I know any thing in a certain manner and if I know there is a
mysteries our faith stands upon this twofold bottom First that the being understanding and power of God doth infinitely transcend ours and therefore he may reveal to us matters above our reach and capacity Secondly that whatever God doth reveal is undoubtedly true though we may not fully understand it for this is a most undoubted principle that God cannot and will not deceive any in those things which he reveals to men Thus our first supposition is cleared that it is not repugnant to reason that a doctrine may be true which depends not on the evidence of the thing it self The second is That in matters whose truth depends not on the evidence of the things themselves infallible testimony is the fullest demonstration of them For these things not being of Mathematical evidence there must be some other way found out for demonstrating the truth of them And in all those things whose truth depends on Testimony the more creditable the Testimony is the higher evidence is given to them but that testimony which may deceive cannot give so pregnant an evidence as that which cannot for then all imaginable objections are taken off This is so clear that it needs no further proof and therefore the third follows That there are certain ways whereby to know that a Testimony delivered is infallible and that is fully proved by these two Arguments 1. That it is the duty of all those to whom it is propounded to believe it now how could that be a duty in them to believe which they had no ways to know whether it were a Testimony to be believed or no. 2. Because God will condemn the world for unbelief In which the Justice of Gods proceedings doth necessarily suppose that there were sufficient arguments to induce them to believe which could not be unless there were some certain way supposed whereby a Testimony may be known to be infallible These three things now being supposed viz. that a doctrine may be true which depends not on evidonce of reason that the greatest demonstration of the truth of such a doctrine is its being delivered by infallible Testimony and that there are certain ways whereby a Testimony may be known to be infallible Our first principle is fully confirmed which was that where the truth of a doctrine depends not on evidence of reason but on the authority of him that reveals it the only way to prove the doctrine to be true is to prove the Testimony of him that reveals it to be infallible The next principle or Hypothesis which I lay down is That there can be no greater evidence that a Testimony is infallible then that it is the Testimony of God himself The truth of this depends upon a common notion of humane nature which is the veracity of God in whatever way he discovers himself to men and therefore the ultimate resolution of our faith as to its formal object must be alone into the veracity of God revealing things unto us for the principium certitudinis or foundation of all certain assent can be fetched no higher neither will it stand any lower then the infallible verity of God himself and the principium patefactionis or the ground of discovery of spiritual truth to our minds must be resolved into Divine Testimony or revelation These two then not taken asunder but joyntly God who cannot lye hath revealed these things is the only certain foundation for a divine faith to rest its self upon But now the particular exercise of a Divine faith lies in a firm assent to such a particular thing as Divinely revealed and herein lyes not so much the Testimony as the peculiar energy of the Spirit of God in inclining the soul to believe peculiar objects of faith as of Divine revelation But the general ground of faith which they call the formal object or the ratio propter quam credimus is the general infallibility of a Divine Testimony For in a matter concerning divine revelation there are two great questions to be resolved The first is Why I believe a Divine Testimony with a firm assent The answer to that is because I am assured that what ever God speaks is true the other is upon what grounds do I believe this to be a Divine Testimony the resolution of which as far as I can understand must be fetched from those rational evidences whereby a Divine Testimony must be distinguished from one meerly humane and fallible For the Spirit of God in its workings upon the mind doth not carry it on by a brutish impulse but draws it by a spiritual discovery of such strong and perswasive grounds to assent to what is revealed that the mind doth readily give a firm assent to that which it sees such convincing reason to believe Now the strongest reason to believe is the manifestation of a divine Testimony which the Spirit of God so clearly discovers to a true believer that he not only firmly assents to the general foundation of faith the veracity of God but to the particular object propounded as a matter of Divine Revelation But this latter question is not here the matter of our discourse our proposition only concerns the general foundation of faith which appears to be so rational and evident as no principle in nature can be more For if the Testimony on which I am to rely be only Gods and I be assured from natural reason that his Testimony can be no other then infallible wherein doth the certainty of the foundation of faith fall short of that in any Mathematical demonstration Upon which account a Divine Testimony hath been regarded with so much veneration among all who have owned a Deity although they have been unacquainted with any certain way of Divine revelation And the reason why any rejected such a Testimony among the Heathens was either because they believed not a Deity or else that the particular Testimonies produced were meer frauds and impostures and therefore no Divine Testimony as it was given out to be But the principle still remained indisputable that on supposition the Testimony were what it pretended to be there was the greatest reason to believe it although it came not in such a way of probation as their sciences proceeded in From which principle arose that speech of Tully which he hath translated out of Plato's Timaeus Ac difficillimum factu à Diis ortis sidem non haber◠quanquam nec argumentis nec rationibus certis eorum oratio confirmetur By which we see what a presumption there was of Truth where there was any evidence of a Divine Testimony And no doubt upon the advantage of this principle it was the Devil gained so great credit to his oracles for therein he did the most imitate Divine revelation From hence then we see what a firm bottom faith in the general stands upon which is nothing short of an Infallible Divine Testimony other things may conduce by way of subserviency for the discovery of this but nothing
sarcastically answer the argument from the common consent of men quasi verò quidquam sit tam valdè quam nihil sapere vulgare as though nothing men did more generally agree in then in being fools yet as it is evident that the ground of that scoffe was from the several manners of Divination then in use so it cannot be thought to be a general impeachment of humane nature in a thing so consequent upon the being of a God which as himself elsewhere proves is as clear from reason as from that Testimonium gentium in hac una re non dissidentium as the Christian Cicero Lactantius speaks the consent of Nations which scarce agree in any thing else but that there is a God That which we now infer from hence is that God may make known his mind in a way infallible though not immediate for in case of Inspiration of meer men it is not they so much which speak as God by them and in case that God himself should speak through the vail of humane nature the Testimony must needs be infallible though the appearance of the Divinity be not visible Those evidences whereby a Divine Testimony may be known must be such as may not leave mens minds in suspense but are of their own nature convincing proofs of it For although as to the event some may doubt and others disbelieve the Testimony so proved yet it is sufficient for our purpose that in the nature of the things supposing them to be such as we speak of they are sufficient for the eviction that the testimony attested by them is divine and infallible I know it is a great dispute among many whether those things which are usually called the common motives of faith do of their own nature only induce a probable perswasion of the truth of the doctrine as probable which they are joyned with or else are they sufficient for the producing a firm assent to the doctrine as True I grant they are not demonstrative so as to inforce assent for we see the contrary by the experience of all ages but that they are not sufficient foundation for an unprejudiced mind to establish a firm assent upon is a thing not easie to be granted chiefly upon this account that an obligation to believe doth lie upon every one to whom these evidences of a Divine Testimony are sufficiently discovered And otherwise of all sins the sin of unbelief as to God revealing his mind were the most excusable and pardonable sin nay it would be little less then a part of prudence because what can it be accounted but temerity and imprudence in any to believe a doctrine as true only upon probable inducements and what can it be but wisdom to withhold assent upon a meer verisimilitude considering what the Lyrick Poet hath long since truly told us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That a falshood may frequently seem truer to common understandings then truth its self and as Menander speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a meer verisimilitude may have more force on vulgar minds then truth hath If therefore there be no evidences given sufficient to carry the minds of men beyond meer probability what sin can it be in those to disbelieve who cannot be obliged to believe as true what is only discovered as probable I cannot therefore see how an obligation to believe a Divine Testimony is consistent with their opinion who make the utmost which any outward evidences can extend to to be only the bare credibility of the doctrine attested by them I can very well satisfie my self with the ground and reason why the more subtle wits of the Church of Rome do essert this for if nothing else can be produced by all motives of faith but only a probable perswasion of the truth of Christian doctrine then here comes in the fairest pretence for the Infallibility of their Church for otherwise they tell us we can have no foundation for a Divine faith for how can that be a foundation for Divine faith which can reach no higher then a moral inducement and beget only a probable perswasion of the credibility of the doctrine of Christ But on what account those who disown the Infallibility of the Church of Rome in the proposal of matters of faith should yet consent with those of it in an hypothesis taken up in probability meerly out of subserviency to that most advantagious piece of the mysterie of iniquity is not easie to resolve Unless the over-fondness of some upon the doctrine of the Schools more then of the Gospel hath been the occasion of it For how agreeable can that opinion be to the Gospel which so evidently puts the most defensive weapons into the hands of unbelief For doubtless in the judgement of any rational person a meer probable perswasion of the credibility of the doctrine of Christ where an assent to it as true is required can never be looked on as an act of faith for if my assent to the truth of the thing be according to the strength of the arguments inducing me to believe and these arguments do only prove a probability of Divine Testimony my assent can be no stronger then to a thing meerly probable which is that it may be or not be true which is not properly assent but a suspending our judgements till some convincing argument be produced on either side And therefore according to this opinion those who saw all the miracles which Christ did could not be bound to believe in Christ but only to have a favourable opinion of his person and doctrine as a thing which though not evidenced to be true by what he did yet it was very piously credible but they must have a care withall of venturing their belief too far only on such moral inducements as miracels were for fear they should go farther then the force of the arguments would carry them Had not this opinion now think we been a very probable way to have converted the world upon the Preaching of Christ and his Apostles when Christ saith though ye believe not me believe the works that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him Nay saith this opinion that is more then we are bound to do though we see thy works we are not bound to believe thy Testimony to be Divine and certainly true but we will do all we are bound to do we will entertain a favourable opinion of thy person and doctrine and wait for somewhat else but we do not well know what to perswade us to believe When the Apostles Preach the danger of unbelief because the doctrine of the Gospel was confirmed by signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost what a fair answer doth this opinion put into the mouths of Infidels that notwithstanding all these signs and wonders they were never bound to believe the Gospel
as a certain Truth and therefore they hope the danger is not so great in neglecting the salvation promised by the Gospel I cannot conceive that men otherwise learned and sober should with so much confidence assert that the rational evidences of a Divine Testimony are insufficient to prove a doctrine true unless it be from hence that they find that notwithstanding the strongest evidences many persons continue in unbelief For say they if these arguments were scientifical and demonstrative as they speak of the truth of the doctrine attested by them then all persons to whom they are propounded must certainly believe But this is very easily answered for we speak not of internal but outward evidence not of that in the subject but of the object or more fully of the reason of the thing and not the event in us for doubtless there may be undoubted truth and evidence in many things which some persons either cannot or will not understand If Epicurus should contend still that the Sun and stars are no bigger then they seem to be will it hence follow that there can be no rational demonstration of the contrary Nay if the way of demonstration be offered him and Telescopes put into his hands yet if he be resolved to maintain his credit and therefore his opinion and will not use the Telescopes or suspect still they are intended only to deceive his sight what possible way will there be of convincing such a person though the thing be in its self demonstrable Now if the strength of prejudice or maintaining of credit can prevail so much in matters of Mathematical evidence to withhold assent what power may we think a corrupt interest may have upon the understanding as to the arguments which tend to prove the truth of that doctrine which is so repugnant to that carnal interest which the heart is already devoted to Our Blessed Saviour hath himself given us so full an account of the original and causes of unbelief in the persons he conversed with that that may yield us a sufficient answer to this objection He tels us the ground of it was not want of light nay there was light sufficient to convince any but that those to whom the light came loved darkness rather then it because their deeds were evil That they could not believe while they received honour one of another and sought not the honour which was of God only i. e. That they were so greedy of applause from each other that they would not impartially search into the truth of that doctrine which did touch their sores so to the quick that they had rather have them fester upon them then go to the trouble of so sharp a cure That the reason so few followed him was because the way was narrow and the gate straight which men must go in at and therefore no wonder so few of the rich and proud pharisees could get in at it they were partly so sweld with a high opinion of themselves and partly so loaden with their riches that they thought it was to no purpose for them to think of going in at so straight a gate while they were resolved to part with neither That the final ground of the rejection of any was not want of evidence to bring them to believe nor want of readiness in Christ to receive them if they did but it was a peevish wilful obstinate malicious spirit that they would not come to Christ nor believe his Doctrine for those import the same but when the most convincing miracles were used they would rather attribute them to the Prince of Devils then to the power of God And though our Saviour presently by rational and demonstrative arguments did prove the contrary to their faces yet we see thereby it was a resolution not to be convinced or yield to the Truth which was the cause why they did not believe Now from this very instance of our Saviours proceedings with the Pharisees by rational arguments I demand whether these arguments of our Saviour were sufficient foundations for a divine assent to that truth that our Saviour did not his miracles by any Diabolical but by Divine power or no If they were then it is evident that rational evidence may be a foundation for Divine faith or that some motives to believe may be so strong as to be sufficient evidence of the truth and certainty of the Doctrine If these arguments were not sufficient proofs of what our Saviour spake then well fare the Pharisees it seems they said nothing but what might be thus far justified that the contrary to it could not be demonstrated And if the evidence of our Sâ—viours miracles were so great as some suppose that the Pharisees could not but be convinced that they were divine but out of their malice and envy they uttered this blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to keep the people from following Christ then we hence infer two things First how strong an evidence there was in the miracles of Christ when it convinced his most resolute enemies that they were divine Secondly what power a corrupt will may have over a convinced understanding For although the will may not hinder conviction yet it may soon stifle it by suggesting those things to the mind which may divert it from those convictions of Truth and seek to find out any ways to disgrace it It would be no difficult task to discover in all those instances wherein the unbelief of men is discovered in the New Tâ—stament that the persons guilty of it did not proceed like rational men or such as desired Truth but were wholly carried away through passion interest prejudice disaffection or some other cause of that nature which may give us a sufficient account why those persons did not believe although there might be clear and undoubted evidence to perswâ—de them to it But although I assert that these rational evidences are sufficient arguments of the truth of the doctrine they come to manifest yet I would not be so understood that I thereby resolve all Religion into a meer act of reason and knowledge and that no more power is required in the understanding to believe the Gospel then to believe a Mathematical demonstration which is another objection some lay in the way of this opinion but it isâ— ot difficult getting over it For the sufficiency which I attribute to rational evidence is not absolute and simple but in suo genere as an objective evidence Notwithstanding this the whole work of the Spirit of God in its peculiar energy and way of operation upon the soul is left entire to its self But then when the spirit works as to the planting of a truly divine faith I do not think that it only perswades the soul of the Truth of a Divine Testimony but withall represents the Truths revealed by that Testimony with all that excellency and suitableness that there is in them that by the most agreeable yet effectual influence
their genuine followers they instead of the common and rude name of impostors gave them a more civil title of Philosophers and looked upon their doctrine as a sublimer kind of Philosophy non utique divinum negotium existimant sed mag is Philosophiae genus as Tertullian tells us because the Philosophers pretended so much to moral vertues which they saw the Christians so excellent in but as Tertullian there replies nomen hoc Philosophorum Daemonia non fugat The Devil was never afraid of a Philosophers beard nor were diseases cured by the touch of a Philosophick pallium There was something more Divine in Christians then in the grave Philosophers and that not only in reference to their lives and the Divine power which was seen in them but in reference to the truth and certainty of their doctrine it being a true character given of both by that same excellent writer in behalf of the Christians of his time Veritatem Philosophi quidem affâ—ctant possident autem Christiani what the Philosophers desired only the Christians enjoy which was Truth and as he elsewhere more fully speaks mimicè Philosophi affectant veritatem affectando corrum punt ut qui gloriam captant Christianieam necessariò appetunt integri praestant ut qui saluti suae curant Truth is the Philosophers mistress which by courting he vitiates and corrupts looking at nothing but his own glory but truth is the Christians Matron whose directions he observes and follows because he regards no glory but that to come And to let them further see what a difference there was between a Christian and a Philosopher he concludes that discourse with these words Quid adeo simile Philosophus Christianus Graeciae Discipulus et coeli famae negotiator et vitae verborum et factorum operator rerum aedificator et destructor amicus et inimicus erroris veritatis interpolator et integrator furator ejus et custos As much distance saith he as there is between Greece and Heaven between applause and eternal glory between words and things between building and destroying between truth and error between a plagiary and corrupter of truth and a preserver and advancer of it so much is there between a Philosopher and a Christian. The Heathens might suspect indeed some kind of affinity between the first Preachers of the Gospel and the antient Sophists of Greece because of their frequent going from place to place and pretending a kind of Enthusiasm as they did but as much difference as there is between a Knight Errant and Hercules between a Mountebank and Hippocrates that and much greater there is between a Greek Sophist and an Apostle Socrates in Plato's Euthydemus hath excellently discovered the vanity and futility of those persons under the persons of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus and so likewise in his Protagoras their intent was only like the retiaries in the Roman Spectacles to catch their adversaries in a net to intangle them with some captious question or other but how vastly different from this was the design of the Apostles who abhord those endless contentions which then were in the Heathen world and came to shew them that Truth which was revealed with an intent of making them better men We see the Apostles were not carried forth by any mean and vulgar motives neither did they drive on any private ends of their own all that they minded was the promoting of the doctrine which they preached Nay they accounted no hazards comparable with the advantage which the world enjoyed through the propagation of the Christian Religion This shewed a truly noble and generous spirit in them which would not be hindred from doing the world good though they found so bad entertainment from it yea they rejoyced in their greatest sufferings which they underwent in so good a cause wherein those Primitive Christians who were the genuine followers of the Apostles did so far imitate them that etiam damnati gratias agunt they gave the Iudges thanks that they thought them worthy to lose their lives in a cause which they had reason to triumph in though they died for it And when any of them were apprehended they discovered so little fear of punishment ut unum solummodo quod non ante suerint paeniteret that nothing troubled them so much as that they had been Christians no sooner as one of their number speaks And when the Heathens usually scoffed at them and called them Sarmentitii and Semaxii because they were burned upon the Cross one of them in the name of the rest answers hic est habitus victoriae nostrae haec palmata vestis tali curru triumphamus the Cross was only their triumphant chariot which carried them sooner to Heaven Now this courage and resolution of spirit which was seen in the first planters of Christianity in the world made all serious and inquisitive persons look more narrowly into those things which made men slight so much the common bug-bears of humane nature sufferings and death Quis enim non contemplatione ejus concutitur adrequirendum quid intus in re sit quis non ubi requisivit accedit ubi accessit patiexoptat These sufferings made men enquire this enquiry made them believe that belief made them as willing to suffer themselves as they had seen others do it before them Thus it appeared to be true in them 〈◊〉 qâ—â—que crudelitas illecebra magis est sectae plures â—fficimur quâ—â—ties metimur a vobis semen est sanguis Christianorum The cruelty of their â—nemies did but increase their number the harvest of their pretended justice was but the seed-time of Christianity and no seed was so fruitful as that which was steeped in the blood of Martyrs Thence Iustin Martyr ingenuously saith of himself that while he was a Platonick Philosopher he derided and scoffed at the Christians but when he considered their great courage and constancy in dying for their profession he could not think those could possibly be men wicked and voluptuous who when offers of life were made them would rather choose death then deny Christ. By which he found plainly that there was a higher spirit in Christianity then could be obtained by the sublime notions and speculations of Plato and that a poor ignorant Christian would do and suffer more for the sake of Christ then any of the Academy in defence of their master Plato Now since all men naturally abhor sufferings what is it which should so powerfully alter the nature and disposition of Christians above all other persons that they alone should seem in that to have forgot humanity that not only with patience but with joy they endured torments and abode the flames What! were they all pâ—ssessed with a far more then Stoical Apathy that no sense oâ— pain could work at all upon them or were they all besotted and infatuated persons that did not know what it was they underwent â—t is true some of the
was the great Seal of our Saviours being the Son of God therefore we find the Apostles so frequently attesting the truth of the resurrection of Christ and that themselves were eye-witnesses of it This Iesus saith Peter hath God raised up whereof we all are witnesses And again And killed the Prince of life whom God hath raised up from the dead whereof we are witnesses and both Peter and Iohn to the Sanhedrin For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard And the whole Colledge of Apostles afterwards And we are his witnesses of these things and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey him In which words they give them that twofold rational evidence which did manifest the undoubted truth of what they spake for they delivered nothing but what themselves were witnesses of and withall was declared to be true by the power of the Holy Ghost in the miracles which were wrought by and upon believers Afterwards we read the sum oâ— the Apostles Preaching and the manner used by them to perswade men of the truth of it in the words of Peter to Cernâ—lius and his company How God annointed Iesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil for God was with him And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Iews and in Hierusalem whom they stew and hanged on a tree Him God raised up the third day and shewed him openly not to all the people but unto witnesses chosen before of God even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead And he comâ—anded us to â—reach unto the people that it is be which was ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead By all which we see what care God was pleased to take for the satisfaction of the world in point of rational evidence as to the truth of the matters which were discovered concerning our Saviour Christ because he made choice of such persons to be the preachers and writers of these things who were the best abâ—e to satisfie the world about them viz. such as had been eye witnesses of them Now in order to the making it more fully evident what strength there was in this Testimony given by the Apostles to the miracles of Christ we shall more fully manifest the rational evidence which attended it in these following propositions Where the truth of a doctrine depends upon a matter of fact the truth of the doctrine is sufficiently manifested if the matter of fact be evidently proved in the highest way it is capable of Thus it is in reference to the doctrine of Christ for the truth of that is so interwoven with the truth of the story of Christ that if the relations concerning Christ be true his doctrine must needs be Divine and infallible For if it be undoubtedly true that there was such a person as Christ born at Bethlehem who did so many miracles and at last suffered the death of the Cross and after he had lain three dayes in the grave rose again from the dead what reason imaginable can I have to question but that the Testimony of this person was certainly Divine and consequently what ever he preached to the world was most certain and undoubted truth So that if we have clear evidence as to the truth of these passages concerning our Saviour we must likewise believe his doctrine which came attested with such pregnant evidences of a Divine commission which he had from God to the world No Prince can think he hath any reason to refuse audience to an Embassador when he finds his Credentials such as he may rely upon although himself doth not see the sealing of them much less reason have we to question the truth of the doctrine of the Gospel if we have sufficient evidence of the truth of the matters of fact concerning Christ in such a way as those things are capable of being proved The greatest evidence which can be given to a matter of fact is the attesting of it by those persons who were eye-witnesses of it This is the Foundation whereon the firmest assent is built as to any matter of fact for although we conceive we have reason to suspect the truth of a story as long as it is conveyed only in a general way by an uncertain fame and tradition yet when it comes to be attested by a sufficient number of credible persons who profess themselves the cye-witnesses of it it is accounted an unreasonable thing to distrust any longer the truth of it especially in these two cases 1. When the matter they bear witness to is a thing which they might easily and clearly perceive 2. When many witnesses exactly agree in the same Testimony 1. When the matter it self is of that nature that it may be fully perceived by those who saw it i. e. if it be a common object of sense And thus it certainly was as to the person and actions of Iesus Christ. For he was of the same nature with mankind and they had as great evidence that they conversed with Iesus Christ in the flesh as we can have that we converse one with another The miracles of Christ were real and visible miracles they could be no illusions of senses nor deceits of their eyes the man who was born blind and cured by our Saviour was known to have been born blind through all the Countrey and his cure was after as publike as his blindness before and acknowledged by the greatest enemies of Christ at the time of its being done When Christ raised up the dead man at Naim it was before much people and such persons in probability who were many of them present at his death But least there might be any suspition as to him that he was not really dead the case is plain and beyond all dispute in Lazarus who had been to the knowledge of all persons thereabouts dead four dayes here could be no deceit at all when the stone was rowled away and Lazarus came forth in the presence of them all And yet further the death and passion of our Saviour was a plain object of sense done in presence of his greatest adversaries The souldiers themselves were sufficient witnesses of his being really dead when they came to break his bones and spared him because they saw he was dead already At his resurrection the stone was rowled away from the Sepulchre and no body found therein although the Sepulchre was guarded by souldiers and the Disciples of Christ all so fearful that they were dispersed up and down in several places And that it was the same real body which he rose withall and no aëreall vehicle appears by Thomas his serupulosity and unbelief who would not believe unless â—e might put his hands into the hole of his sides and see
then these were Had there been any ground of suspicion concerning the design of Christ why could not the Iews prevail with Iudas to discover it as well as to betray his person Iudas had done but a good work if Christ had been such an impostor as the Iews blasphemously said he was what made Iudas then so little satisfied with his work that he grew weary of his life upon it and threw himself away in the most horrid despair No person certainly had been so fit to have been produced as a witness against Christ as Iudas who had been so long with him and had heard his speeches and observed his miracles but he had not patience enough to stay after that horrid fact to be a witness against him nay he was the greatest witness at that time for him when he who had betrayed him came to the Sanhedrim when consulting about his death and told them that he had sinned in betraying innocent blood What possible evidence could have been given more in behalf of our Saviour then that was when a person so covetous as to betray his Master for thirty pieces of silver was so weary of his bargain that he comes and throws back the money and declares the person innocent whom he had betrayed And this person too was such a one as knew our Saviour far better then any of the witnesses whom afterwards they suborned against him who yet contradicted each other and at last could produce nothing which in the judgement of the Heathen Governour could make him judge Christ worthy of death 3. The Apostles were freer from design then any counter-witness at that time could be we have already proved the Apostles could not possibly have any other motive to affirm what they did but full conviction of the truth of what they spake but now if any among the Iews at that time had asserted any thing contrary to the Apostles we have a clear account of it and what motive might induce them to it viz. the preserving of their honour and reputation with the people the upholding their traditions besides their open and declared enmity against Christ without any sufficient reason at all for it now who would believe the testimony of the Scribes and Pharisees who had so great authority among the people which they were like to lose if Christs doctrine were true before that of the Apostles who parted with all for the sake of Christ and ventured themselves wholly upon the truth of our Saviours doctrine 4. None ever did so much to attest the negative as the Apostles did to prove their fidelity as to the affirmative Had sufficient counter-witness been timely produced we cannot think the Apostles would have run so many continual hazards in Preaching the things which related to the person and actions of Christ. Did ever any lay down their lives to undeceive the world if the Apostles were guilty of abusing it 5. The number of such persons had been inconsiderable in comparison of those who were so fully perswaded of the truth of those things which concern our Saviour who were all ready as most of them did to seal the truth of them with their lives Whence should so many men grow so suddenly confident of the truth of such things which were contrary to their former perswasions interest education had they not been delivered in such a way that they were assured of the undoubted truth of them which brings me to the last proposition which is Matters of fact being first believed on the account of eye-witnesses and received with an universal and uncontrouled assent by all such persons who have thought themselves concerned in knowing the truth of them do yeild a sufficient foundation for a firm assent to be built upon I take it for granted that there is sufficient foundation for a firm assent where there can be no reason given to question the evidence which that there is not in this present case will appear from these following considerations 1. That the multitudes of those persons who did believe these things had liberty and opportunity to be satisfied of the truth of them before they believed them Therefore no reason or motive can be assigned on which they should be induced to believe these things but the undoubted evidence of truth which went along with them I confess in Mahumetisme a very great number of persons have for some centuries of years continued in the belief of the doctrine of Mahomet but then withall there is a sufficient account to be given of that viz. the power of the sword which keeps them in aw and strictly forbids all the followers of Mahomet to dispute their religion at all or compare it with any other Therefore I can no more wonder at this then I do to see so great a part of the world under the Tyranny of the greâ—t Turk Neither on the other side do I wonder that such a multitude of those professing Christianity should together with it believe a great number of erroneous doctrines and live in the practice of many gross superstitions because I consider what a strange prevalency education hath upon softer spirits and more easie intellectuals and what an aw an Inquisition bears upon timerous and irresolved persons But now when a great multitude of persons sober and inquisitive shall contrary to the principles of their education and without fear of any humane force which they beforehand see will persecute them and after diligent enquiry made into the grounds on which they believe for sake all their former perswasions and resolvedly adhere to the truth of the doctrine propounded to them though it cost them their lives if this give us not reason to think this doctrine true we must believe mankind to be the most miserable unhappy creatures in the world that will with so much resolution part with all advantages of this life for the sake of one to come if that be not undoubtedly certain and the doctrine proposing it infallibly true It is an observable circumstance in the propagation of Christian Religion that though God made choice at first of persons generally of mean rank and condition in the world to be Preachers of the Gospel God thereby making it appear that our faith did not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God and therefore chose the weak things of the world to confound the strong yet soon afâ—er the Gospel was preached abroad in the world we finde persons of great place and reputation of great parts and abilities engaged in the profession of the Christian faith In the History of the Acts we read of Sergius a Proconsul of Dionysius the Areopagite converted to the faith and in the following ages of the Church many persons of great esteem for their excellent learning and abilities such was Iustin Martyr one who before he became a Christian was conversant with all sects of Philosophers Stoicks Peripateticks Pythagoreans and at last was a professed Platonist till he
have believed the doctrine of Christ to be the only way to salvation have been deceived either we must deny altogether a Divine Providence or say the Devil hath more power to deceive men then God to direct them which is worse then the former or else assert that there are no such things at all as either God or Devils but that all things come to pass by chance and fortune and if so it is still more inexplicable why such multitudes of rational and serious men and the most inquisitive part of the world as to such things should all be so possessed with the truth and certainty of these things and the more profane wicked and ignorant any persons are the more prone they are to mock and deride them If such men then see more into truth and reason then the sober and judicious part of mankind let us bid adieu to humanity and adore the brutes since we admire their judgement most who come the nearest to them 3. The multitude of these persons thus consenting in this Testimony could have no other engagement to this consent but only their firm perswasion of the truth of the doctrine conveyed by it because those who unanimously agree in this thing are such persons whose other designs and interests in this world differ as much as any mens do If it had been only a consent of Iews there might have been some probable pretence to have suspected a matter of interest in it but as to this thing we find the Iews divided among themselves about it and the stiffest denyers of the truth of it do yet inviolably preserve those sacred records among them from which the truth of the doctrine of Christ may be undoubtedly proved Had the Christian Religion been enforced upon the world by the Roman Emperours at the time of its first promulgation there would have been some suspicion of particular design in it but it came with no other strength but the evidence of its own truth yet it found sudden and strange entertainment among persons of all Nations and degrees of men In a short time it had eaten into the heart of the Roman Empire and made so large a spread therein that it made Tertullian say Hesterni sumus vestra omnia implevimus urbes insulas castella municipia conciliabula castraipsa tribus decurias palatium senatum forum sola vobis relinquimus Templa We have but newly appeared saith he yet we have filled all places with our company but only your Temples and before speaking of the Heathens Obsessam vociferantur civitatem in agris in castellis in insulis Christianos omnem sexum aetatem conditionem etiam dignitatem transgredi ad hoc nomen quasi detrimento moerent All sorts and conditions of men in all places were suddenly become Christians What common tye could there be now to unite all these persons together if we set aside the undoubted truth and certainty of the doctrine of Christ which was first preached to them by such who were eye-witnesses of Christs actions and had left sacred records behind them containing the substance of the doctrine of Christ and those admirable instructions which were their only certain guides in the way to heaven 4. Because many persons do joyn in this consent with true Christians who yet could heartily with that the doctrine of Christianity were not true Such are all those persons who are sensual in their lives and walk not according to the rules of the Gospel yet dare not question or deny the truth of it Such who could heartily wish there were no future state nor judgement to come that they might indulge themselves in this world without fear of another yet their consciences are so far convinced of and awed by the truth of these things that they raise many perplexities and anxieties in their minds which they would most willingly be rid of which they can never throughly be till instead of having the name of Christians they come to live the life of Christians and become experimentally acquainted with the truth and power of Religion And withall we find that the more men have been acquainted with the practice of Christianity the greater evidence they have had of the truth of it and been more fully and rationally perswaded of it To such I grant there are such powerful evidences of the truth of the doctrine of Christ by the effectual workings of the Spirit of God upon their souls that all other arguments as to their own satisfaction may fall short of these As to which those verses of the Poet Dante 's rendred into Latine by F. S. are very pertinent and significant for when he had introduced the Apostle Peter asking him what it was which his faith was founded on he answers Deinde exivit ex luce profundâ Quae illic splendebat pretiosa gemma Super quam omnis virtus fundatur i. e. That God was pleased by immediate revelation of himself to discover that divine truth to the world whereon our faith doth stand as on its sure foundation but when the Apostle goes on to enquire how he knew this came at first from God his answer to that is larga pluvia Spiritûs Sancti quae est diffusa Super veteres super novas membranas Est syllogismus ille qui eam mihi conclusit Adâ—ò acutè ut prae illâ demonstratione Omnis demonstratio alia mihi videatur obtusa i. e. That the Spirit of God doth so fully discover its self both in the Old and New Testament that all other arguments are but dull and heavy if compared with this It is true they are so to a truly inlightened conscience which discovers so much beauty and glory in the Scriptures that they ravish the soul although it be unable to give so full an account of this unto others who want the eyes to see that beauty with which a heart truly gracious hath We see ordinarily in the world that the attraction of beauty is an unaccountable thing and one may discern that which ravisheth him which another looks on as mean and ordinary and why may it not be much more thus in divine objects which want spiritual eyes to discover them Therefore I grant that good men enjoy that satisfaction to their own Consciences as to the truth of the Doctrine of Christ which others cannot attain to but yet I say that such do likewise see the most strong rational and convincing evidence which doth induce them to believe which evidence is then most convincing when it is seconded by the peculiar energy of the Spirit of God upon the souls of true Believers But yet we see that the power and force of the truth of these things may be so great even upon such minds which are not yet moulded into the fashion of true goodness that it may awe with its light and clearness where it doth not soften and alter by its heat and influence Now whence can it be that such
convictions should stick so fast in the minds of those who would fain pull out those pierâ—ing arrows but that there is a greater power in them then they are mnsters of and they cannot stand against the force whereby they come upon them nor find any salve to cure the wounds which are made within them but by those weapons which were the causes of them And therefore when wicked persons under conflicts of conscience cannot ease themselves by direct Atheism or finding reasons to cast off such convictions by discerning any invalidity in the Testimony whereon the truth of these things depends it is a certain argument that there is abundant truth in that Testimony when men would fain perswade themselves to believe the contrary and yet cannot 5. The truth of this consent appears from the unanimity of it among those persons who have yet strangely differed from each other in many controversies in Religion We see thereby this unanimity is no forced or designed thing because we see the persons agreeing in this do very much disagree from each other in other things And the same grounds and reasons whereon they disagree as to other things would have held as to these too were there not greater evidence of the certainty of these things then of those they fall out about It hath not yet become a question among those who differ so much about the sense of Scripture whether the Scripture its self be the Word of God although the very accounts on which we are to believe it to be so hath been the subject of no mean Controversies All the divided parts of the Christian world do yet fully agree in the matters of fact viz. that there was such a person as Iesus Christ and that he did many great miracles that he dyed on the Cross at Jerusalem and rose again from the dead now these contain the great foundations of Christian faith and therefore the multitude of other controversies in the world ought to be so far from weakning our faith as to the truth of the doctrine of Christ which men of weak judgements and Atheistical spirits preâ—end that it ought to be a strong confirmation of it when we see persons which so peevishly quarrel with each other about some inferiour and less weighty parts of Religion do yet unanimously consent in the principal foundations of Christian faith and such whereon the necessity of faith and obedience as the way to salvation doth more immediately depend And this may be one great reason why the infinitely wise God may suffer such lamentable contentions and divisions to be in the Christian world that thereby inquisitive persons may see that if Religion had been a meer design of some few politick persons the quarrelsom world where it is not held in by force would never have consented so long in the owning such common principles which all the other controversies are built upon And although it be continually seen that in divided parties one is apt to run from any thing which is received by the other and men generally think they can never run far enough from them whose errours they have discovered that yet this principle hath not carryed any considerable party of the Christian world out of their indignation against those great corruptions which have crept into the world under a pretence of Religion to the disowning the foundation of Christian Faith must be â—artly imputed to the signal hand of divine providence and partly to those strong â—vidences which there are of the truth of that Testimony which conveyes to uâ— the foundations of Christian Faith Thus we see now how great and uncontrouled this consent is as to the matters of fact delivered down from the eye-witnesses of them concerning the actions and miracles of our blessed Saviour which are contained in the Scriptures as authentical records of them and what a sure foundation there is for a firm assent to the truth of the things from so universal and uninterrupted a tradition Thus far we have now manifested the necessity of the miracles of Christ in order to the propagation of Christianity in the world from the consideration of the persons who were to propagate it in the world the next thing we are to considâ—r is the admirable success which the Gospel met with in the world upon its being preached to it Of whâ—ch no rational account can be given unless the actions and miracles of our Saviour were most undoubtedly true That the Gospel of Christ had very strange and wonderful success upon its first preaching hath been partly discovered already and is withall so plain from the long continuance of it in these European parts that none any wayes conversant in the history of former ages can have any ground to question it But that this strange and admirable success of the doctrine of Christ should be an evidence of the Truth of it and the miracles wrought in confirmation of it will appear from these two considerations 1. That the doctrine its self was so directly contrary to the general inclinations of the world 2. That the propagation of it was so much opposed by all worldly power 1. That the doctrine its self was so opposite to the general inclinations of the world The doctrine may be considered either as to its credenda or matters of faith or as to its agenda or matters of life and practice both these were contrary to the inclinations of the world the former seemed hard and incredible the latter harsh and impossible 1. The matters of faith which were to be believed by the world were not such things which we may imagine the vulgar sort of men would be very forward to run after nor very greedy to imbrace 1. Because contrary to the principles of their education and the Religion they were brought up in the generality of mankind is very tenacious of those principles and prejudices which are sucked in in the time of Infancy There are some Religions one would think it were impossible that any rational men should believe them but only on this account because they are bred up under them It is a very great advantage any Religion hath against another that it comes to speak first and thereby insinuates such an apprehension of its self to the mind that it is very hard removing it afterwards The understanding seems to be of the nature of those things which are communis juris and therefore primi sunt possidentis when an opinion hath once got possession of the mind it usually keeps out whatever comes to disturb it Now we cannot otherwise conceive but all those persons who had been bred up under Paganism and the most gross Idolatry must needs have a very potent prejudice against such a doctrine which was wholly irreconcileable with that Religion which they had been devoted to Now the stronger the prejudice is which is conveyed into mens minds by the force of education the greater strength and power must there needs be in
the Gospel of Christ which did so easily demolish these strong holds and captivate the understandings of men to the obedience of Christ. To which purpose Arnobius excellently speaks in these words to the Heathens Sed non creditis gesta haec Sed qui ea conspicati sunt fieri sub oculis suis viderunt agi testes optimi certissimique auctores crediderunt haec ipsi credenda posteris nobis haud exilibus cum approbationibus tradiderunt Quinam isti fortasse quaeritis gentes populi nationes incredulum illud genus humanum Quod nisi aperta res esset luce ipsa quemadmodum dicitur clarior nunquam rebus hujusmodi credulitatis suae commodarent assensum An nunquid dicemus illius temporis homines usque adeò fuisse vanos mendaces stolidos brutos ut quae nunquam viderant vidisse se fingerent quae facta omninò non erant falsis proderent testimoniis aut puerili assertione sirmarent Cumque possent vobiscum unanimiter vivere inoffensas ducere conjunctiones gratuita susciperent odia execrabili haberentur in nomine Quod si falsa ut dicit is historia illa rerum est unde tam brevi tempore totus mundus ista religione complet us est Aut in unam coire qui potuërunt mentem gentes regionibus dissiâ—â—ae ventis coelique convexionibus dimotae Asseverationibus illectae sunt nudis inductae in spes cassas in pericula capitis immittere se sponte temeraria desperatione voluërunt cum nihil tale vidissent quod eas in hos cult us novitatis suae possit excitare miraculo Imo quia haec omnia ab ipso cernebant geri ab ejus praeconibus qui per orbem totum missi beneficia patris munera sanandis animis hominibusque portabant veritatis ipsius vi victae dedërunt se Deo nec in magnis posuëre despendiis membra vobis projicere viscera sua lanianda praebere The substance of whose discourse is that it is impossible to suppose so many persons of so many Nations to be so far besotted and infatuated as not only to believe a Religion to be true which was contrary to that they were educated in but to venture their lives as well as estates upon it had it not been discovered to them in a most certain and infallible way by such who had been eye-witnesses of the actions and miracles of Christ and his Apostles And as he elsewhere speaks Vel haec saltem fidem vobis faciant argumenta credendi quod jam peromnes terras in tam brevi tempore parvo immensi nominis hujus sacramenta diffusa sunt quod nulla jam natio est tam barbari moris mansuetudinem nesciens quae non ejus amore versa molliverit asperitatem suam in placidos sensus assumpt â tranquillitate migraverit quod tam magnis ingeniis praediti Oratores Grammatici Rhetores Consulti juris ac Medici Philosophiae etiam secreta rimantes magisteria haec expetunt spretis quibus paulò ante sidebant c. Will not this perswade the world what firm foundations the faith of Christans stands on when in so short a time it is spread over all parts of the world that by it the most inhumane and barbarous Nations are softned into more then civility That men of the greatest wits and parts Orators Grammarians Rhetoricians Lawyers Physitians Philosophers who not have for saken then former sentiments and adhered to the doctrine of Christ. Now I say if the power of education be so strong upon the minds of men to perswade them of the truth of the Religion they are bred up under which Atheistically disposed persons make so much advantage of this is so far from weakning the truth of Christianity that it proves a great confirmation of it because it obtained so much upon its first Preaching in the world notwithstanding the highest prejudices from education were against it If then men be so prone to believe that to be most true which they have been educated under it must argue a more then ordinary evidence and power in that religion which unsettles so much the principles of education as to make men not only question the truth of them but to renounce them and embrace a religion contrary to them Especially when we withall consider what strong-holds these principles of education were backed with among the Heathens when the doctrine of Christ was first divulged among them i. e. what plausible pretences they had of continuing in the religion which they were brought up in and why they should not exchange it for Christianity and those were 1. The pretended antiquity of their religion above the Christian the main thing pleaded against the Christians was divortium ab institutis majorum that they thought themselves wiser then their fore-fathers and Symmachus Libanius and others plead this most in behalf of Paganisme servanda est tot seculis fides sequendi sunt nobis parentes qui secuti sunt feliciter suos their religion pleaded prescription against any other and they were resolved to sollow the steps of their ancestors wherein they thought themselves happy and secure Caecilius in Minutius Felix first argues much against dogmatizing in religion but withall sayes it most becomes a lover of truth majorum excipere disciplinam religiones tradit as colere Deos quos à parentibus ante imbutus es timere nec de numinibus ferre sententiam sed prioribus credere So Arnobius tells us the main thing objected against the Christians was novellam esse religionem nostram ante dies natam propemodum paucos nâ—que vos potuisse antiquam patriam linquere in barbaros ritus peregrinosque traduci And Cotta in Tully long before laid this down as the main principle of Pagan religion majoribus nostris etiam nulla ratione reddita credere to believe the tradition of our Fathers although there be no evidence in reason for it And after he hath discovered the vanity of the Stoical arguments about religion concludes with this as the only thing he resolved his religion into mihi unum satis erit majores nostros it a tradidisse It is enough for me that it comes by tradition from our fore-fathers Lactantius fully sets forth the manner of pleading used by the Heathens against the Christians in the point of antiquity Hae sunt religiones quas sibi à majoribus suis traditas pertinacissime tueri ac defendere persiverant nec considerant quales sint sed ex hoc probat as atque veras esse confidunt quod eas veteres tradiderâ—nt tantaque est auctoritas vetustatis ut inquircre in eam scelus esse dicatur The English is they accounted tradition infallible and knew no other way whereby to find the truth of religion but by its conveyance from their fore-fathers How like herein do they speak to those
seek for satisfaction as ever for granting that a Divine power is seen in one and not in the other he must needs be still dissatisfied unless it can be made evident to him that such things are from Divine power and others cannot be Now the main distinction being placed here in the natures of the things abstractly considered and not as they bear any evidence to our understandings in stead of resolving doubts it increaseth more for as for instance in the case of the Magicians rods turning into scrpents as well as Moses his what satisfaction could this yeild to any spectator to tell him that in the one there was a Divine power and not in the other unless it were made appear by some evidence from the thing that the one was a meer imposture and the other a real alteration in the thing it self I take it then for granted that no general discourses concerning the formal difference of miracles and wonders considered in themselves can afford any rational satisfaction to an inquisitive mind that which alone is able to give it must be something which may be discerned by any judicious and considerative person And that God never gives to any a power of miracles but he gives some such ground of satisfaction concerning them will appear upon these two considerations 1. From Gods intention in giving to any this power of doing miracles We have largely made it manifest that the end of true miracles is to be a confirmation to the world of the Divine commission of the persons who have it and that the testimony is Divine which is confirmed by it Now if there be no way to know when miracles are true or false this power is to no purpose at all for men are as much to seek for satisfaction as if there had been no such things at all Therefore if men are bound to believe a Divine testimony and to rely on the miracles wrought by the persons bringing it as an evidence of it they must have some assurance that these miracles could not come from any but a Divine power 2. From the providence of God in the world which if we own we cannot imagine that God should permit the Devil whose only design is to ruine mankind to abuse the credulity of the world so far as to have his lying wonders pass uncontrouled which they must do if nothing can be found out as a certain difference between such things as are only of Diabolical and such as are of Divine power If then it may be discovered that there is a malignant spirit which acts in the world and doth produce strange things either we must impute all strange things to him which must be to attribute to him an infinite power or else that there is a being infinitely perfect which crosseth this malignant spirit in his designs and if so we cannot imagine he should suffer him to usurpe so much tyranny over the minds of men as to make those things pass in the more sober and inquisitive part of the world for Divine miracles which were only counterfeits and impostures If then the providence of God be so deeply engaged in the discovering the designs of Satan there must be some means of this discovery and that means can be supposed to be no other in this case but some rational and satisfactory evidence whereby we may know when strange and miraculous things are done by Satan to deceive men and when by a Divine power to confirm a Divine testimony But how is it possible say some that miracles should be any ground on which to believe a testimony Divine when Christ himself hath told us that there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders in so much that if it were possible they should deceive the very elect and the Apostle tells us that the coming of Antichrist will be with all power and signs and lying wonders How then can we fix on miracles as an evidence of Divine testimony when we see they are common to good and bad men and may seal indifferently either truth or falshood To this I reply 1. Men are guilty of doing no small disservice to the doctrine of Christ when upon such weak and frivolous pretences they give so great an advantage to infidelity as to call in question the validity of that which yeilded so ample a testimony to the truth of Christian religion For if once the rational grounds on which we believe the doctrine of Christ to be true and Divine be taken away and the whole evidence of the truth of it be laid on things not only derided by men of Atheistical spirits but in themselves such as cannot be discerned or judged of by any but themselves upon what grounds can we proceed to convince an unbeliever that the doctrine which we believe is true If they tell him that as light and fire manifest themselves so doth the doctrine of the Scriâ—ture to those who believe it It will be soon replyed that self-evidence in a matter of faith can imply nothing but either a firm perswasion of the mind concerning the thing propounded or else that there are such clear evidences in the thing it self that none who freely use their reason can deny it the first can be no argument to any other person any further then the authority of the person who declares it to have such self-evidence to him doth extend its self over the mind of the other and to ones self it seems a strange way of arguing I believe the Scriptures because they are true and they are true because I believe them for self-evidence implyes so much if by it be meant the perswasion of the mind that the thing is true but if by self-evidence be further meant such clear evidence in the matter propounded that all who do consider it must believe it I then further enquire whether this evidence doth lie in the nâ—ked proposal of the things to the understanding and if so then every one who assents to this proposition that the whole is greater then the part must likewise assent to this that the Scripture is the Word of God or whether doth the evidence lie not in the naked proposal but in the efficacy of the Spirit of God on the minds of those to whom it is propounded Then 1. The self-evidence is taken off from the written Word which was the object and removed to a quite different thing which is the efficient cause 2. Whether then any persons who want this efficacious operation of the Spirit of God are or can be bound to believe the Scripture to be Gods Word If they are bound the duty must be propounded in such a way as may be sufficient to convince them that it is their duty but if all the evidence of the truth of the Scripture lie on this testimony of the Spirit then such as want this can have none at all But if â—astly by this self-evidence be meant
reason and the light of nature i. e. that the Idea of God or that which we conceive in our minds when we think of God is so far from being any wayes repugnant to any principle of reason within us that it is hard to pitch on any other notion which hath sewer entanglements in it to a mind so far Metaphysical as to abstract from sense and prejudice I grant it very difficult nay impossible for those to have any true setled notion of a God who search for an Idea of him in their fancies and were never conscious to themselves of any higher faculty in their souls then meer imagination Such may have imaginem Iovis or galeatae Minerva as he in Tully speaks some Idea of an Idol in their minds but none of a true God For we may as soon come by the sight of colours to understand the nature of sounds as by any corporal phantasmes come to have a true Idea of God And although sometimes an Idea be taken for that impression of things which is lodged in the P hantasie yet here we take it in a more general sense as it contains the representation of any thing in the mind as it is commonly said in the Schools that the Divine Intellect doth understand things by their Idea's which are nothing else but the things themselves as they are objectively represented to the understanding So that an Idea in its general sense in which we take it is nothing else but the objective being of a thing as it terminates the understanding and is the form of the act of Intellection that which is then immediately represented to the mind in its perception of things is the Idea or notion of it Now such an Idea as this is may be either true or false For better understanding of which we must consider that an Idea in the soul may be considered two wayes 1. As it is a mode of cogitation or the act of the soul apprehending an object now this way no Idea can be false for as it is an act of the mind every Idea hath its truth for whether I imagine a golden mountain or another it matters not here for the one Idea is as true as the other considering it meerly as an act of the mind For the mind is as really imployed about the one as the other as the will is about an object whether it be feasible or no. 2. The Idea may be considered in regard of its objective reality or as it represents some outward object now the truth or falshood of the Idea lies in the understanding passing judgement concerning the outward object as existent which doth correspond to the Idea which is in the mind And the proneness of the understandings error in this case ariseth from the different nature of those things which are represented to the mind for some of them are general and abstracted things and do not at all suppose existence as the nature of truth of a Being of cogitation other Idea's depend upon existence supposed as the Idea of the Sun which I apprehend in my mind because I have seen it but besides these there are other Idea's in the mind which the understanding forms within its self by its own power as it is a principle of cogitation such are those whâ—ch are called entiarationis and have no other existence at all but only in the understanding as Chimaera's Centaures c. Now as to these we are to observe that although the composition of these things together by the understanding be that which makes these Idea's to be only fictitious yet the understanding would not be able to compound such things were they not severally represented to the mind as unless we had known what a horse and a man had been our minds could not have conjoyned them together in its apprehension So that in these which are the most fictitious Idea's we see that although the Idea its self be a meer creature of the understanding yet the mind could not form such an Idea but upon praeexistent matter and some objective reality must be supposed in order to the intellectual conception of these Anomalous entityes By which we see that that strange kind of omnipotency which some have attributed to the understanding lies not in a power of conceiving things wholly impossible or fancying Idea's of absolute non-entityes but in a kind of African copulation of such species of things together which in nature seem wholly incompossible as the Schools speak or have no congruity at all in the order of the universe So that had there never been any such things in the world as matter and motion it is very hard to conceive how the understanding could have formed within its self the variety of the species of such things which are the results of those two grand principles of the Universe But because it is so impossible for minds not very contemplative and Metaphysical to abstract from matter thence it is we are apt to imagine such a power in the understanding whereby it may form Idea's of such things which have no objective reality at all I grant those we call entia rationis have no external reality as they are such but yet I say the existence of matter in the world and the corporeal phantasmes of outward beings are the foundation of the souls conception of those entityes which have no existence beyond the humane Intellect The great enquiry then is how far this Plastick power of the understanding may extend its self in its forming an Idea of God That there is such a one in the minds of men is evident to every one that consults his own faculties and enquires of them whether they cannot apprehend a setled and consistent notion of a Being which is absolutely perfect For that is all we understand by the Idea of God not that there is any such connate Idea in the soul in the sense which connate Idea's are commonly understood but that there is a faculty in the soul whereby upon the free use of reason it can form within its self a setled notion of such a Being which is as perfect as it is possible for us to conceive a Being to be If any difficulty be made concerning the forming such a notion in ones mind let the person who scruples it only enquire of himself whether he judges all Beings in the world equal whether a mushrome hath in it all the perfections which man hath which I suppose none who have a minde within them can question If then it be granted that man hath some perfections in him above inferiour creatures it will be no matter of difficulty to shew wherein man exceeds other inferiour Beings For is not life a greater perfection then the want of it is not reason and knowledge a perfection above sense and so let us proceed to those things wherein one man differs from another for it is evident that all men are not of equal accomplishments is not then forecast
is to say he is no God Which was the reason that Tully said Epicurus did only nomine poncre re tollere Deos because such a notion of God is repugnant to natural light So that if this Idea doth wholly abstract from corporeal phantasms it thereby appears that there is a higher faculty in mans soul then meer imagination and it is hardly conceivable whence a faculty which thus extends its self to an infinite object should come but from an infinite Being especially if we consider 2. That the understanding in forming this Idea of God doth not by distinct acts first collect one perfection and then another and at last unite these together but the simplicity and unity of all these perfections is as necessarily conceived as any of them Granting then that the understanding by the observing of several perfections in the world might be able to abstract these severally from each being wherein they were yet whence should the Idea of the unity and inseparability of all these perfections come The mind may it is true knit some things together in fictitious Idea's but then those are so far from unity with each other that in themselves they speak mutual repugnancy to one another which makes them proper entia rationis but these several perfections are so far from speaking repugnancy to each other that the unity and inseparability of them is as necessary to the forming of this Idea as any other perfection whatsoever So that from hence it appears that the consideration of the perfections which are in the creatures is only an occasion given to the mind to help it in its Idea of God and not that the Idea its self depends upon those perfections as the causes of it as in the clearest Mathematical truths the manner of demonstration may be necessary to help the understanding to its clearer assent though the things in themselves be undoubtedly true For all minds are not equally capable of the same truths some are of quicker apprehension then others are now although to slower apprehensions a more particular way of demonstrating things be necessary yet the truths in themselves are equal though they have not equal evidence to several persons 3. It appears that this is no meer fictitious Idea from the uniformity of it in all persons who have freed themselves from the entanglements of corporeal phantasms Those we call entia rationis we find by experienee in our minds that they are formed ad placitum we may imagine them as many wayes as we please but we see it is quite otherwise in this Idea of God for in those attributes or perfections which by the light of nature we attribute to God there is an uniform consent in all those who have devested their minds of corporeal phantasms in their conceptions of God For while men have agreed that the object of their Idea is a being absolutely perfect there hath been no dissent in the perfections which have been attributed to it none have questioned but infinite wisdom goodness and power joyned with necessity of existence have been all implyed in this Idea So that it is scarce pâ—ssible to instance in any one Idea no not of those things which are most obvious to our senses wherein there hath been so great an uniformity of mens conceptions as in this Idea of God And the most gross corporeal Idea of the most sensible matter hath been more lyable to heats and disputes among Philosophers then this Idea of a being Infinite and purely spiritual Which strongly proves my present proposition that this Idea of God is very consonant to natural light for it is hardly conceivable that there should be so universal a consent of minds in this Idea were it not a natural result from the free use of our reason and faculties And that which adds further weight tâ— this argument is that although Infinity be so necessarily implyed in this Idea of God yet men do not attribute all kind of Infinite things to God for there being conceivable Infinite number Infinite longitude as well as infinite power and knowledge our minds readily attribute the latter to God and as readily abstract the other from his nature which is an argument this Idea is not fictitious but argues reality in the thing correspondent to our conception of it So much may suffice to clear the first proposition viz. that the notion of a God is very suitable to the faculties of mens souls and to that light of nature which they proceed by in forming the conceptions of things Those who deny that there is a God do assert other things on far less evidence of reason and must by their own principles deny some things which are apparently true One would expect that such persons who are apt to condemn the whole world of folly in believing the truth of Religion and would fain be admired as men of a deeper reach and greater wit and sagacity then others would when they have exploded a Deity at least give us some more rational and consistent account of things then we can give that there is a God But on the contrary we find the reasons on which they reject a Deity so lamentably weak and so easily retorted upon themselves and the hypotheses they substitute instead of a Deity so precarious obscure and uncertain that we need no other argument to evince the reasonableness of Religion then from the manifest folly as well as impiety of those who oppose it Which we shall make evident by these two things 1. That while they deny a Deity they assert other things on far less reason 2. That by those principles on which they deny a Deity they must deny some things which are apparently true 1. That they assert some things on far less reason then we do that there is a God For if there be not an infinitely powerful God who produced the world out of nothing it must necessarily follow according to the different principles of the Aristotelian and Epicurean Atheists that either the world was as it is from all eternity or else that it was at first made by the fortuitous concourse of Atoms Now I appeal to the reason of any person who hath the free use of it Whether either of these two Hypotheses urged with the same or greater difficulties c. be not far more weakly proved then the existence of a Deity is or the production of the world by him 1. They run themselves into the same difficulties which they would avoid in the belief of a Deity and nothing can be a greater evidence of an intangled mind then this is To deny a thing because of some difficulty in it and instead of it to assert another thing which is chargeable with the very same difficulty in a higher degree Thus when they reject a Deity because they cannot understand what infinity means both these Hypotheses are lyable to the same intricacy in apprehending the nature of something Infinite For according to the Epicureans
our senses more assured of then that the snow is white yet all the Philosophers were not of that opinion Is this then sufficient reason on which to deny an universal consent because some Philosophers opposed it when it is most undoubtedly true which Tully sharply speaks of the antient Philosophers Nihil tam absurdum quod non dixerit aliquis Philosophorum there was no absurdity so great but it found a Philosopher to vouch it But in this case those Philosophers who questioned the existence of a Deity though they were not for number to be compared with those who asserted it yet were not so inexcusable therein as our modern Atheists because they then knew no other way of Religion but that which was joyned with horrible superstition and ridiculous rites of worship they were strangers to any thing of divine revelation or to any real miracles wrought to confirm it and to such a way of serving God which is most agreeable to the Divine nature most suitable to our reason most effectual for advancing true goodness in the world And although this most excellent Religion viz. the Christian be subject to many scandals by reason of the corruptions which have been mixed with it by those who have professed it yet the Religion its self is clear and untainted being with great integrity preserved in the sacred records of it So that now Athcism hath far less to plead for its self then it had in the midst of the ignorance and superstition of the Heathen Idolatries But if we should grant the Athcist more then he can prove that the number of such who denyed a Deity hath been great in all ages of the world is it probable they should speak the sense of nature whose opinion if it were embraced would dissolve all tyes and obligations whatsoever would let the world loose to the highest licentiousness without check or controul and would in time overturn all civil Societies For as Tully hath largely shewn Take away the being and providence of God out of the world and there follows nothing but perturbation and confusion in it not only all sanctity piety and devotion is destroyed but all faith vertue and humane Societies too which are impossible to be upheld without Religion as not only he but Plato Aristotle and Plutarch have fully demonstrated Shall such persons then who hold an opinion so contrary to all other dictates of nature rather speak the sense of nature then they who have asserted the Belief of a Deity which tends so much to advance nature to regulate the world and to reform the lives of men Certainly if it were not a dictate of nature that there was a God it is impossible to conceive the world should be so constant in the belief of him when the thoughts of him breed so many anxicties in mens minds and withall since God is neither obvious to sense nor his nature comprehensible by humane reason Which is a stronger evidence it is a character of himself which God hath imprinted on the minds of men which makes them so unanimously agree that he is when they can neither see him nor yet fully comprehend him For any whole Nation which have consented in the denyal of a Deity we have no evidence at all some suspicions it is true there were at first concerning some very barbarous people in America but it is since evident though they are grosly mistaken as to the nature of God yet they worship something in stead of him such as the Toupinambors Caribes Patagons Tapuiae and others of the last of which Vossius from one Christophorus Arcissewski a Polonian Gentleman who was among them hath given a large account of their Religion and the manner of their worshipping of their gods both good and bad And that which among these Indians much confirms our present argument is that only those who have been the most barbarous and savage Nations have been suspected of irreligion but the more civilized they have been the more evident their sense of Religion The Peruvians worship one chief God whom they call Viracocha and Pachacamak which is as much as the Creator of heaven and earth And of the Religion of the Mexicans Lipsius and others speak So that the nearer any have approached to civility and knowledge the more ready they have been to own a Deity and none have had so little sense of it as they who are almost degenerated to Brutes and whether of these two now comes nearer to reason let any one who hath it judge Another great evidence that God hath imprinted a character or Idea of himself on the minds of men is because such things are contained in this Idea of God which do necessarily imply his existence The main force of this argument lies in this That which we do clearly distinctly perceive to belong to the nature and essence of a thing may be with truth affirmed of the thing not that it may be affirmed with truth to belong to the nature of the thing for that were an empty Tautology but it may be affirmed with truth of the thing its self as if I clearly perceive upon exact enquiry that to be an animal doth belong to the nature of man I may with truth affirm that man is a living creature if I find it demonstrably true that a Triangle hath three angles equal to two right ones then I may truly affirm it of any Triangle but now we assume that upon the most exact search and enquiry I clearly perceive that necessary existence doth immutably belong to the nature of God therefore I may with as much truth affirm that God exists as that man is a living creature or a Triangle hath three angles equal to two right ones But because many are so apt to suspect some kind of Sophism in this argument when it is managed from the Idea in mens minds because that seems to imply only an objective reality in the mind and that nothing can be thence interred as to the existence of the thing whose Idea it is I therefore shall endeavour to manifest more clearly the force of this argument by proving severally the suppositions which it stands upon which are these three 1. That clear and distinct perception of the mind is the greatest evidence we can have of the truth of any thing 2. That we have this clear perception that necessary existence doth belong to the nature of God 3. That if necessary existence doth belong to Gods nature it unavoidably follows that he doth exist Nothing can be desired more plain or full to demonstrate the force of this argument then by proving every one of these 1. That the greatest evidence we can have of the truth of a thing is a clear and distinct perception of it in our minds For otherwise the rational faculties of mans soul would be wholly useless as being not fitted for any end at all if upon a right use of them men were still lyable
sense of the truth of this Hypothesis and let him extend his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as long as he please which was his great help for correcting the errors of sense viz. as it was in the Roman court when the case was not clear ampliandum est So Epicurus would have the object represented every way it could be before he past his judgement yet this prudent caution would do him no good for this Hypothesis unless he were so wise as to stay till this world were crumbled into Atoms again that by that he might judge of the Origine of it There is but one way left to finde out the truth of things inevident to sense as by Epicurus his own confession all these Atoms are which are now the component particles of bodyes much more those which by their fortuitous concourse gave Being to the world and that is if something evident to sense doth apparently prove it which is his way of proving a Vacuity in nature from motion but though that be easily answered by principles different from those of Epicurus and more rational yet that very way of probation fails him in his present Hypothesis For what is there evident to sense which proves a fortuitous concourse of Atoms for the production of things nay if we grant him that the composition of bodyes is nothing else but the contexture of these insensible particles yet this is far from being an evidence to sense that these particles without any wise and directing providence should make up such bodyes as we see in the world And here when we speak of the evidence of sense we may well ask as the Stoick in Tully doth whether ever Epicurus found a Poeme made by the casual throwing of letters together and if a concourse of Atoms did produce the world cur porticum cur templum cur domum cur urbem non potest why did it never produce a cloyster a temple a house a city which are far easier things then the world I know Epicurus will soon reply that things are otherwise in the world now then when it was first produced I grant it and from thence prove that because no such thing ever happens in the world now as a meerly casual concourse of Atoms to produce any thing Epicurus could have no evidence from sense at all to finde out the truth of his Hypothesis by And as little relief can he finde from his second Criterium viz. Anticipation for by his own acknowledgement all Anticipation depends on the senses and men have it only one of these four wayes 1. By incursion as the species of a man is preserved by the sight of him 2. By proportion as we can inlarge or contract that species of a man either into a Gyant or Pygmy 3. By similitude as we may fancy the image of a City by resemblance to one which we have seen 4. By composition whereby we may joyn different images together as of a horse and man to make a Centaure Now though it be very questionable how some of these wayes belong to a Criterium of truth yet none of them reach our case for there can be no incursion of insensible particles as such upon our senses we may indeed by proportion imagine the parvitude of them but what is this to the proving the truth of the Hypothesis Similitude can do no good unless Epicurus had ever seen a world made so the only relief must be from composition and that will prove the Origine of the world by Atoms to be as true as that there are Centaures in the world which we verily believe These are the only Criteria by which Epicurus would judge of the truth of natural things by for the third Passion relates wholly to things Moral and not Physical and now let any one judge whether the Hypothesis of the Origine of the Universe by Atoms can ever be proved true either by the judgement of sense or by Anticipation The way they had to prove this Hypothesis was insufficient and that was by proving that the bodyes of the world are compounded of such insensible particles Now granting the thing I deny the consequence for what though the composition of bodyes be from the contexture of Atoms doth it therefore follow that these particles did casually produce these bodyes nay doth it at all follow that because bodyes upon their resolution do fall into insensible particles of different size figure and motion therefore these particles must be praeexistent to all bodyes in the world For it is plain that there is now an Universal lump of matter out of which these insensible particles arise and whether they return on the dissolution of bodyes and all these various corpuscles may be of the same uniform substance only with the alteration of size shape and motion but what then doth this prove that because particular bodyes do now emerge out of the various configuration and motion of insensible paerticles of that matter which exists in the world that therefore this whole matter was produced by the casual occursions of these Atoms It will ask more time and pains then is usually taken by the Philosophers either ancient or modern to prove that those things whatsoever they are whether elements or particles out of which bodyes are supposed to be compounded do exist separately from such compounded bodyes and antecedently to them We finde no Aristotelian elements pure in the world nor any particles of matter destitute of such a size figure and motion as doth make some body or other From whence then can we infer either the existence of Aristotles materia prima without quiddity quantity or quality or the Epicurean Atoms without such a contexture as make up some bodyes in the world Our profound Naturalist Dr. Harvey after his most accurate search into the natures and Generation of things delivers this as his experience and judgement concerning the commonly reputed elements or principles of bodyes For speaking of the different opinions of Empedocles and Hippocrates and Democritus and Epicurus concerning the composition of bodyes he adds Ego vero neque in animalium productione nec omnino in ulla corporum similarium generatione sive ea partium animalium sive plantarum lapidum mineralium c. fuerit vel congregationem ejusmodi vel miscibilia diversa in generation is opere unienda praeexistere observare unquam potui And after explaining the way which he conceived most rational and consonant to experience in the Generation of things he concludes his discourse with these words Idemque in omni generatione furi crediderim adeo ut corpora similaria mista elementa sua tempore priora non habeant sed illa potius element is suis prius existant nempe Empedoclis atque Aristotel is igne aqua aëre terra vel Chymicorum sale sulphure Mercurio aut Democriti Atomis utpote natura quoque ipsis perfectiora Sunt inquam mista composita etiam tempore priora element is
from eternity together with matter it must necessarily exist as matter doth and so evil will be invincible and unavoidable in the world which if once granted renders Religion useless makes Gods commands unrighteous and destroyes the foundation of Gods proceedings in the day of judgment 3. This opinion makes God not to be the author of good while it denyes him to be the Author of evil For either there was nothing else but evil in this eternal matter or there was a mixture of good and evil if nothing else but evil which did necessarily exist it were as impossible for God to produce good out of it as to annihilate the necessarily existent matter If thâ—re were a mixture of good and evil they were both there either necessarily or contingently how could either of them be contingently in that which is supposed to be necessarily existent and no free agent If they be both there necessarily 1. It is hard conceâ—ving how two such contrary things as good and evil should both necessarily be in the same uniform matter 2. Then God is no more the Author of good then of evil in the world for he is said not to be the Authâ—r of evil because it comes from matter and so it appears good doth too and so God according to this opinion is no more the Author of good then he is of evil But if it be said that good is not in matter but God produced that out of nothing Then I reply 1. If God did produce good out of nothiâ—g why did he not produce matter out of nothing too iâ— he were so powerful as to do the one there could be no de ect of power as to the other What insufficiency is there in Gods nature for producing all things out of nothing if he can produce any thing out of nothing 2. If God did produce good out of evil why could he not have removed all evil out of matter for good could not be produced but by the removing of some evil which was before that good and so God might have removed all evil out of matter And so by not doing it when he might this opinion gives not the least satisfaction in point of reason for acquitting God from being the Author of sin nor for clearing the true Origine of evil Thus we have now compared the account given of it in Scripture with that given by the Heathen Philosophers and find it in every thing more clear rational and satisfactory then theirs is Which doubtless is the reason why the more modern Philosophers such as Hierocles Porphyrie Simplicius and others though otherwise great opposers of Christianity did yet in this side with the Scriptures and attribute the original of evil not to matter but to the Will of man And whoever is seriously conversant with the writings of those Philosophers who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the sacred succâ—ssion out of the School of Ammonius at Alexandria such as Plotinus Porphyrius Iamblichus and Hierocles will find them wriâ—â— in a higher strain concerning many weighty and importan◠〈◊〉 as of the degeneracy of mens souls from God and tâ—e way of the souls returning to him then the most sublime of the ancient Philosophers had done Which speculations of theirs no doubt arose not so much from the School of Plato and Pythagoras as of that great restorer oâ— Philosophy Ammonius of Alexandria whose Sâ—bolars Herâ—nnius Origen and Plotinus were Who living and dying a â—hristian as Eusebius and Hierom assure us whateveâ— Porphyrius suggests to the contrary did communicate to his Sâ—holars the sublimer mysteries of Divine revâ—lâ—tion togeâ—her wâ—â—h the speculations of the ancienâ— Philoâ—ophers which Holstenius conceives he did with an adjuration oâ— secrecy which he tells us Porphyrius himself acknowledgeth that those three Scholars of Ammonius Herennius Origen and Plâ—tinus were under an obligation to each other not to reveal and discover though it were after violated by them It is an easie matter to conceive what an excellent improvement might be made of the ancient Platonick Philosophy by the advantage of the Scriptures by one who was so well versed in both of them as Ammonius is supposed to have been and how agreeable and becoming would that Philosophy seem which had only its rise from Plato but its height and improvement from those rich and truly divine Truths which were inlaid with them The want of observing this viz. whence it was that those excellent discourses in the later Platonists had their true original hath given occasion to several mistakes among learned men as first the over valuing of the Platonick Philosophy as though in many of the discourses and notions of it it seemed to some who were more in Love with Philosophy then the Scriptures to outgo what is discovered therein concerning the same things A most groundless and unworthy censure when it is more then probable and might be largely manifested were it here a fit opportunity that whatever is truly generous and noble in the sublimist discourses of the Platonists had not only its primitive rise but its accession and improvement from the Scriptures wherein it is still contained in its native lustre and beauty without those paintings and impure mixtures which the suâ—â—â—mest truths are corrupted with in the Platonick writiâ—â— The reason of which is though these Philosophers grew â—â—ddenly rich through the spoyles they had taken out of the Scriptures yet they were loth to be known from whence they had them and would seem to have had that out of their own gardens which was only transplanted from the Sacred writings Therefore we find them not mentioning the Scriptures and the Christian doctrine without some contempt of its meanness and simplicity what ever improvement they had gained by them they would have it less taken notice of by professing their opposition to the Christians as is notorious in those great Philosophers Porphyrius Iamblichus Hierocles Simplicius and oâ—hers It being their design to take so much and no more out of the Christian doctrine as they could well suite with their Platâ—nick notions by which means they so disguised the faces of the Truths they stole that it were hard for the right owners of them to know them again Which was the grand artifice of their great Master Plato who doubtless by means of his abode and acquaintance in Aegypt about the time when the Iews began to flock thither had more certain knowledge of many truths of grand importance concerning the Deity the nature of the soul the Origine of the world then many other Greek Philosophers had but yet therein lay his great fault that he wrapt up and disguised his notions in such a fabulous and ambiguous manner that partly it might be less known from whence he had them and that they might find better entertainment among the Greeks then they were ever like to do in their plain and native dress Which Plato himself seems somewhere to intimate when he saith that what
after the flood Of the Chronology of the LXX Of the time between the flood and Abraham and the advantages of it Of the pretence of such Nations who called themselves Aborigines A discourse concerning the first plantation of Greece the common opinion propounded and rejected The Hellens not the first inhabitants of Greece but the Pelasgi The large spread of them over the parts of Greece Of their language different from the Greeks Whence these Pelasgi came that Phaleg was the Pelasgus of Greece and the leader of that Colony proved from Epiphanius the language of the Pelasgi in Greece Oriental thence an account given of the many Hebrew words in the Greek language and the remainders of the Eastern languages in the Islands of Greece both which not from the Phaenicians as Bochartus thinks but from the old Pelasgi Of the ground of the affinity between the Jews and Lacedaemonians Of the peopling of Amercia THE next thing we proceed to give a rational account of in the history of the fiâ—â—t ages of the world contained in Scripture is the peopling of the world from Adam Which is of great consequence for us to understand not only for the satisfaction of our curiosity as to the true Origine of Nations but also in order to our believing the truth of the Scriptures and the universal effects of the fall of man Neither of which can be sufficiently cleared without this For as it is hard to conceive how the effects of mans fall should extend to all mankinde unless all mankind were propagated from Adam so it is unconceivable how the account of things given in Scripture should be true if there were persons existent in the world long before Adam was Since the Scripture doth so plainly affirm that God hath made of one blood all Nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth Some Greek copyes read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leaving out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the vulgar Latin follows the Arabick version to explain both reads it ex homine or as De Dieu renders it ex Adamo uno there being but the difference of one letter in the Eastern languages between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one denoting blood and the other man But if we take it as our more ordinary copyes read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet thereby it is plain that the meaning is not that all mankind was made of the same uniform matter as the author of the Prae-Adamites weakly imagined for by that reason not only mankind but the whole world might be said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same blood since all things in the world were at first formed out of the same matter but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken there in the sense in which it occurs in the best Greek authors for the stock out of which men come So Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thence those who are near relations are called in Sophocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thence the name of Consanguinity for nearness of relation and Virgil useth sanguis in the same sense Trojano à sanguine duci So that the Apostles meaning is that however men now are so dispersed in their habitations and differ so much in language and customs from each other yet they all were originally of the same stock and did derive their succession from that first man whom God created Neither can it be conceived on what account Adam in the Scripture is called the first man and that he was made a living soul and of the earth earthy unless it were to denote that he was absolutely the first of his kind and so was to be the standard and measure of all that follows And when our Saviour would reduce all things to the beginning he instanceth in those words which were pronounced after Eve was formed But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female for this cause shall a man leave Father and Mother and cleave unto his Wife Now nothing can be more plain and easie then from hence to argue thus those of whom those words were spoken were the first male and female which were made in the beginning of the Creation but it is evident these words were spoken of Adam and Eve And Adam said this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh therefore shall a man leave his Father and his Mother and shall cleave unto his Wife If the Scriptures then of the New Testament be true it is most plain and evident that all mankind is descended from Adam and no less conspicuous is it from the history of the Creation as delivered by Moses For how necessary had it been for Moses when he was giving an account of the Origine of things to have discovered by whom the world was first planted if there had been any such plantation before Adam but to say that all the design of Moses was only to give an account of the Origine and history of the Iewish Nation and that Adam was only the first of that stock is manifestly ridiculous it being so clear that not only from Adam and Noah but from Sem Abraham and Isaac came other Nations besides that of Iews And by the same reason that it is said that Moses only speaks of the Origine of the Iewish Nation in the history of Adam it may as well be said that Moses speaks only of the making of Canaan and that part of the heavens which was over it when he describes the Creation of the world in the six dayes work For why may not the earth in the second ver of Genesis be as well understood of the Land of Iudea and the light and production of animals and vegetables refer only to that as to understand it so in reference to the flood and in many other passages relating to those eldest times But the Author of that Hypothesis answers That the first Chapter of Genesis may relate to the true Origine of the world and the first peopling of it but in the second Moses begins to give an account of the first man and woman of the Iewish Nation Very probable but if this be not a putting asunder those which God hath joyned together nothing is For doth not Moses plainly at first give an account of the formation of things in the first six dayes and of his rest on the seventh but how could he be said to have rested then from the works of Creation if after this followed the formation of Adam and Eve in the second Chapter Besides if the forming of man mentioned Gen. 2. 7. be distinct from that mentioned Gen. 1. 27. then by all parity of reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Generations of Heaven and earth mentioned Gen. 2. 4. must be distinct from the Creation of the heaven and earth mentioned Gen. 1. 1. And so if there were another Creation of heaven and earth belonging to
of that God who reveals it whose authority extends over the soul and conscience of man in its most secret and hidden recesses 3. In a pure and unmixed manner in all other writings how good soever we have a great mixture of dross and gold together here is nothing but pure gold Diamonds without flaws Suns without spots The most current coynes of the world have their alloyes of baser mettals there is no such mixture in divine Truths as they all come from the same Author so they all have the same purity There is a Urim and Thumim upon the whole Scripture light and perfection in every part of it In the Philosophers we may meet it may be with some scattered fragments of purer mettal amidst abundance of dross and impure oare here we have whole wedges of gold the same vein of purity and holiness running through the whole book of Scriptures Hence it is called the form of sound words here have been no hucksters to corrupt and mix their own inventions with Divine Truths 4 In an uniform and agreeable manner This I grant is not sufficient of its self to prove the Scriptures to be Divine because all men do not contradict themselves in their writings but yet here are some peculiar circumstances to be considered in the agreeableness of the parts of Scripture to each other which are not to be found in meer humane writings 1. That this doctrine was delivered by persons who lived in different ages and times from each other Usually one age corrects anothers faults and we are apt to pitty the ignorance of our predecessors when it may be our posterity may think us as ignorant as we do them But in the sacred Scripture we read not one age condemning another we find light still increasing in the series of times in Scripture but no reflections in any time upon the ignorance or weakness of the precedent the dimmest light was sufficient for its age and was a step to further discovery Quintilian gives it as the reason of the great uncertainty of Grammar rules quia non analogia demissa coelo formam loquendi dedit that which he wanted as to Grammar we have as to Divine Truths they are delivered from heaven and therefore are alwayes uniform and agreeable to each other 2. By persons of different interests in the world God made choice of men of all ranks to be enditers of his oracles to make it appear it was no matter of State policy or particular interest which was contained in his word which persons of such different interests could not have agreed in as they do We have Moses David Solomon persons of royal rank and quality and can it be any mean thing which these think it their glory to be penners of We have Isaiah Daniel and other persons of the highest education and accomplishments and can it be any trivial thing which these imploy themselves in We have Amos other Prophets in the old Testament and the Apostles in the New of the meaner sort of men in the world yet all these joyn in consort together when God tunes their spirits all agree in the same strain of divine truths and give light and harmony to each other 3. By persons in different places and conditions some in prosperity in their own country some under banishment and adversity yet all agreeing in the same substance of doctrine of which no alteration we see was made either for the flattery of those in power or for avoiding miseries and calamities And under all the different dispensations before under and after the Law though the management of things was different yet the doctrine and design was for substance the same in all All the different dispensations agree in the same common principles of religion the same ground of acceptance with God and obligation to duty was common to all though the peculiar instances wherein God was served might be different according to the ages of growth in the Church of God So that this great uniformity considered in these circumstances is an argument that these things came originally from the same Spirit though conveyed through different instruments to the knowledge of the world 5. In a perswasive and convincing manner and that these wayes 1. Bringing divine truths down to our capacity cloathing spiritual matter in familiar expressions and similitudes that so they might have the easier admission into our minds 2. Propounding things as our interest which are our duty thence God so frequently in Scripture recommends our dutyes to us under all those motives which are wont to have the greatest force on the minds of men and annexeth gracious promises to our performance of them and those of the most weighty and concerning things Of grace favour protection deliverance audience of prayers and eternal happiness and is these will not prevail with men what motives will 3. Courting us to obedience when he might not only command us to obey but punish presently for disobedience Hence are all those most pathetical and affectionate strains we read in Scripture O that there were such a heart within them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments alwayes that it might go well with them and with their children after them Wo unto thee O Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes for why will ye dye O hâ—use of Israel How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel how shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zâ—boim mine heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together O Jerusalem Jerusalem how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings and ye would not What Majesty and yet what sweetness and condescension is there in these expressions What obstinacy and rebellion is it in men for them to stand out against God when he thus comes down from his throne of Majesty and wooes rebellious sinners to return unto him that they may be pardoned Such a matchless and unparalleld strain of Rhâ—torick is there in the Scripture far above the art and insinuations of the most admired Orators Thus we see the peculiar excellency of the manner wherein the matters contained in Scripture are revealed to us thus we have considered the excellency of the Scripture as it is a discovery of Gods mind to the world The Scriptures may be considered as a rule of life or as a Law of God which is given for the Government of the lives of men and therein the excellency of it lies in the nature of the dutyes and the encouragements to the practice of them 1. In the nature of the dutyes required which are most becoming God to require most reasonable for us to perform 1. Most becoming God to require as they are most suitable and agreeable to the Divine nature the imitation of which in our actions is the