ΑΟΓΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΠΙΣΤΕΩΣ OR An Endeavour to evince The Certainty of CHRISTIAN FAITH In Generall And of the Resurrection of Christ in Particular By Daniel Whitbie Chaplain to the Right Reverend Father in God SETH Lord Bishop of Sarum And Fellow of Trin. Coll. OXON Printed at the THEATER in OXFORD And are to Sold by GEORGE WEST Ann. Dom. MDCLXXI Imprimatur PET. MEWS Vice-Cancel Oxon. April 8. 1671. TO THE Right Reverend Father in God SETH Lord Bishop Of Sarum My very Good Lord MY last came to tell your Lordship I had a great Ambition to be related unto so much Worth and Goodness this to declare unto the world how happy that Relation makes me and what my Obligations are unto your Lordship to whose Instructions and Example Discourse and Counsil next to the Divine Benediction I owe those small Improvements which I have hitherto attain'd and from whose Favours and Protection I derive the Comforts the Satisfactions of my Life and the Encouragements of all my Labours But had I no such motives to induce yet Equity Prudence would oblige me to lay this Essay at your Lordships feet Whose Works sufficiently inform us You are as powerfully convincing and happily succesful in your divine Attempts against those Great Leviathans and proud Goliahs who have defy'd the Armies of the living God as in those Matters which alone admit of perfect Demonstration Your Lordship hath secured that Scripture to us on which our Hopes and Happiness depend and all our Arguments do bottome and rendred Infidelity as base and scandalous as it is hurtfull to the Soul by adding this unto the Sinfulness and Danger of it that it must be now embraced and continued in against the highest Reason most clear Conviction to the contrary And now my Lord what can the man do that cometh after You even that which hath been done already He therefore best consults his Credit in this cause who writes after your Lordships Copy as being not so vain to imagine that he can do better he fights securely who marcheth under your Lordships Banner against this Host of Philistins and becomes Armour-bearer to such a Jonathan without whose happy Conduct it would be difficult to keep an even Passage betwixt the Bozez and the Seneh the two sharp Rocks of Atheisme and Superstition 1. Sam. 14.4 Besides your Life and Conversation as well as your Endeavours from the Press and from the Pulpit declare unto the World Your Lordship hath the warmest Zeal and the most passionate Affection and Concern for Piety and doth so vigorously consult so tenderly regard and so industriously promote its Interests that all attempts of such a nature though not so happy in Expressions nor so exactly managed as the Concern and Moment of this Cause requires may yet presume upon your Lordships Favour and Acceptance even when they dread and deprecate and find themselves unable to sustaine the Sharpness of your Judgment and may hope though Your more piercing Eye discovers many Spots ill Features and undue Proportions in so rude a Draught Your great Affection to the Subject may draw the Veil before them However I have great Experience that my Lord is Gratious even to the meanest and the least deserving and that his Goodness is like his other Virtues advanced unto to the highest Measures and therefore will extend it self unto Your LORDSHIPS Most Obedient and HUMBLY DEVOTED Servant Daniel Whitbie The Preface to the Reader Courteous Reader A Dissolute ungodly Life being as well the cause as the result of Atheism we cannot wonder that it should improve so fast or think it needless to prevent its Growth in such an Age of Wickedness as this in which we live wherein men dayly offer such Affronts to Heaven that it concerns them there should be no God to punish them and live so great a contradiction to Christianity that it becomes their Interest to prove it false and then their Interest perverts their Judgments and they are easily perswaded to believe what they are so concerned to wish and they find so needfull to procure an undisturbed progress in the ways of Sin and to quiet all the Clamors of a Guilty Conscience And since these Sons of Belial do so industriously promote the Devils Kingdome since they have wholly given up themselves to vile Affections and freely do indulge to all the Pleasures of a sinfull appetite it is no wonder that their Eyes are blinded by the Prince of darkness and that they are led captive by him at his will It is but just that God should send among them strong Delusions that they all may be damned who believe not the Truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness And indeed the Generality of Atheists are such raw shallow trifling things and so unable to judge of serious Matters that we cannot reasonably impute their Infidelity to any thing they can object against Christianity and therefore must ascribe it to those impetuous and headstrong Lusts which bear the greatest Opposition to it And yet had they but leasure to consider did not their Lusts both busy and pervert that little Reason they have left they might perceive it was not want of Motives or of sufficient Reason to believe which did betray them to their Infidelity but want of Wisdome to consider of the Motives tendred and that to live the Atheist is to act in contradiction to the avowed Principles of Humane Nature and the known Rules of Reason For 1. Who knows not that in matters of the highest Moment that way must be the best which is the safest Since then Christianity affords the highest Comforts in Calamities and gives the noblest Pleasures and the most powerfull Inducements to be just and upright kind and helpfull to our brother suppose it were a cunningly devised Fable what could we suffer by the practise of it in a Christian Commonwealth Whereas should it prove true our Infidelity must rob us of the highest Blessings and everlastingly subject us to the worst of Miseries 2. Such a Perswasion as will make men circumspect and earnest to avoid a lesser danger ought with more reason to prevail upon them to decline a greater Such a perswasion as will sharpen mens Desires after and quicken their Endeavors for the obtaining of a lesser Good ought with more reason to engage them with an equal vigor in the pursuit of a greater yea an infinite good For since the apprehension of Good or Evil is the sole motive to make us undertake or decline any Action the greater that Good or Evil is the stronger motive it must be Now do not many Millions in the world foregoe their present Ease and Pleasure encounter Difficulties adventure upon Dangers and undergoe most toilsome Labours in hopes and expectations of some finite temporal Advantage of which they cannot have assurance Do they not oft abstain from what they passionately love only for fear of danger which possibly might not ensue upon the Satisfaction of their Appetite Do they
that Reason which is obliged to own such Notions as do abound with equal if not greater Difficulties And certainly if Mathematicks will afford its Demonstrations pro and con if Matters obvious to sense do oft confound the Vnderstanding it is not to be hoped it should wade thorough the Abyss of infinite perfections and not be overwhelmed and lost 2. Consider whether you have not greater reason to believe these Doctrines then to disbelieve them From what is here discoursed in the introduction it is clear we have as many reasons to assert a Providence as we have reasons to believe that any signal Demonstrations of Gods power have been made by any acts of Judgment or of Mercy in any Parts or Ages of the World or that his Wisdome was engaged in any Revelations Oracles Predictions Dreams or Visions supernatural or in the Production of the World and in the exquisite Contrivance of any Portion of it We have as many reasons to believe a Providence as we have to assert that any good or evill Angels do exist or ever did appear or interest themselves in any actions of Mankind And yet our reasons which evince the truth of Christian Faith are far more numerous and cogent Let then the Atheist view and ponder what we have here produced in confirmation of these Truths and then consider whether his motives to renounce Christianity and to reject a Providence be more numerous and more convincing then what this Treatise offers to establish them If not he must have greater Reason to assert then to disown them and so his Infidelitie must be the worst of Follies Lastly Consider whether he that rejects the Christian Faith must not be forced to believe what 's more incredible then any Mystery contained in it For he must believe that Christ and his Disciples and the Christians of the three first Ages did endeavour to confirm the world in the belief of what they knew to be a lie and consequently that all the Primitive Professors who did so court the Flames and were so wearie of this present life were yet the vilest Atheists as not believing there was any God to punish this their pernicious lye Or secondly that they were all beside themselves that they had lost the principles of preservation and Self Love which Nature hath so deeply planted in the very Brutes and that they made it their designe to ruine and destroy their Souls and Bodys their Friends and their Relations to abandon all the Pleasures of this Life and to expose themselves to all the Miseries that can be incident to humane Nature without any motive but the love of Miserie And yet he must believe that they who did so little understand the common Principles of humane Nature were able to enrich the World with the best Notions of a Deity and of a future State and the best precepts of Moralitie that humane Nature ever was acquainted with And that these Fools had wit enough to propagate their Doctrine and to obtain belief throughout the World maugre all opposition that all the powers of men and Devils could make against them Or 2ly he must believe these Atheists chose to quit their Lives and suffer all the miseries they underwent only to beat down Atheisme and to establish that Religion which bears the Greatest Opposition to all the Naturall results of Atheisme He must believe that what is written in the Books of Scripture and the Apologies of all the Christians and that all that they pretended and appealed to in every corner of the World were but prodigious impudent untruths and that the World was universally induced to Worship a condemned Malefactor as God Blessed for evermore and to embrace the Doctrine of the Cross with all its Disadvantages without a seeming Miracle Or 2ly he must believe that they had no assistance in the Propagation of the Faith besides those arts of Magick in which both Jew and Gentile were more expert then they and which Apostates who were very numerous and frequent learned and ingenious were equally acquainted with and yet that never any of them did attempt to imitate or to disclose their Art or that the world when thus convinced of the Delusion would notwithstanding universally embrace and chuse to suffer for what they knew to be confirmed only by those Magical Collusions which they saw daily practised by Jew and Heathen and in which they were instructed by those very Christians who did so signally condemn those Arts as Devilish and threaten everlasting Misery to all that used them He must believe that all the Records of any signal Judgement which ever did befall the Enemies and Blasphemers of the Christian Faith or any portion of it or of any Mercies Preservations Gifts or Assistances vouchsafed to them in any age or places of the Christian World are void of Truth in every particular He must believe an hundred matters of like nature which this Treatise will suggest And therefore Reader I intreat you to peruse it with that care and diligence which matters of this moment do require and then I hope it may be instrumentall to convince you of and confirm you in the Truth of Christian Faith which is the hearty desire of Your Servant in the Defence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ DANIEL WHITBIE The Contents of the Chapters CHAP. I. WHAT Endeavours have been made to stop the growth of Atheism and Irreligion by asserting an All-wise presiding Power visible in the production of the World What seemeth further necessary to be alledged against the Atheist An Essay towards the eviction of a Providence 1. From the existence of evil Spirits 2. From many signal demonstrations of Gods Power 3. Of his Judgements upon rebellious Sinners And 4. of his power and mercy in preservation of his servants and his miraculous answers to their Prayers 5. From Revelations and Predictions of things contingent in their various Circumstances 6. From Apparitions of good and evil Angels 7. From Dreams and Visions supernatural 8. From things performed by pretenders to Miracles Magicians Witches Oracles Philosophers which could not be effected naturally c. The confirmation of the Christian Faith by what hath been delivered 1. by evincing that Providence hath been engaged for the establishment of some particular Religion in the World 2. That that particular Religion is no other then the Christian Faith pag. 1 2. CHAP. II. That common Prudence would not suffer the Apostles to pretend such things in their Historical Relations of the Life of Christ and in their Epistles to the Churches newly converted as must infallibly disgrace their Testimony and make them appear guilty of Delusion 2. That the Miracles recorded in those Historical Narrations and Epistles if true are a convincing evidence that some superior Power did assist the Workers of them 3. That Christ and his Disciples had no assistance from good or evil Angels to impose upon the World p. 55. CHAP. III. Sect. I. Proleg 4. That Christ and his Apostles did
Pleasure and so assures us of the dispensations of his Providence And of this nature was that Dream of Pharaoh which foreshew'd him the seven Years of Plenty and of Famine according to Josephs's Interpretation Gen. 41. Where note 1. The vast Plenty for seven Years such as was never known in Aegypt the most fertile of all Countries 2. The rise of Joseph to be a chief Minister of State on the Experiment of the Truth of his Interpretation 3. The building of such vast Store-houses as could contain sufficient Corn for feeding of the Land of Aegypt and all the Neighboring Nations throughout the seven Years of Famine And 4. The admission of Jacob and of all his Family into Aegypt and the planting of them in the Land of Goshen 5. The altering of the Tenures of the Estates in Aegypt for hereupon every Mans Land except the Priests became the Kings and paid the fifth part of its Income to him Now since a matter of this moment must be recorded to Posterity and preserved in their Traditions unto future Generations as we find this was and since the Memory and motive of their repair to Aegypt the Exaltation of an Alien the Tribute of their Lands and the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Artap apud Euseb l. 9. c. 23. Exemption of their Priests could not so quickly be forgotten it remains that both the Jews Aegyptians and Strangers which joyned themselves to Moses must be assured of its truth § 10. LASTLY If any Hereticks if any 41 Gnosticks,42 Carpocratians,43 Marcionists or Saturnilians 44 Menandrians 45 Montanists 45 Eunomians Arians 47 Priscillianists 48 Donatists if any 49 Finland Lapland or Tartarian Witches if any of the Persian or Chalde an Magi vid. Stanly Phil. Chald. or the 59 Aegyptian Sorcerers whose names and their contest with Moses are still preserved in Heathen Story If a 51 Zoroaster or Hostanes if any wise Philosopher a 52 Pythagoras or a 53 Socrates if any Sect of Men as Brachmans or Druids or of Women whether the Pythonissae or the like If lastly vid. ch 9. Apollonius Apuleius Simon Magus any false 54 Prophetess or Prophet ever did what could not be effected without the help of some Superior Power as we have cause to believe both by the reputation they obtained the Records of those things both in prophane and Sacred Story and the Experience and Traditions of all Times and Places this gives us full assurance of the concern of Satan to oppose some Truth and some Religion in the World and so of Gods concernment to establish it In a word if but * Quin etiam hoc non dubitans dixerim si unum aliquid ita sit praedictum praesensumque ut cum evenerit ita cadat ut praedictum sit neque in eo quicquam casu ant for tuito fact um esse appareat esse certe divinationem idque esse omnibus confitendum Cic. Divin l. 1. p. 106. one real and undoubted Instance of these things hath been afforded to the World it doth conclude a Providence And surely then these many Myriads of Examples of each kind which Histories of every Age and Country will afford from Persons living in those Times of which they write must give in such Conviction as the greatest Sceptick shall not be able to controul And having made good the Doctrine of an All-ruling Providence it will be easie to advance unto the Confirmation of the Christian Faith by these Gradations § 11. 1. THAT this Providence hath been engaged for the Establishment of some particular Revelation and Religion in the World and hath as signally opposed some others which have pretended to those Names and consequently doth not esteem them all indifferent This is the natural Result almost of all these Instances we have produced in confirmation of a Providence they being such as visibly declared Gods Approbation of the Faith of Jew or Christian in opposition to the Heathen Deities and to their Modes of Worship § 12. AND secondly That no particular Revelation to which the adverse Parties have pretended can stand in Competition with the Christian Faith or give in equal Demonstrations of its Truth and Derivation from a Deity it being certain that of these Instances produced to evince a Providence none are so powerfully convincing as those that do assert the Christian Faith the Experience of Gods Mercies Protections and Assistances vouchsafed to the Professors of it as also of his Judgements on their Adversaries and the Engagement of his Power in Confirmation of this Doctrine being more numerous and evident and more unquestionably true Adde to this That seeing Moses and the Prophets by their evident Predictions of a Messiah that should come attended with those very Circumstances and should perform and undergoe all that Christ did and suffered do confirm the truth of Christian Faith it will follow that these Instances fore-mentioned which do ascertain the Veracity of those Prophets and Gods Concernment for the Laws delivered by them must also give in full Conviction to the Truth of our Messiah and his Doctrine And secondly It is evident that all these Forms of Worship which stand in Competition with it are either most apparently repugnant both to the Wisdom Purity and Goodness of a Deity or such as carry with them no Conviction of their Truth and Goodness nothing which speaks them worthy of the Concernment of the God of Heaven For that those Modes of Worship which had obtained in the Heathen World were vile and filthy ridiculous and brutish and most repugnant to those Conceptions of a Deity which Nature hath implanted in us will be so evident from what we shall discover of them that he who runs may read it As for Mahometism that having no internal Evidence which may convince us of its Truth no Purity and Goodness in its Precepts and no Subservience unto the Welfare of Mankind at present or to his Happiness hereafter beyond what Scripture doth afford us but Promises and Precepts more Carnal and Judaical and Stories more extravagant and idle then the wildest Fables vid. Cantucuz Orat in Mahum sect 23. and being such a Doctrine as never did pretend to Miracles except some petty Trifles pretended to be done by Mahomet it cannot lay upon us any Obligations to believe its Truth and therefore we may rest assured Azora 3.14 17 30 71. that God hath no Concernment that we should believe it That the Religion of the Jews is antiquated that it hath pass'd the Period to which it was appointed to continue is most apparent from the completion of those Prophesies which did relate unto the promised Messias of which we shall discourse hereafter from the Destruction of the Temple to which their Worship was confined and from those heavy Judgments they have laboured under above 1600 yeares without any intermission Their wandrings in the Wilderness were only for the space of forty years their Captivity but seventy although their Whoredomes and Idolatries and
just occasion to cry out on the Impostor The Testimony of St John concerning him the voice from Heaven the Holy Ghosts descent in likeness of a Dove Gods Declaration to him by these Tokens that he was the Lamb of God must be Delusions too What Zacharias and his Virgin Mother did pretend to see and hear what Simeon Elizabeth and Hannah Prophesied must be the issue of distempered Brains however they were Men and Women of unblameable Lives and Reputations Both they who tasted of the Water which he presumed was turned into Wine and those Five thousand Persons which were fed with five Loaves and with two little Fishes must have their Eyes and Appetites and Palates all deceived Christ having as it is here supposed no Design to put a Cheat upon them All Christs Predictions must be false and all the Spirit of Prophesie to which the Primitive Christian did so much pretend must be the Illusion of the Fansie Imagination must produce that Star which led the Wise Men to our Saviour and form those Voices which both he and his Disciples and the whole Multitude did seem to hear It must produce those frequent Apparitions of Angels and that Transfiguration which his Apostles seemed to see It must rebuke the winds and make the Sea obey him and must enable him to walk upon it It must form a conceit in him that he was the Son of God and Saviour of the world one sent into it from his Fathers bosome to take upon him flesh and suffer for the sins of men and all these great and strong delusions must consist with an exemplary life and an excellent wisdome so visible both in his Doctrine and discourses as he that runs may read it and lastly with a Glorious resurrection and the abundant Graces of is Spirit Again it must prevaile upon himself and his Disciples and the whole body of Believers dispersed through the then known world not only to believe that they did dayly cast out Divels cure diseases raise the dead that they did prophesy and speak with tongues but also on the eyes and eares of his and their Spectators and their Hearers and make them flock with their diseased to the places where they were and press to touch their Garments and come within the compass of their shadow or beg they would but speak the word that so their dead might live and their diseased might be whole Imagination must prevaile on those who were before possessed to believe that afterwards they were not and so upon the very devil to lie dormant in them it must prevail on those that were sick of what disease soever to conceive that they were well and think their sores and issues did not run upon the Lame to think they walked upon the Deaf to think they hear'd upon the dead to think themselves alive and lastly upon those with whom they did converse that is on their professed enemies throughout the world me learned and inquisitive and most concerned to find out the truth not only to believe the same but own the Christian faith upon the strength of those delusions In a word this phansie must give eyes unto the Blind and feet unto the Lame and eares unto the Deaf and life unto the Dead through divers centuries together or it must have deluded the whole world with those pretentions for divers Generations no man intending in the least to put a cheat upon them Or lastly it must prevail upon mankind to credit and to venture both their present and future even their eternal welfare to confirme what both their eyes and eares and other senses told them was but the vain delusions of some brain-sick Persons and what is now recorded thus that Many when they sew the miracles that Jesus did believed should be written thus that many when they saw the Great Delusions Christ and his Disciples suffer'd believed on him Now to conceive so strong and spreading a delusion should seaze upon so many millions throughout all climates of the world and this alone in the first ages of the Church never before or after that it should be peculiar to the Christian never should agree to the Apostate or the Heathen is a phansy so prodigious that nothing can be more If we can once imagine that the eyes and eares and apprehensions of so many millions should throughout diverse centuries be so continually and universally deceived what reason have we to believe either our senses or our undestanding or to expect that others should do so Why do we not continually suspect the like in all we seem to see or hear or understand and so set up for Scepticks and seekers in all things whatsoever In a word it was never heard since the foundation of the world that men of a deluded phancy did pretend to matters of so high a nature and yet deliver precepts of so confess'd an excellency that no Philosophy could match no Laws or Rules of Living how ever framed by long experience hard study and the greatest strength of humane reason could compare therewith And hence it is that never any of their malicious Adversaries however they pretended things as frivolous and as absurd as this did ever charge them with such Gross delusions or once imagine that they could prevail upon such feeble Grounds and therefore it would be folly to proceed to Confutation of what no Atheist Heathen Turk or Jew did ere object against them CHAP. IV. The Contents THat we may safely take an estimate of Christian doctrine from what we find recorded of it in the books of Scripture Proleg 6th those writings not being corrupted nor yet containing any thing repugnant to the Christian Faith Corol. concluding that those Scriptures which we dayly read must be the works of those Apostles and Evangelists whose names they bear But 6ly we premise §. 1. that we may safely take an estimate of Christian doctrine from what we find recorded of it in the books of Holy Writ For it is incongruous to conceive that Records which pretended to derive from the Apostles and Evangelists whilst both they and many of their Converts lived and did receive the Gospel from their mouthes and which exhorted all with so much passion to retain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Faith delivered to the Saints and which denounced such dreadful curses and Anathemas upon those who preached another doctrine and charg'd them to shun the man who did not own their platforme and not bid him God speed I say it is incredible that records of this nature should undermine that Faith which those Apostles had so largely planted and should present the Churches they converted with such a standing contradiction to that doctrine they had so lately taught and yet obtain and be received as the sacred Oracles and only Records of the Christian faith still more incredible it is that such a writing should be indited by those very men and yet they pass for the Embassadors of the King of Heaven and
that for such which they believed not to be so they being Men whose Holy Lives as well as Sufferings made a full proof of their exact Integrity If neither they could universally conspire to effect this thing nor can it be suspected that Providence should suffer them to do a thing so contrary to its great design of love unto Mankind If lastly it is morally impossible that since the second Century those Writings should be either forged or accidentally corrupted in matters of concern and moment they must remain sufficient Records of the Christian Faith Corol. Hence it follows That those Writings must be the very Works of those Apostles and Evangelists whose Names they bear since no Man could pretend they were so had they not really been such but they must put a cheat upon the World and substitute their own Inventions for the Word of God Indeed they have been handed down for such by a more general Tradition and of a firmer Credit then any of those Books of Virgil Cicero or Martial which we indisputably own as theirs For it was a Tradition of the whole 12 Christian World which owned and cited and received them for such from the Apostles days as is apparent from the Epistles of St Clement Barnabas Ignatius Polycarp the Works of Irenaeus and Justin Martyr whil'st others which pretended to the same Original were universally rejected by them Besides they did attest them so to be by many Sufferings which they had no Temptation to endure besides the truth of their Assertion and many Wonders to confirm their Testimony It was a Tradition which concern'd things of the highest moment and which it was their greatest Interest to be well assured of they being the sole ground and matter of their support at present under the sharpest Tryals and of their future hopes and therefore Writings they were concern'd to get and hear and read and keep Books written to whole Churches Nations yea the whole 13 World of Christians who could not have received them easily had the Apostles by whom they were at first converted given no Intimations of them Books of the greatest opposition against the Superstition both of Jews and of Gentiles and which denounced against them the greatest Plagues and Judgments such as obliged them to search as much as it was possible into the Truth of what they said And yet these Books were not denyed to be the very Works of those Apostles and Evangelists whose Names they bare Books which no cheat could be concern'd to forge nor could obtain that belief which was not due to them without the greatest Forgery Books which could not be spread abroad as they were in the Apostles Names whil'st they were living unless the Apostles had Endited them nor be esteemed as if they were the greatest Charter of the Christian Faith and the Apostles be so forgetful of them as not to let those Persons know it for whose sake they were written Books which pretended to a Commission from the Holy Jesus to leave a rule of Life and Doctrine to Mankind which was intrusted in the Hands of none but the Apostles and Evangelists all others still pretending to deliver what they received from them Lastly They being written partly to confirm and to ascertain to us the story of Christs Birth Life Passion Resurrection and partly to engage us to believe partly to put an end to Contentions and rectifie those Errors which had crept into the Church in the Apostles days and which did need a speedy Reformation partly to justifie themselves against false Brethren and to assert the Truth of their Apostleship and partly to preserve their Proselytes from such as did pervert the Faith and partly to instruct them how to bear up in Fiery Tryals and to support the Soul under those Miserie 's the Christians suffered and therefore on those Grounds which did require their quick dispatch on that Errand and to those Churches unto which they did intend them it is evident the Apostles must intend that early notice should be given of them and so accordingly commit them to their new-born Proselytes and Babes in Christ and so the Records of our Saviour his Life Death Resurrection Miracles must be divulged throughout Iudea whil'st the far greater part of Men were able to disprove them if they had been false ANNOTATIONS On the 4th Chapter 1. TErtullian tels us Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud quas ipsae authenticae earum literae recitantur sonantes vocem repraesentantes uniuscujusque 2 Collected and consigned by S. John Veteres narrant Johannem Asiaticarum Ecclesiarum rogatu Germanum Scripturae Canoncm constituisse Euseb 3 Those many wavering Spirits nutant enim plurimi maximè qui literarum aliquid attigerunt Lact. l. 5. c. 1. 4 Those Hereticks who upon other motives did renounce the greater part of the New Test Cerinthus allowed only the Gospel of S. Mark Valentinus only that of S. John Iren. l. 3. c. 11. Marcion onely that of Luke Tertul. cont Marcio c. 4. Epiph. Haeres 42. Iren. l. 3. c. 11. the Ebionites rejected all the Epistles of S. Paul and embraced only the Gospel of the Nazarites 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orig. in Cels p. 274. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 3. c. 27. vid. Valesium in locum Ejusdem farinae erant Severiani Tatiani ex quibus conflati sunt Encratitae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euscb Hist Eccl. l. 4. c. 27. Hieron catal script Eccl. in Tatiano De Encratitis vid. Theod. haeret fab l. 1. 5 Soe universally acknowledged and consented to Euseb calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hist Eccl. l. 3. c. 25. 6 Soe generally dispersed for even the passage of S. Irenaeus which tells us of some barbarous Nations Qui fidem crediderunt sine literis sine charta sine atramento scriptam habentes in cordibus suis salutem doth shew plainly that other places not deemed Barbarous enjoy'd them as also doth the question following Quid autem si neque Apostoli quidem scripturas reliquissent nobis 7 Multiplyed into divers versions Cum enim fides Christiana ab ipsis Apostolorum temporibus recepta est nec sine scriptur is esse potest Ecclesia probabile est à primis nascentis Ecclesiae incunabilis harum versionum originem accersendam esse Walton Proleg in Bib. Polygl Of the innumerable latine versions that were extant in S. Augustine's daies we have one styled by S. Jerom. in Esaiam c. 14 49. Communis vulgata and by S. Gregory Epist ad Leandrum Vetus probabile est inquit Waltonus ipsam ab ipsis Ecclesiae primordiis in usu fuisse cum Ecclesia Latina sine verfione Latina esse non potuit eamque Ecclesia Romana in communi usu reciperet Of the Syriack version he speakes thus Ab Apostolicis viris factam concedo quod praeter generalem Ecclesiarum Orientalium traditionem cui multum in hoc loco tribuendum cum nulla
otherwise their hopes lay buried in his Grave and expired together with him After such manifold experience of their Masters power to assist them by an Almighty hand after their solemne protestations made to own him in the sharpest tryals they shamefully deserted him and at first assault betook themselves to their heeles their Prolocutor renounced him and seconded his denyal with an oath they barr'd their dores and hid their heads dreading every thing they heard or saw And can it be imagined that persons so extreamly timerous should hazard their lives to rescue his dead body from the Grave who after all obligement both of faith and duty did so little to preserve him from it against a watch so vigilant and zealously concerned to prevent the mischiefs of a second and therefore more pernitious error After commands so strict peremptory to secure the Sepulcher in vain must they attempt to rifle it which if any say they did whilest the watchmen slept how came they privy to it what credit can their word deserve if whilst they waked what could induce those watchmen to make lyes their refuge and wilfully permit the cheat Besides it is a timerous trade to play the thief much more to rob the Grave of its Inhabitants and they might well expect that vengeance should arrest them in a fact designed to delude the world and to entitle God unto the worst of villanies and hence not only their respect unto their Master but their own safety must have taught them to dispatch their business and not to spend their time in the uncasing of his body and rowling up the Napkins that were about his head and to do things of such needless curiosities But 3ly more incredible it is that persons unconcerned for this Jesus should run so great an hazard or be concerned to remove his body thence or that the Apostles should bottom all their hopes on such a tottering foundation trust to the fidelitie of those men who in this very busines in which their silence could alone befriend them were the worst of cheats T is lastly most incredible that persons of this temper should still go on to stifle and conceal the matter and not be tempted by the pleasure of the thing the service they might do to their Religion the hopes of a considerable reward or by the hatred of a cheat so Gross and palpable to manifest the shame and infamy of those that forged it Besides how could his own Disciples hope by mighty signs and wonders by Gifts and Graces of the Holy Spirit great numerous to give in evidence unto his Resurrection which they confidently pretended had he been still reserved under the power of death and only by their own or others art reoved from his Sepulcher How is it that they never thought within themselves he could not save himself and whence shall we expect Salvation He could not by his Miracles of power and Goodness prevail upon one Nation to believe his Doctrine and can we though destitute of all that power which resided in him think to reduce the world into obedience or to impart the Holy Ghost to others when we our selves have the Spirit of delusion only Nay might not the example of Theudas Judas and many others both of their own and other Nations all whose endeavours although their hopes and their abilities were greater and their undertaking less proved unsuccesful and ended in the ruine of those bold adventurers be sufficient to deter them from such bold attempts Lo here a testimony which gives the Greatest evidence to it self and yet asserted by such men who neitheir would deceive nor were deceived in this particular and consequenty whose attestation could be no deceit Which that it may appear with greater evidence Consider first That they pretended to many and infallible convictions of the Truth to frequent apparitions of this Jesus attended with some signal circumstance to evidence their truth unto them and gae it out that they conversed with him fourty daies saw many Miracles done by him received instructions from his mouth to feed his Sheep to teach all Nations and Baptize them Yea that they were endowed with power from him to confirm the testimony by mighty signes and wonders and for the truth of this they frequently appeal'd unto their adversaries and the experience of those who did embrace their Doctrines in all which confident appeals and attestations requiring little more then eyes and ears to certifie the truth unto them t is equally incredible they should deceive or be deceived Did they give credit to this Jesus they must conclude him risen according to his own prediction and therefore could not be deceivers in asserting it Did they conclude him an Impostor what motives could they have to publish him the Saviour of the World who after he had call'd them to leave all and follow him and made such ample Promises unto them of Judging the twelve Tribes of Israel left them so sadly in the lurch exposed unto shame and infamy Did they give credit to the Sacred Oracles and reverence the Law of Moses why did they not dread those Judgements which God proclaimed against the false and lying Prophet if they did not believe it why were they so concerned for the Truth of the predictions of the Law concerning the Messias as to assert them with the loss both of the freedome and safety of their lives Should we ascribe the cheat unto the powers of imagination since they pretended to be eye witnesses of the Resurrection and to deliver nothing but what they saw and heard is it not strange to think that Phancy should create a person to them frequently appearing preaching and instructing giveing out commissions administring of holy Ordinances and the like that it should draw them out unto the mount of Olives after an aery Phantasm and then present it carryed up into Heaven In short they were certain his body was not privately conveyed away by their endeavours and that this only was pretended to disgrace their testimony and what could farther be required to assure both them and us that they were not deceived To Conclude If this relation were untrue either they were beside their senses when they did believe or besides their wits when they affirm'd it and did endeavour to confirm what they did not believe with loss of life and fortunes and if so what shall we say to the world of Christians that maugre all temptations to the contrary did stedfastly believe these men who had so little reason to believe themselves It is prodigious to think that a poor ignorant young man of meanest birth and breeding of a most hateful Nation and hated by that Nation to the death because pretending that he was a Prophet sent from God and after this his death only avouched to be so by twelve Fishermen pretending with loud boasts of miracles false as God is true to testifie his Resurrection though a greater falshood and promising to all that would