MATHE HALE Miles Capitalis Iustic de Banco Regis Ano 1677 For W. Shrowsbery at The Sign of The Bible In Duck Lane F. H. van Hâ—ue Sculp THE Primitive Origination OF MANKIND CONSIDERED AND EXAMINED According to The Light of Nature WRITTEN By the Honourable Sir MATTHEW HALE KNIGHT Late CHIEF JUSTICE of His MAJESTIES Court of KING'S BENCH LONDON Printed by WILLIAM GODBID for WILLIAM SHROWSBERY at the Sign of the Bible in Duke-Lane MDCLXXVII TO THE READER THE subject Matter of this Book is a free Disquisition according to the Light of Nature and Natural Reason touching the Primitive Origination of Mankind consisting principally of these Parts and Assertions I. That according to the Light of Nature and Natural Reason the Mundus aspectabilis was not Eternal but had a Beginning II. That if there could be any imaginable doubt thereof yet by the necessary Evidence of Natural Light it doth appear that Mankind had a beginning and that the successive Generations of Men were in their Original Ex non genitis III. That this Truth is evident by Reason and Arguments demonstrative or at least little less than apodeictical IV. That there are Moral Evidences of the truth of this Assertion which are herein particularly expended and examined and how far forth they are concludent and how far not which I have impartially delivered V. That those great Philosophers that asserted this Origination of Mankind Ex non genitis both ancient and modern that rendred it by Hypotheses different from that of Moses were mistaken Wherein the several Hypotheses of Aristotle Plato Empedocles Epicurus Avicen Cardanus Cisalpinus Beregardus and others are examined and the absurdity and impossibility thereof detected VI. That the Mosaical System as well of the Creation of Man as of the World in general abstractively considered without relation to the Divine Inspiration of the Writer is highly consonant to Reason and upon a bare rational account highly preferrible before the Sentiments of those Philosphers that either thought Mankind Eternal or substituted Hypotheses of his first Production different from the Mosaical VII I have concluded the whole with certain Corollaries and Deductions necessarily flowing from the things thus asserted as well touching the Existence the Wisdom Power Providence of Almighty God as touching both the Duty and Happiness of Mankind Though this may seem a laborious Work to little purpose since the generality of Christians among whom I write do generally believe this Truth of the Origination of the World and Mankind as it is delivered in the Holy Scriptures and thus to write in proof of a Truth generally received doth rather create Doubts in Mens Minds of what they already believe than any way advantage or confirm their belief I Answer 1. That for my part I think Atheism so unreasonable a thing so abhorrent to the Light of Nature and Sentiments of Conscience that I cannot think there is so much speculative Atheism abroad in the World as many good Men fear and suspect But if there be but one quarter of that Atheism in the World I do not know any better Cure of it or Preservative against it next to the Grace of God than the due Consideration of the Origination of Mankind 2. Again though the Creation of Man be generally acknowledged by Jews and Christians yet we must likewise consider that many take it up only as a part of their Education and not upon any serious deep Conviction of the truth of it and had such Men but an Education in such a Place or Country where it is not believed or where it is doubted they would be at least sceptical and doubtful in the belief of it 3. The best of Men and soundest believers of Divine Revelations may be better confirmed by the accession and suffrage even of Natural Evidences of the Verities they already believe but howsoever it better enables them to convince such Gainsayers as will be governed in their Judgments by no other Light than the Light of Nature and Reason and many such there may be met withal in the World And upon that account my whole Discourse is bottomed upon Natural and Moral Evidences suited to these Mens Principles or Motives by which they are guided and governed yea when I make use of the Sacred and Infallible Scriptures I do use them abstractively from their Divine and Infallible Authority and only as Moral Evidences of the Truth I assert for any Man may easily foresee that an Atheistical Spirit that denies or questions the truth of the Fact therein delivered will not be convinced by the Infallibility of that Scripture which delivers that for a Truth which he denies or questions This whole Book as thou now seest it was written by me some Years since and hath lain ever since in my Chest and surely therein should have lain still but only for Three Reasons 1. Because that some Writings of mine have without my privity come abroad in Print which I never intended and this might have had the same fate if not in my Life time yet after my Death 2. Because possibly there hath some more care been used by me in the Digesting and Writing hereof than of some others that have gone abroad in publick 3. That although I could never be brought to value the Writings of mine that are published as worthy of the publick view yet I find them well accepted by many which encouraged me to let this Book come abroad under my own Name wherein I used more care than in those lesser Tractates although I have not yet confidence enough to say that this may deserve any great acceptation though there be many things in it which may not please yet I do think there be many things useful and such as will not displease Judicious Readers If there be any Faults or Mistakes in Quotations in Syntax in Translations in Transcriptions or if there by any Errours as possibly there may be in my Deductives Inferences or Applications or if the Language be in some places either improper or obscure or if the Expressions or Words which we sometimes use be not so full so significant or proper or delivered from Amphibologies yet I must desire the Reader to take this Apology for it 1. It was written at leisure and broken times and with great intervals and many times hastily as my busie and important Employment of another nature known to the World would give me leave which must needs make such Breaks and Chasms and Incoherences that possibly a continued uninterrupted series of writing would have prevented and carried on the Discourse with a more equal Thred 2. A long indisposition of Health hath much hindred and interrupted me in a strict revising and amending of what possibly might have been requisite to be done 3. A Man whose scope and intent and drift is at some one thing and hath his Eye and Design fixed upon it many times is not so solicitous nor so curious nor so exact in the choice of
Memory retaining the series of propositions argumentations and a long tract of historical narratives 3. In that it is more distinct and unconfused than the sensitive Memory 4. In that it is firmer and more fixed and permanent than the sensitive Memory 5. In that it can resuscitate and stir up it self to remember and call together other Images or media to retrive what it once remembred which is Reminiscence an act of intention which therefore Aristotle in his Book De Memoria Reminiscentia makes an act peculiar to Man whereas the Memory of Brutes is either conserved by the Images impressed by the Imagination and there continued or revived and reinforced by the occurrence of external Objects bearing an identity or resemblance to the Images at first impressed by the Phantasie 4. Deliberation a staid and attentive consideration of things to be known and their media and of their several weights conclusiveness or evidence and of things to be done and their media their congruity suitableness possibility and convenience and of the several circumstances aptly conducible thereunto which is an act far above the animal actings which are sudden and transient and admit not of that attention mora and propendency of actions 5. Judgment either concerning things to be known of the weight and concludency of them and ends in decision or of things done or to be done of their congruity fitness rightness appositness and this if it refers to things to be done ends in determination or purpose if in relation to things already done then in sentence of approbation or disapprobation And hither that which we call Conscience is to be referred namely if by a due comparison of things done with the rule there be a consonancy follows the sentence of Approbation if discordant from it the sentence of Condemnation And this act of the Judgment in relation to things to be done and the determination thereupon is that which is usually stiled the last decision of the practical Understanding immediately antecedent to the decree of the Will which it must follow by a kind of moral necessity when it acts as a reasonable Faculty and in the due state and order of its nature though by its liberty and empire it sometimes suspends its concurrence And thus far concerning the Acts of the Understanding 3. Concerning intellectual Habits or the genuine effects of these acts in the understanding Faculty and they are divers and diversly expressed by those that have treated thereof 1. Opinion when the assent of the Understanding is so far gained by evidence of probability that it rather inclines to one perswasion than to another yet not altogether without a mixture of incertainty or doubting 2. Science or Knowledge effected by such evidence cui non potest subesse falsum as in case of demonstrative evidence 3. Fides or Faith or Belief which rests upon the relation of another that we have no reasonable cause to suspect and upon this account we believe Divine Revelation when we are sufficiently convinced that it is Divine Revelation we also believe our Senses because we have the greatest Moral evidence that we can reasonably have of the truth of their reports when they are not controlled by apparent Reason impossibility or improbability We believe good and credible persons and this principally referrs to matter of fact which we cannot or do not controll by our Senses or other weighty evidence as that there was such a man as Julius Caesar that there is such a place as Rome though we never saw the one or the other because delivered over to us by credible persons and such who could probably have no end to deceive us 4. Wisdom which is a complicated habit referring to all things to be known and done the due comparison of things and actions and the preference of them according to their various natures and degrees 5. Prudence which is principally in reference to actions to be done the due means order season method of doing or not doing 6. Moral Virtues as Justice Temperance Sobriety Fortitude Patience c. for these begin in the Intellect though their exercise belong principally to the faculty of the Will 7. Arts Liberal or Mechanical for though the exercise of those in which the formal nature of an Art consists be external yet the Ideal notion and habit of them begins in the Understanding and a man is first a Geometrician in his Brain before he be such in his Hand And all these habits of the intellectual Faculty are far advanced above what is found in Sensible Natures take the last for instance It is true we find a rare dexterity in the Spider and Silkworm in framing of their threads but this proceeds not from any Intellectual principle in them but from an Instinct connatural to them and whereunto they are determined by the Law of their nature again we find in the Fox the Hawk and other Animals admirable sagacities wiles and subtilties in getting their prey and in defending themselves But when we consider the sagacity of the Humane Understanding although the particular Instincts of some Animals are scarce imitable by it yet it exceeds them in other things almost of the same nature and so by way of equivalence or rather prelation in those very Instincts witness the Arts of Painting Tapestry Fortification Architecture the Engins whereby noxious and subtil Animals are subdued and infinite more arising from the fruitfulness of the Understanding and the dexterity of the Hand And thus much touching the Intellective Faculty the seat of intellective Perception and Counsel I come to consider of that other Faculty the Will the seat of Empire and Authority The Will therefore is that other great Faculty of the Reasonable Soul and it is not a bare appetitive power as that of the sensual appetite but is a rational appetite and is considerable 1. In its Nature 2. In its Object 3. In its Acts. 1. The Nature of this Faculty is that it is free domina suarum actionum free from compulsion and so spontaneous and free from determination by the particular Object wherein it differs from the sensitive appetite which though spontaneous because moving from an inward principle yet is if not altogether yet for the most part determined in its choice by the external Object But how far forth the Will is determined by the last act of the practick Understanding or how far such a determination is or is not consistent with the essential or natural liberty of the Will is not seasonable here to dispute This liberty of Will together with that other Faculty of Understanding is that which renders the humane Nature properly capable of a Law and of the consequence of Law Rewards and Punishments which doth not properly belong to the animal Nature because destitute of these two Faculties 2. The Object of the Will is not confined to a sensible Good but is much larger namely such a Good as is compatible to an Intellectual Nature in its full
first Production of Men what gradations were antecedent to it could not possibly be known to the first Parents of Mankind without Divine Revelation because it must needs be antecedent to their Being and therefore the particular Manner therefore could not upon a bare natural or moral account be any true Root or Foundation of such a Tradition as according to the Mosaical Hypothesis of the Origination of Mankind whereby we understand that Adam was created out of the Dust of the Ground and then had an Intellectual Soul put into him Adam might upon a natural account know that now he was and that before he was not and he might upon a rational account know that such a Production of such a Being as he found himself to be could never have been effected without the agency of a most powerful and wise Being which we call Almighty God And this Tradition both that he was made when before he was not and that he was created or made by Almighty God he might with as great evidence and certainty traditionally communicate to his Descendents as any other matter of fact or rational deduction But he could never know the manner of his own Production or the particular Preparations antecedent to such his Being without Revelation from God or some intelligent Being that saw or knew the antecedents to his Constitution neither could he without such Revelation or Discovery deliver the same over traditionally with any certainty of truth to his Descendents And consequently the general Tradition of his Origination hath a Rode of Credibility in it to such a Man as will believe that any matter of Fact may be true that he sees not though the particular manner of his Orgination is not with any certainty credible to him that either believes not there is any Divine Revelation or that believes not the particular Method propounded is in truth a Divine Revelation So that the general Tradition that Man had his Origination ex non genitis is a greater Evidence that it was true than that he was made out of Arrows stuck in the Ground or ex folliculis terrae innascentibus as some Philosophers 2. The Ground of this Perswasion hath sprung from such of the Philosophers and other considerate Men who upon a strict Enquiry and Examination have found it impossible that the successive Generations of Mankind could be Eternal and consequently Infinite and therefore have concluded with very great evidence of Reason that it must needs have some other Origination in some one Period of duration than what is now natural and common But then being destitute of Divine Revelation or at least not giving due credit thereunto and being greatly in the dark and not knowing well how to determin what that Method of the Origination of Mankind should be some took up one Fancy some another to salve the Phaenomenon according as their Imaginations led them And hence it was that some thought their Origination was not altogether unlike the spontaneous Production of Insects only these being Annual required no great contribution of Heavenly Influkes but that of the Production of Men or more perfect Animals Non sine magna coelestium corporum conjunctione sive mutatione Others again more soberly attributed it meerly to the Power and Wisdom of the glorious God Others to the efficiency of Angels whereof in the next Chapter And this Contemplation of such Philosophers and knowing Men coming abroad into the World the generality of Mankind subscribed to the truth of the grand Hypothesis it self namely That Mankind had at one time or other or by some means or other an Origination differing from the ordinary and natural method of Propagation now observed And finding that the same held a singular congruity to the nature of things and the general Conception and Reason of the Humane Understanding the generality of the World entertained and by Tradition transmitted this Hypothesis to their Posterity But finding the Philosophers and Wise Men so uncertain and disagreeing de modo and unable to give any satisfactory Resolution thereof every Nation and almost every Person took up what particular Hypothesis pleased them for the Method or Manner of such Origination and herein the Wantonness of Poets and the Crafts of their Heathenish Priests and Hierophants abundantly gratified the Fancies of the People with Superstructions and Inventions of their own And indeed it is observable that all those ancient Traditions of things that were truly done and so delivered over and received by Mankind as they have for the substance and main of them been preserved by the strength of this Tradition so where the Holy Scriptures have not been taught or known these Traditions have been admirably dressed by Sophistications and Superadditions introduced by the Phantasies of Poets or the deceits of Heathenish Priests or by the gradual corruptings of the Traditions themselves Thus the History of the Creation of the Flood of the Tower of Babel of Noah and his three Sons many of which are for the substance of them preserved among the Barbarous People of the East and West Indies at this day as appears by those that have written the Relation especially of the Americans as Acosta and De Laet have nevertheless been covered over with divers fabulous and devised Additions and Stories and so it happened also among the ancient Heathenish Writers as hath been at large demonstrated especially by Bochart in his Phaleg Now as touching the Opinion of the Learned Tribe which as before is shewn fell into two Parties The one holding the Eternal Successions of Mankind whereof in this Second Section The other holding a First Inception of Mankind Ex non genitis The latter Opinion far out-ballanceth the former both in the reasonableness thereof and the multitude and great Learning of those that so asserted it and should according to the propounded Method be here declared But because I intend in the next Section to examin the various Suppositions of those of the latter sort touching the Manner of the Origination of Man I shall reserve that Business to the next Section wherein I shall at once consider the Learned ancient Authors that hold the Origination of Mankind and shall also deliver and examin their several Suppositions touching the same SECT III. CAP. I. The Opinions of the more Learned part of Mankind Philosophers and other Writers touching Man's Origination I Have in the former Parts of this Enquiry shewed that there have been among Philosophers and other Heathen and some modern Writers Two great Opinions touching Man's Origination 1. Those that thought it indeed to be without any Origination but Eternal and this Opinion they took up principally upon two Reasons 1. Because the Medium or Clew by which they guided themselves was the common constant Method of Productions by successive Generations and they thought it more sutable to take their Measures and make their Conclusions consonant to the course of Nature which they saw and observed and judged to be always uniform
Doctrine of Moses but with the exactest Measure and Rule of Reason and the Light of Nature it self and as it is utterly impossible that Mankind should be without a beginning so it is utterly inconceptible that he should have any other Original but this But although this general Supposition be thus consonant to Truth and the Light of Reason yet since the Manner of this Origination of Mankind by the Power of God depends meerly upon His own Beneplacitum which might put forth and exert this Act of His Power Wisdom and Goodness in the production of Mankind according to His good Pleasure and the Arbitrium of His own Will And since Mankind having their Existence after this production could never by his own Sense perceive or understand perfectly the Manner of his own production and consequently the particular Method or Manner thereof could neither be attained by Humane Experience nor Ratiocination we must necessarily either be utterly ignorant of the Manner and Order of the Divine Procedure in the Origination of Mankind or we must know it only by Divine or at at least Angelical Revelation and not otherwise So that though the general Thesis of the Origination of Mankind by Almighty God be a Conclusion deducible by Reason partly by the remotion of all other means as incompatible and insufficient for such a production and partly by the observation of the Events and Effects in Nature yet that this production of Mankind was in this or that particular manner is a Truth distinctly cognoscible only by Revelation And hence it came to pass that those great Searchers into Truth among the Heathens being either not acquainted with the History of Moses or not acquainted with the Divine Authority by which it was written either delivered their Thesis generally that Almighty God produced Mankind by His Power and Will not explicating the particular manner thereof or if they attempted a particular Explication of the manner they ran out into very uncertain various and contradictory Explications thereof which must necessarily be the consequence of such particular determinations where Man hath not sufficient light to guide and direct him Zeno Citicus the Founder and Prince of the Sect of the Stoicks a wise and a good Man contented himself with this general Assertion touching this matter as it is delivered us by Censorinus in Die natali cap. 4. Zenon Citicus Stoicae sectae conditor principium humano generi ex novo mundi constitutum putavit primosque homines ex solo adminiculo Divini ignis id est Dei providentia genitos Plato as far as we can collect his Opinion out of his Timeus attributes the Origination of Mankind to the immediate Causality of an Intelligent Nature But going further into particulars falls into conjectures attributing the Effection of the Soul unto the Great God but the Fabrication of the Body to the Dii ex Deo or Angels it seems according to the Tradition of the Egyptians And this hath been ordinarily the unhappiness of Mankind without the light and guidance of Divine Revelation that if they have at any time happened upon some sound and substantial Truth they commonly fix unto it Explications and Additions of their own which many times by their inevidence absurdity or incongruity draw in question the Truth it self to which they are appendicated Therefore to settle and fix and quiet the Minds of Men touching their own first Origination and the Origination of this World it hath pleased the Divine Wisdom and Goodness by the Hand of Moses to reveal unto Mankind not only that the World and Mankind had their Original and that they had their Original from Almighty God as its Efficient both of the Matter and Form thereof but also he hath therein declared the Series Order and Method of the production of all Things It is true the two former namely That the World had an Inception and had an Inception from God is a Truth that by the diligent Improvement of natural Light and Reason is attainable but the Manner and Order of this Effection is as before is said discoverable only by Divine Revelation But yet though the Manner thereof is not discernable barely by the light of Nature or Reason without the help of Divine Revelation yet that Method and Manner once revealed as it stands so revealed to us by Moses carries a very great congruity to Reason which though it cannot at first discover the Method or Order yet it cannot choose but suffragate to the reasonableness and convenience thereof being so discovered I shall therefore in what follows do these things 1. I shall give an Account of that Method of the Formation of all things and particularly of Mankind as it is rendred to us by Moses 2. I shall shew the reasonableness and congruity of the Scheme of Moses touching the Effection of Mankind both in the general and particular notion thereof and the prelation that it justly hath above all other the Hypotheses of other Men. 3. I shall deduce from the whole certain evident and necessary Conclusions against those that deny the Existence and Providence of Almighty God 4. I shall also deduce some Conclusions evincing the Reasonableness of an intended End for Mankind or the Design of Almighty God in his Creation and what may be reasonably concluded touching the same CAP. II. The Mosaical History touching the production of the World and of Mankind and the Congruity and Reasonableness of the Mosaical Hypothesis IN that short yet admirable History of the Creation delivered by Moses in the first Chapter of Genesis he gives us an exact Account of the Origination both of Mankind and of the whole World and therein and thereby he resolves all the Doubts and Difficulties which troubled the Heads of the wise and learned Heathen touching the same and resolves and extricates all those inconveniences and perplexities under which the various Hypotheses of the Heathen World infinitely laboured 1. He resolves us That the World in that Constitution as now it is was not Eternal no not that part to which the Ancients attributed Eternity most namely the Heavens whereby all the Foundations of Aristotle Ocellus Lucanus and others touching the same and all their subtilties and struglings to support that Eternity and to deliver themselves from those inconveniences that attended that Supposition are in a few words rendred vain and frivolous 2. He resolves us That as the World in its present form and structure was not eternal so neither was the matter thereof eternal which troubled Plato so much who though he supposed an inception of the formation of things into their present order yet could not digest an origination of Matter 3. He gives us an account That Time or successive Duration was not eternal but had a beginning and that Motion whose Measure Time was had a beginning before which it was not because no Mobile was more ancient than the beginning of Time 4. He gives us an account of a kind of production that
Will of God was sufficient to bring Being out of Nothing so the like determination of the same Will was sufficient to form Man out of the Dust of the ground without taking in a subordination or instrumentality of Angels Again if we should suppose the cooperation of Angels in the Formation of the Body of Man it must be in the strength virtue and efficiency of the first Cause which as it gave the Angels their Being so it must give them the efficacy power and virtue to be instrumental in this Formation which as we have no warrant so we have no probable reason to admit since the first Cause was all sufficient for this Effect without their assistance 4. The admirable Structure of the Body of Man the accommodation of it to Faculties the furnishing of it with Faculties accommodate to it even as its Animal Nature though we take not in the reasonable intellectual Soul imports in it a Wisdom Power and Efficacy above the Power of any created Nature to effect If it should be in the power of an Angel by applying actives to passives to produce an Insect nay a perfect Animal yet the Constitution and Frame of so much of that in Man that concerns his Animal Nature were too high a Copy for an Angelick Nature to write unless thereunto deputed and commissionated by the Infinite God which Commission we no where find and I am very sure a bare Naturalist will not suppose 5. Again there is that necessity of a suitableness and accommodation of the Parts of the Body to the Faculties of the Soul and è converso that any the least disproportion or disaccommodation of one to the other would spoil the whole Work and make them utterly unserviceable and unapplicable one to the other It was therefore of absolute necessity that the same skill and dexterity that was requisite to the first Formation of the Soul must be used and employed in the Formation of the Body and if an Angel were unequal to the making up and ordering of the Soul he could never be sufficient to make a fit organical Body exactly suitable to it Upon the whole matter I therefore conclude That not only the Soul but the very Animal Nature in Man and not only that but the Formation and Destination of his Bodily Frame was not only the Work of an Intelligent Being but of the Infinite and Omnipotent Intelligent Being who in the same moment formed his Body and organized it with immediate Organs and Instruments of Life and Sense and created his Intellectual Nature and united it to him whereby Man became a living Soul And this as the necessary Evidence of Reason doth first drive us to acknowledge a Being or first Formation of the Humane Nature ex non genitis and secondly to acknowledge that this first Formation of the Nature of Man was not by Chance Casualty or a meer Syntax of Natural Causes but by an Intelligent Efficient so we are upon the very same and a greater Evidence of Reason driven to acknowledge that Intelligent Efficient to be the Great and Wise and Glorious God no other Cause imaginable being par tali negotio And indeed if once we can bring Men but to this one Concession That the original Efficient of the Humane Nature was an Intelligent Being any Man pretending to Reason will with much less difficulty admit that Efficient to be the Almighty God than any other invisible intelligent Efficient which we usually call Angels or Intelligences And the Reasons are these 1. Because though we that are acquainted with the Divine Truths do as really believe that there are Angels as well as Men yet the Natural Evidences of the Existence of Almighty God are far more evident and convincing even upon a Rational and Natural account than that there are Angels for the former being a Truth of the highest moment and importance to be believed by all hath a proportionable weight and clearness of evidence even to Natural Light more and greater than any other Truth And hence among the Jews the Sect of the Sadduces believed the Existence of God yet denied or doubted the Existence of Angels or separated Intelligences 2. Because the very Supposition of an Angelical Nature doth necessarily suppose the Existence of a Supreme Being from whom they derive their Existences 3. Because the great occasion of Infidelity in relation to Existence of Almighty God is that sensual Men are not willing to believe any thing whereby they have not a sufficient Evidence as they think to their Sense The Notion of a Spiritual and Immaterial Being is a thing that they cannot digest because they cannot see or by any Sense perceive it nor easily form to themselves a Notion of it He therefore that can so far master the stubborness of Sense as to believe such a Spriritual Intelligent Being as an Angel hath conquered that difficulty that most incumbers his belief of a God and we that can but suppose or admit the former cannot long doubt of the latter He therefore that can once bring his thoughts to carry the first Origination of Mankind to the efficiency of an Angel must needs in a little time see a greater evidence not only to believe a Supreme Deity but to attribute the Origination of Mankind and of the goodly Frame of the Universe to the Supreme Being as necessarily best fitted with Power Wisdom and Goodness to accomplish so great a Work and that without the help or intervention of Angels or created Intelligences who must needs derive their Being Power and Activity from him There remains two or three Objections against the force of the Consequence of the Existence of Almighty God and his Efficiencies in the production of Mankind in their first Individuals which I shall propound and answer 1. Object What need there be laid so great a stress upon the Primitive Formation of Man as that it could not be done but by the Power and Wisdom of an Almighty Intelligent Being since every day's experience lets us see that by the mixture and coition of Man and Woman Et ex semine ab utroque deciso in utèro muliebri per spatium decem mensium ad plurimum producitur hujusmodi natura humana quem tot elogiis magnificamus that which we every day see to be an effect of finite Creatures in the daily production of Individuals of Humane Nature Why must we needs call in no less than the Wisdom and Power of God himself to be the immediate Efficient of the first Formation of the Individuals of that nature which we see every day produced by the common efficacy of Nature and efficiency of the Parents Vel ad minus seminis utriusque sexus in utero foemineo conclusi In Answer hereunto I shall not at this time or in this place enter into the dispute how far the Divine Efficiency concurrs immediately in the ordinary Generation of Mankind nor how far the entire Humane Nature as well his Rational Soul as his
Being to But the propriety that any Man can have in what he makes is still limited and qualified first because he is not himself his own he owes his Being to God and therefore without the help of Divine Indulgence his acquests are like the acquests of a Servant acquirit domino And besides the Matter is not his own whatsoever he makes he makes out of that Matter that was not his own But the propriety that Almighty God acquires in his Creatures is absolute because he himself is a Supreme and Sovereign Efficient none is above him and because the Matter out of which he effected Man and all Corporeal Existences was perfectly his own it was Matter of his own making 2. A right of absolute Dominion and Sovereignty over his Creature where the property is circumscribed limited or qualified the dominion is so too but an absolute sovereign property carries with it an absolute sovereign dominion in the Proprietor 3. An infinite irresistible power to exert the right of his Dominion according to his Will The two former Considerations give him a sovereign authority over his Creature a right jus disponendi but authority or right being divided from power to execute that authority and exact obedience to it is lame but the glorious God hath not only an absolute right of propriety and dominion over his Creature but an infinite irresistible power to rule order and dispose it according to his Will Almighty God tells us Jerem. 18. that as the Clay is in the Potter's hand so are Mankind in his hand yea and in a far greater subordination and subjection to his Power the power of the Potter over his Clay is a finite limited power we see in the same place it resisted and disappointed his intention by its untractableness But the power of God over his Creature is an infinite power he that by his power made him in an instant can in an instant dissolve or annihilate him And yet this infinite Power of God is under the management of a most wise and holy and pure and gracious Will and therefore though his Propriety be absolute his Dominion boundless his Power infinite yet the exercise of his Dominion and Power is full of Goodness suitable to the most perfect nature of God I am God and not man therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed Here therefore we have that great Question among some of the Ancients satisfactorily answered namely What is the Root of all Obligation in Mankind whence comes the Obligation in the Consciences of Men what is it that binds Men to keep their Faith their Promises It is the Law and Command of him that hath sovereign Authority to command and infinite Power to exact Obedience and to punish the want of it all other foundations of Obligation are but weak and deficient without this or in comparison to it 10. In this History of the primitive state of Man and his defection we have the Solution of that great Quaesitum that troubled the ancient Philosophers especially the Stoicks namely Whence or how came it to pass that not only that great disorder happens in things of this World especially in the nature and practices and customs of Mankind some would have it from Matter some from one thing some from another we see here a plain Solution of the Quaere That it came not from God no nor from Matter but by the defection and disobedience of the first Man which brought Death into the World and Sin and Corruption and Depravation and Disorder into the Humane Nature and brought disorder and discomposure upon the greatest part of this lower World which as it was principally made for the service of Man so it suffered a great Concussion and Breach by the Disobedience and Apostacy of Man and from this unhappy root ariseth all the Disorders and Confusions in the humane World for although the Fall of Man did neither alter the essential Constituents of Mankind nor wholly raze out the Engravings of those common Notions Sentiments and rational Instincts that were in them yet it did in a great measure impair and weaken them and brought in a very great deordination and discomposure setting up the lower Faculties in rebellion against the superior so that the wiser and more morate part of Mankind were forced to set up Laws and Punishments to keep the generality of Mankind in some tolerable order 11. This reasonableness congruity and consonancy to common Light and Reason in the Hypothesis of the Formation of the World and Mankind and the great preference that it hath above those Inventions of the ancient Philosophers touching the same the admirable Solution of many of those difficulties which are hereby solved doth give a very great valuation and esteem to the truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures It is true their Authority is above the contribution of Humane Reason or any Supplies it can bring either to its Truth or Authority but yet when a Man shall see so great a clearness and plainness and reasonableness in the Holy Scripture touching this great Truth so many difficulties and absurdities thereby avoided so great a suffrage and attestation of Reason and common evidence bearing witness to this Truth and to such a Truth as could never be at first particularly discovered without Divine Revelation yet being discovered carries in it nothing of absurdity but a singular congruity both to it self in the several parts of it and to the common Reason It is true a great though a Ministerial and Humane Suffrage to the truth and excellency of the Holy Scriptures strengthens our Faith which God knows stands in need of all the contributions that may be to bear up our Souls against that root of Infidelity that is in us and may be instrumental and preparative to bring those to the belief and veneration of the Scriptures who are without and hardly perswadible but by those media that bear a congruity to their natural Light and Reason 12. And therefore we have infinite reason to bless and magnifie the gracious God that hath lent us his Holy Scriptures to inform us in things to be believed and to be done and to contain and preserve us infra cancellos certitudinis The Lord knows and we cannot choose but daily observe in our selves a strange mobility and instability in our Imaginative and Intellective Faculty roving after every thing and in many things that we know and much more in things we know not framing strange Chimaera's finding out many Inventions was the first effect of the departure of Mankind from a revealed Truth and searching after unknown and forbidden Knowledge And this hath been the course and walk and disease of our restless moveable unstable Mercurial Brains ever since in matters of Philosophy in matters of Religion The merciful and wise God therefore to keep in and regulate the extravagant and witless Spirit of Man and to give us the clear knowledge of things necessary and useful and to prescribe and
give rain Jer. 14.22 Thus the wise God who doth nothing vainly or unnecessarily nor infringeth the more constant Laws of Nature when those parts thereof that are more anomalous and more easily applicable to his imperate acts and ends of Providence may serve more ordinarily chuseth those parts of Nature to execute his special Providences that may do it without any great fracture of the more stable and fixed parts of Nature or the infringment of the Laws thereof Again as the Empire of the Divine Will doth exercise its imperate acts in the Methods of special Providence upon things simply in themselves natural so it doth upon Agents or Natures intellectual and free Sometimes immediately by Himself sometimes by the Instrumentality of Angels or proposed Objects This Exercise of the imperate Acts of the Divine Providence may be upon the Understanding or Will Upon the Understanding principally these ways 1. By immediate afflatus or impression as anciently was usual in prophetick Inspirations 2. By conviction of some Truths and this may be either by a strong and over-bearing presenting of them to the Understanding with that light and evidence that it is under a kind of necessity of believing them which was often seen in the primitive times of Christianity wherein God was pleased many times irresistibly and by immediate overpowering the Understanding by the powerful impression of the Object or Truth propounded to conquer as it were the Understanding into an assent Or 2. By advancing and enlightning the understanding Faculty with a superadded light and perception whereby it was enabled to discern the truth of things delivered For as the Understanding receives some Truths proposed by reason of the congruity between the Faculty and the Object as the Eye sees some visible Objects by reason of the congruity between it and them so the reason why it perceives not all Objects of Truth is because of some defect of the Faculty whereby it holds not a full and perfect congruity with them either by reason of the remoteness or sublimity of the Object or some deficiency of light in the Faculty which is aided by the Collyrium of the Divine Assistance Rev. 2. Or else 3. By some extraordinary concomitant moral evidence such was that of the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles the Seals and Credentials of the Truths they delivered And as thus the imperate acts of the Divine special Providence are exercised upon the Understanding so they are exercised upon the Will and that either immediately or mediately Immediately 1. By an immediate determining of the Will For although the Will be naturally free yet it is naturally and essentially subject to the imperium divinae voluntatis when He is pleased to exercise that empire upon it This although he rarely doth yet he may do it and sometimes doth it irresistibly determining the Will to chuse this or that good and yet this without any such force or violence as is simply contrary to the nature of it because as there is no Power in the World but owes most naturally an obediential subjection to the Lord of Nature so even the Will it self is naturally and essentially subject to the determination of the Lord and Author of it 2. By immediate inclining and inflecting it to determin of it self This is that secret striving of the Spirit of God with the Will inflecting and perswading it to this or that good It differs from the former way because that it is irresistible this though potent yet in its own nature resistible by the Will of Man though it many times prevails by its efficacy V. Gen. 6.3 Eph. 4.30 Again 2. Sometimes it is done Mediately more humano and yet not without the mediate special Empire and Regiment of the Divine Will and thus it is done two ways viz. 1. By an irresistible or at least powerful conviction of the Understanding that the thing in proposal is fit and necessary to be done or omitted for although some think that the Will hath a power of choosing or refusing or suspending notwithstanding the final decision of the practical Understanding yet certain we are that ordinarily and when the Will acts as a Rational faculty it is or ought to be determined by the last decision of the practical Understanding and 2. By proposing Moral objects that do more humano guide the Will to determine it self accordingly and these are various sometimes Intervention Perswasion or Examples of others and sometimes even the junctures of Natural occurrences For as I shall have occasion to shew and is partly touched before even the Natural occurrences of things are under the guidance and conduct of the Divine Providence even when to us they seem to be either Accidental or to be the meer product of Natural Causes And surely if we should deny the intervention of Imperate Acts of Divine Providence in relation to actions Natural or Moral that appear in the World we should exclude his Regiment of the World in a great measure and chain up all things to a fatal necessity of Second Causes and allow at most to the glorious God a bare prospect or prescience of things that are or shall be done without any other Regency of things but meerly according to the instituted nature and operations of things And thus far of the Imperate Acts of the Divine Providence Only this farther I must subjoyn as a certain truth That neither the Empire of the Divine Providence or his mediate or immediate determinations perswasions or inflexions of the Understanding or Will of Rational Creatures doth either naturally morally or intentionally deceive the Understanding or pervert the Will or necessitate or incline either to any falshood or moral evil 3. The third Analogy that is between the regiment of the Soul over the Body and the Divine regiment of the Universe is in relation to the acts of general Providence or that ordinary Law wherein Almighty God governs ordinarily the Universe and the things in it without the particular mixture of those that I have called the Imperate Acts of special Providence which seems to consist of two parts 1. The institution of certain common Laws or Rules for all created Beings which without a special intervention of his Will to alter or change they should regularly observe as that the Heavenly Bodies should have such Motions and Influences that the Inferiour or Elementary World should have its several Mixtures and Transmutations by the application of the active principles and particles in it to Passives and by the virtue of the Heavenly Motions and Influences That there should be vicissitudes of generations and corruptions that Vegetables should have the operation of vital vegetation increase duration and productions according to their several kinds that Sensible Natures should enjoy a life of Sense and those several powers or faculties of Sensation Phantasie Memory Appetition Digestion Local Motion Generation and those several instincts whereby they should be managed and governed according to the conveniencies of a
immediate reach of our Sense we may have such an evidence as in reason we ought as reasonable Men to acquiesce in though the evidence be still in its own nature but moral and not simply demonstrative or infallible And the variety of circumstances renders the credibility of such things more or less according to the various ingredients and contributions of credibility that are concentred in such an evidence It is impossible to demonstrate by evidence infallible or which is all one by evidence that is impossible to be false that there was such a Man as Julius Caesar or Augustus that there was such a Man as William the Conqueror or King Henry the Eighth or that such a Man was his Father or such a Woman his Mother or that there is such a City as Venice or Rome to me that never saw it for all these I have but by relation from others and it is not impossible but those Histories or informations or relations by which I am informed of these things may be false And they are such matters as have in them a less evidence than my own Sense of Sight for the evidence of my Sense is simple and immediate and therefore I have but a shorter cut thereby to the assent to the truth of the things so evidenced But in things that I have by relation from others my evidence is of greater distance for first I see them not by my own Eyes but it is others that must first see the thing they relate and secondly though I should think that whatsoever might be believed if obvious to the Sense of others might have as great a credibility as if obvious to my own yet I must have a second postulation that must have an ingredient to elicit my assent namely the veracity of him that reports and relates it And hence it is that that which is reported by many Eye-witnesses hath greater motives of credibility than that which is reported by few that which is reported by credible and authentick witnesses than that which is reported by light and inconsiderable witnesses that which is reported by persons disinteressed than that which is reported by persons whose interest it is to have the thing true or believed to be true that which hath the concurring testimony of real existing monuments than that which is without them and finally that which is reported by credible persons of their own view than that which they receive by hear-say from those that report upon their own view So that it is not with Evidences of Fact as it is with Logical or Mathematical Demonstrations which seem to consist in indivisibles for that which thus is demonstratively true is impossible to be false but Moral Evidence is gradual according to the variety of circumstances Yet such a man would be exploded as an irrational man that will not believe there was such a man as Julius Caesar because the Historians that write of him might possibly conspire to deceive the World with a Romance or that the Books may be supposititious or corrupted or will not believe that such a Man was his Father or such a Woman his Mother because he might be supposititious or will not believe there is such a City as Rome which he never saw because Travellers are wont to love to tell strange things and so may many as well as one So that as eternal Truths may have one kind of certainty by Logical Demonstration and as Mathematical Conclusions have an infallible certainty by Mathematical Demonstration and as matters objected immediately to our Sense have another kind of certainty by sensible evidence so matters simply of fact not objected immediately to our Sense have another kind of certainty though not altogether equal to the former nor simply infallible yet so highly credible that may justly elicit the assent of reasonable men and such as is proportionate to the nature of the thing and therefore more cannot be reasonably expected for the proof of the fact In the pursuance of this Argument namely Evidences of Fact touching the Origination of Mankind I must therefore say that the Evidences thereof are not of an infallible certainty and so much the rather because it relates to a matter that at the nearest that can be supposed is near six thousand years distant from us and some suppose more therefore the Evidences of Fact are as it were percolated through a vast Period of Ages and many very obscure to us And therefore all Proofs of this kind except that of Divine Revelation which though true and infallibly true we must not by the Laws of Argumentation bring in here because at one word it determins the Question will arise to no higher than Moral and therefore fallible in their own nature We rest upon what hath been before said for Evidences and Reasons that to me seem demonstrative But yet the Evidences of Fact which we shall produce must be considered also with these Advantages for their credibility 1. They are such as bear a great congruity and consonancy with and subservience to those former Arguments that ex natura rei and intrinsecè prove an impossibility of an eternal duration of Mankind à parte ante which though it doth not cannot evince that Mankind must have their Origination or Beginning in hac vel ista hora yet they do evince that Beginning it must have and the evidences of fact are as so many testes contestes or suffragiales that bear witness to that Truth that the former sort of Arguments do plainly evince 2. Though these Evidences of Fact taken singly and apart are not without their Objections that may seem to weaken them yet juncta juvant That evidence at Law which taken singly or apart makes but an imperfect proof semiplena probatio yet in conjunction with others grow to a full proof like Silurus his twigs that were easily broken apart but in conjunction or union were not to be broken Truths especially of Fact are not made Truths by Arguments or Evidence If there were once such a man as Caesar it is most certainly true that he was though no Historian ever mentioned him and therefore if there were ten thousand Authors that mention him kept sacredly and inviolably in certain Archives unto this day all this evidence doth not make him to be but only gives us a light and evidence of great probability that he was The Stars in the Milky-way and those Asseclae Jovis are not therefore in the Heavens or Aether because the Telescope hath discovered them for they were there before but the position of those Glasses present them to our perception and evidence their being which cannot be discovered without them And so it is with Evidences of Fact they do not make the thing to be but evidence them to be and because if to any one quaesitum of fact there be many but probable evidences which taken singly have not perchance any full evidence yet when many of those evidences concur and concenter in
truth of it namely That this was a thing believed near 4000 Years since by Wise Men such as Moses was and by them that were much nearer to the time wherein the Origination of Mankind and those other Matters of Fact that are contributory to the Proof thereof was transacted and therefore in common Reason must needs have a clearer Tradition and Evidence of the truth in this matter than the Ages so many thousand Years after but this I shall reserve to its proper place 2. In this place I shall not at all insist upon the Tradition of Moses touching the Creation of Man but only upon those Historical Narratives delivered by Moses relating to such Matters of Fact that were nearer his time and such as he might very reasonably know and deliver as an Historiographer namely the Propagation of Mankind after the Flood and the Reduction of most of the considerable Nations of the World to their several Roots or Parents by Natural Propagation and the credibility of his Relation touching it Though even the credibility of this Relation of his gives a great Evidence and Attestation even upon a Moral account to what he writes touching the Creation of Man and those parts of the History antecedent to the Flood The Sum therefore of the Mosaical History that I shall in this place make use of is this 1. That a Universal Flood was brought upon the Earth in the Year 1656 after the supposed Creation of Man according to the Jewish Account although the Septuagint allows a longer Period between the Creation and the Flood 2. That by that Universal Flood all Mankind were destroyed except eight persons namely Noah his Wife his three Sons Shem Japhet and Ham and their Wives 3. That all the Race of Mankind after this Flood were derived by natural generation from these three Sons of Noah and their Wives 4. That the particular Descendents from these three Sons of Noah are truly described and set forth in the 9 th 10 th and 11 th Chapters of Genesis by their several Names and drawn down from that Root to the filling and peopling of the whole Earth Gen. 32. These are the Families of the Sons of Noah after their Generations in their Nations and by these were the Nations divided in the Earth after the Flood 5. That after the Flood in the time of Phaleg the Languages of the World especially of the families of Cham and Japhet were confounded and the Nations proceeding from these Families dispersed 6. That the Family of the Israelites was deduced through these ensuing Patriarchs viz. Sem. Arphaxad born two years after the Flood Anno mundi 1658. Salah Heber Peleg Reu. Serug Nahor Terah Abram Isaac Jacob marries Rachel and Leah Anno mundi 2192. Levi and the Twelve Patriarchs Kohath Amram Moses born in the Year of the World 2373. So that from the Flood to the Birth of Moses the Descendents from Jacob grew into a great Nation for in the 80 th Year of Moses Life the Males of the Children of Israel that were above 20 Years old were above 600000 besides the Levites and besides Women and Children that were under 20 Years old Numb 2.32 and this great Increase of this People happened within the compass of about 260 Years And thus according to the Jewish Account in the Holy Text the Period between the Flood and the Exitus of the People out of Egypt was about 800 Years But indeed the Account of the Septuagint partly by the Intersection of Cainan in the Genealogy and partly by adding 100 Years to that Technogonia of the Patriarchs before Abraham have made the Period larger by 884 Years So that according to that Account the Exitus ex Egypto was at least 1684 Years after the Flood Now this History of Moses of the peopling of the World by the Posterity of Noah doth these two things 1. It gives us an Account of the Original of all the Nations in the World not from bare allusion of Names nor from bare Coalitions into Civil Societies in which they were formed as Romulus was the Founder of the Populus Romanus and Pelasgus of the Pelasgi but it gives us the Account of their Origination by Propagation from the Natural Roots and Parents of them 2. Although notwithstanding this Instance it may be possible that though the Natural Derivation of all Mankind was from Noah and his three Sons yet the Progenitors or Ancestors of Noah might have no Original but might be Eternal according to the Hypothesis of Aristotle yet when I find the same Author that gives me an Account of the Derivation of all the World from Noah and his three Sons and that with most clear evidence and credibility it gives me a very great Moral Evidence of the truth of his Relation touching the first Origination of Man by Creation For doubtless both were derived to him by a constant Tradition from those from whom he was descended and it is not reasonable to suspect the truth of the one since we have a strong Moral Evidence for the truth of the other namely the General Flood and the preservation of Noah and his Family and the derivation of all Mankind from him and his Sons He that hath sufficient reason to believe the History touching the latter will have little reason to doubt the truth of the Relation touching the Origination of Mankind which as in it self it seems reasonable and no other possible Supposition to compass it but by a Supernatural Production so it hath a most excellent congruity with the subsequents of the Holy History touching the Descendents from the first Man the Flood and the Re-peopling of the World from Noah Now the Moral Evidences of the credibility and truth of this History are these 1. Moses that wrote it had the best opportunity that could be to give a true Narrative of this Fact touching the Flood and the Productions of Mankind by Generation from the Children of Noah For 1. It is evident by the Writings of this Man that lie was a very Learned knowing Man inquisitive after all sort of Learning a Man in great Power and Esteem in the Court of Egypt and after that a great Governour of a very great People which he governed with admirable Wisdom and by this means had opportunity to furnish himself with all Monuments and Evidences of Antiquity that might be conducible to the Discovery of former things and his Learning Judgment and Ability to make an excellent use of these helps was also remarkable Again 2. He lived not far remote from the transaction of these things that he wrote in comparison of the Writers or Historians of after Ages He dyed above 500 Years before Homer lived which yet is the ancientest Historian that Greece affords and he lived within the Period of 800 Years after the Flood and the division of the World among the Posterity of Noah Livy and other Historians give us an account of the Affairs of Rome for above 600 Years
before they were born and many other Historians for a much longer time and we give them credit and certainly such an Occurrence of such remark as the Universal Flood and the Re-peopling of the World must needs be fresh in memory for such a Period of about 800 Years especially considering that the Peopling of the World was a gradual and successive business that must needs preserve its Memory even upon its own account for it was still current and many were concerned in it in the preservation of the laying the first Foundations of their States and Republicks 3. As the Period or distance of time was not great so if we consider the longevity of Mens Lives in those times the Period was not much longer than three Generations and so the Tradition of things might be preserved fresh and certain unto the time of Moses without any great difficulty For Shem that was an Eye-witness of the Flood was contemporary with Abraham Abraham was contemporary with Jacob Cohath the Son of Levi was contemporary with Jacob and with Amram the Father of Moses and Son of Cohath So that the Tradition of the Flood and all that succeeded might be handed from Shem to Abraham from Abraham to Jacob from Jacob to Cohath from him to Amram and from him to Moses 4. Besides all this without any more Hands in the delivery of it over it appears that Abraham Isaac Jacob were great Men had great Families and Wealth were Men of great Note and Observation for their Learning and Knowledge Men that had great Expectations having a Promise of that Land to be given to their Posterity and although they kept Sheep and Cattel according to the custom of those Eastern Countries yet they were great Princes and Men of excellent Education doubtless Abraham instructed his Son in all the Knowledge that he had received by Tradition from his Ancestors the like did Isaac and after him Jacob. And therefore it might very reasonably be thought that the Traditions of former things were kept fresh and pure in this Line of Men. And though we have no Writings extant ancienter than Moses yet probably in his time there might be Books or at least Monuments and Inscriptions of things done before his time which might preserve the Memory of things past as well as our Books do now For it is not to be doubted but Writing was much ancienter than Moses his time Job speaks of Writing as a thing in use in his time Job 19.23 24. and Josephus tells us of certain Pillars erected by Seth wherein the Monuments of Learning and History were preserved Joseph l. 1. Antiquitat cap. 2. and Moses mentions Books written by others either before or in his time I very well know that Moses had a greater means to know all those things that to a Jew or a Christian are of greater weight than all these namely the Infallible Conduct Revelation and Inspiration of the Divine Spirit But the truth is we are faln into an Age of many Christians in Name and Profession that yet think it below them to believe upon that account without some farther Evidence that may satisfie their Reason I have therefore subjoyned these and the following Considerations to make it appear That upon the bare account of Moral Evidence more is to be said for the truth of the History of Moses than may be said for the truth of any other History of things transacted before the life of the Historiographer 2. Again we usually allow such an Historian to be worthy of belief even in those things whereof we have no other Evidence than the Credit of the Historian if we find many things delivered by him to have so great an Evidence of Truth that they cannot well be doubted by any reasonable Man I will admit that Moses delivers many things that were antecedent to him and can have now no other Evidence than the Credit Prudence and Fidelity of the Historian himself as touching the Derivation of the Nations of the Earth from the several Sons of Noah and though possibly when he wrote there was a vigorous and authentical Tradition or other authentick Evidence of the Truth of them which it may be is now so lost that we have no other Evidence thereof but the bare Relation of Moses this I do for the present admit though in the sequel it will appear that there are other concurrent or collateral Evidences that assert and attest it yet it is plain that the same Moses writes many things that have so undoubted and so solid a Tradition asserting it that no Man can doubt it that will not first deny his own Reason As for instance Can there be any doubt but that the Family of the Israelites were derived from Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the 12 Patriarchs that they were brought out of Egypt under the Conduct of Moses that they lived in the Wilderness forty Years and were there miraculously fed by Quails and Manna since this was written in that very Time and Age that could and would have contradicted it if false Can there be any doubt but the History of his making the Ark and the Tabernacle were true since both continued for many hundred Years after Can there be any doubt of the History of the Fiery Serpents and the Cure of their Biting by the Brazen Serpent which continued in the Wilderness until the time of Hezekiah which was many hundred Years after with an unquestionable Tradition of the reason of its Making Can there be any doubt whether he divided the Land of Canaan in such manner as is set down in his life time namely to the two Tribes and a half on the farther side of Jordan and his Prescripts for the future dividing of the rest since it was enjoyed according to those Prescripts for many hundreds of Years after and part of it until the coming of Christ Can there be any doubt that he gave those Laws Moral Judicial and Ceremonial recorded by him since those very Laws have been for the space of near two thousand Years the very Rule and Model by which the Sacred and Civil Concerns of that People were always ruled and governed and that in contemplation of the same Law that was given by the Hand of Moses and so recorded in his Books of Exodus Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy I say we have not greater Evidence that there was such a Man as Alfred Edward the Confessor or William the Conqueror or that there were such Laws of the Confessor such a Survey of England called Doomsday made by William the Conqueror such an Abbey founded by him in Memory of his Victory in Sussex called Abbatia de Bello such Laws made by H. 1. as are transcribed in the Red Book of the Exchequer under that name such a Charter of King John made at Reningmead or such a Charter as Magna Charta made by King H. 3. than we have that there were such Laws such Distributions of the Land of Canaan and such