affirmed that no miracles are wrought now for even then when I writ that Treatise I knew a blind man who was cur'd at Millain and several others nay there are now so many Examples of the like miraculous Cures wrought in these times as I cannot possibly know them all and yet I know more than I am able to reckon up And the same Father epist. 137. tells us that at the memory of St. Felix at Nola Miracles were then so usually wrought by Invocation of Christs Name as he purposed thither to send Boniface a Priest of his Church and one who accused him of Incontinency the one firmly attesting the other as peremptorily denying conceiving that though in Africa where no Miracles were wrought A thing which he wonders at seeing that Climate abounded more with Religious persons than Italie and I wonder as much at his wondring for that which he alledges as the reason of his astonishment was the reason of the thing he admires and therefore should have put a stop to it because Italy swarm'd more with Pagans than those parts of Africk therefore was that power of working Miracles continued there Tongues and all other supernatural Gifts being not for those that believe but for Infidels One of them might persist in their lie against Conscience yet that the reverence of the very place where the power of Christ had been so manifestly seen would extort from them the confession of the Truth To which he was encouraged by what had happen'd at Millan in the like case where a Thief who strongly denyed he was guilty of a Theft that was laid to his charge when he came to the Church there to swear in the presence of that God in whose Name so many Miracles had been wrought in that very place durst not swear as he had boasted he would but confessed the Fact and restored the goods he had stoln Before I close this point I will give one Instance more of the multitude of Miracles wrought for the Conversion of one peevish Heathen reported by this great Light of the Church who for Learning Judgment and Integrity deserves more credit than the whole Tribe of Pagan Scriblers who in his 67. Epistle gives this account of the Conversion of Dioscorus the Architheater It was not like that this mans stiff neck would be bowed nor his petulant Tongue tamed without a Prodigie It pleased God therefore to smite his only and exceedingly beloved Daughter with a dangerous sickness of whose recovery without Miracle he despairing implores the aid of Christ promising if he might see his Daughter restor'd he would embrace the Christian Faith his request is granted his Daughter recovers but he procrastinates the payment of his vow he hath not long seen her restored to health when Christ retracts the benefit and strikes him blind He vows the second time to become a Christian if he might recover his sight he obtains his sute regains his sight and sets forward toward the receiving of Baptism but they could not get him to learn the Creed till he is surprized with such a Palsey as deprives him of the use of his Tongue upon this he betakes himself to his Pen and writes the Confession of his former Hypocrisie and subscribes to the Confession of the Christian Faith upon which he is restored to the use of his Tongue and to perfect health I am perswaded upon an impartial search here are more indications of a Supernatural power made out for the conversion of this one man than ever God permitted all the Heathen Daemons to shew in proof of all false religions Of which perswasion I make no question but my Reader will be by that time he hath well weighed this example and studied an Answer to that Question of Arnobius To what purpose is it for the Defenders of the Pagan Impiety to shew one or perhaps two cured by Esculapius when none of their Gods relieve so many millions and all their Temples are throng'd with wretched and unhappy Patients who tire Esculapius himself with their Prayers and invite him with their most miserable vowes to help them Quid prodest ostendere unum vel alterum fortasse curatos cum tot millibus subvenerit nemo plena sint omnia miserorum infeliciúmque delubra qui Aesculapium ipsum precibus fatigare invitare miserrimis votis Arnobius And that by that time I have laid down the rest of the differences betwixt those which occur in prophane Authors and those reported in the Sacred Scriptures § 2. 2. For as to the Miracles reported to have been wrought by the God of Israel or by his servants in his name and power they are reported with the greatest Evidence of Truth that matters of Fact are capable of as hath already been demonstrated But the Prodigies said to be done in confirmation of Paganism labour under the burden of a very great suspicion that they are most of them lying Miracles Not one hath been found among the various Sects of Christians or Jews that ever question'd the Truth those of the Old those of either Old or New Testament-relations Though some of their Principles had they seen the tendency of them would have necessitated them to it The Manichees who denied the God of Israel to be the best and greatest God did yet believe that the History of the Old Testament was true The Sadducees who denied the Existency of Angels or Spirits yet owned the Books of Moses wherein the God of Israel is declared to be both great and good by the merciful wonders he wrought by the Ministry of Angels The Arrians denied Christ to be the Eternal God yet confest he did those stupendious works which none but God can do some whereof he professedly did on purpose to manifest himself to be equal to his Eternal Father Monsters of men they deny the Conclusions and yet grant Premisses most necessarily and demonstratively proving those Conclusions But of all those Pagan Writers that have escaped the Teeth of time and made mention of Pagan Prodigies there is not one but hath question'd the Truth of their own Legends so far as by the diligent reading of them I can find To the many instances that have allready been produc'd in my First Book Sect. 3. chap. 5. I shall here add the Censure of that Famous Critick Agellius who in his 9. 4. noct Attic. telling a story how that upon his coming to Brundusium he heard a fellow crying Books to whom he repairing bought the works of Aristaeus Proconnesius Isagonus Nicaeensis Ctesias Onesicritus Polystephanus and Hegesius Authors of great Authority as he stiles them and yet he calleth their Histories of such miraculous Accidents as made most noise and had been most universally believ'd in the Age of Paganism Books full of Miracles and Fables out of which repeating those that had best born up their credit unto his Age he mentions none but such stories of men with one eye of Pigmeis c. as there is no man
betake our selves to those Testimonies to the truth which they have given Aust. tom 6. fol. 27. Contra Judaeos Paganos c. oratio Convertimus nos ad gentes demonstramus nos etiam gentibus testimonium Christo esse prolatum quoniam veritas non tacuit clamando etiam per linguas inimicorum nonne quando poeta ille facundissimus inter sua carmina dicebat Jam nova progenies coelo dimittitur alto Christo testimonium perhibebat And the learned Vives in Aug. de Civitat 10. 27. disproves Servius his application of it to Asinius Pollio as inuring on Virgil the brand of a false Prophet the Civil Wars of Rome long out-lasting his Consul-ship Or that which after his death sang his Epicaedium That which sounded his coming into the world or that that sounded the march to his conquest of the World The Satyrist setting his Trumpet to his mouth and lifting up his voyce to make that crowd of bestial immoralities make way that wholly bid defiance to the sober instructions of the Gospel or the Comick gently distilling those principles of vertue into mens minds as prepared the world for a more ready imbracing of the Royal Law To be sure the masculine poetry of that age ushered Christs doctrine into the Empire as the Baptist did into Judaea for what the Law was to the Jew that the liberal Sciences were to the gentile a School-master to bring them to Christ as Clemens Alexandrinus Stromat 1. affirms and as it were set the game for the net of the Gospel as the same learned Father observes Or as Theons Musicians in Aelian Aelian var. hist. 2. 44. prepared the expectant spectators with their incentive Songs for a more plausible reception of the express Image of the eternal Father riding upon his white horse conquering and to conquer So serviceable was Poetry to the Gospel as St. Paul quotes it thrice in confirmation of the Divine Truth But it would have done it as great disservice had it been the figment of the Apostles brain and not His Poem to use the Apostles phrase Ephes. 2. 10. who gives to man the power of invention and of framing Ideas Sect. 2. It is bad halting we say before a Criple 't is worse counterfeiting before a Poetical age an age so well seen in the art of feigning Homers figments past for truth Hesiods God-births for good Divinity while they singly monopolized the spirit of Poetry and had that spirit elevated to extraordinary degrees of divine heat by the antiperistasis of the coldness of the circumjacent impoetical age wherein they flourish'd but not when all was full of Poets Tully himself then though a knee-worshipper of those Gods yet in heart explodes them that Poet in prose quickly smelt them out to be figments A babe will buss a baby of clouts bewray that innate principle of Idolatry that Pope i' th' belly at the sight of the most rude-drawn picture In the simple age of our fore-fathers it was argument enough with the vulgar to conclude a story true if they had read it in a Ballad It was no demonstration of Apelles his art that he drâ—w Alexanders image so near the life as Bucephalus neigh'd at sight of it Aelian 2. 3. Alexander at Ephesus seeing an image of himself that Apelles had drawn did not praise it to the liking of the Painter who therefore hangs it in the sight of his horse and he neighing at it as he used to do at the sight of his Master Apelles told Alexander he perceiv'd his horse was better skill'd in the art of painting than himself I should rather have concluded it well done had Alexander himself not disprov'd it who was better able to judge of its artificialness than his horse Quid enim vacua rationis animalia arte decepta miremur Valer. Max. 8. 11. It would have been to me no absolute commendation of the Painters art to have seen the Birds pecking at Zeuxes Grapes for I frequently see the like cheat put upon silly fish whom every Boy and Country Swain can have to leap at a made Fly but had I behold Zeuxes in scorn offering to pull aside Parrhasais his painted curtain that the spectaters might take a view of the picture as he supposed behind it I should hardly have refrained those loud applauses of so admirable an Artist as would have scared away the Birds from Zeuxes Grapes The Metaphor from Painters to Poets is not far fetcht The Priâ—â—itive Church must have had as stupendous a degree of daring any thing as Parrhasus If they had a mind to deceive with fables they must devise them so cunningly as the most critical age in the art of devising cannot detect the forgery Had their draught of the way to heaven through the veil been a painted curtain it must have been shadowed with such incomparable dexterity as to cheat with its show of substance and reality an age not of Babes Brutes and Birds but of Painters CAP. III. Our Saviours age too much skill'd in the black-art to be cheated with magick tricks Sect. 1. YOu may surmise perhaps as both Jew and Gentile of old objected that Belzebubs hand was in this draught That they that made the show cast mists before the worlds eyes and by diabolical inchantments fascinated the otherwise clearest sighted spectators Celsus in Origen lib. 1. cal 5. 7. Vide August de consensu Evangel lib. 1. cap. 9. Ita vero isti decipiunt ut in illis libris quos Christum scripsisse existimant dicant contineri eas artes quibus eum putant illa fecisse miracula quorum fama ubique percrebuit Tom. 4. pag. 162. But before whom were these supposed pranks play'd was it not before a generation so well so ill seen quo melior eo deterior in those kinds of arts as he that could have the confidence that way to deceive the world must think himself able as we say to cheat the Divel So famous was Ephesus of old for its skill in the Black-art as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. were proverbially used in the ancient Comicks The forms of whose diabolical mysteries claim as great antiquity as Jove himself for they that rock'd him in his cradle the Idaei Dactyli were the inventors of the six Ephesian charming words as Clemens Alexandrinus testifieth Stromat 1. 5. 18. and in our Saviours time were grown to that bulk as the price of the Books writ upon that subject found then in one City and in the hands of those Citizens that were converted amounted to 50000 pieces of Silver which summ whether it amount to 9000 French Crowns as Calvin or but 8700 as Beza computes and the Independent brethren plead in their reasons against the Presbyterians inference from the Church of Ephesus or to more as the Presbyterians urge in their answer for they are ever for the greatest summ is one of those many fruitless endless questions with which as with knotty wedges the now Church has been cleft in
if the world understood what he did she should be worshipt as a Goddess rather than either Juno or Minerva for she is not saith he in any laudable thing inferiour to the best of the Poetical Goddesses The greatest part of his third Book de Nat. Deorum he spends in exploding the Stoical and Poetical Divinity If the Planets must therefore be concluded Deities because of their regular motion let 's take Tertian and Quartan Agues into the number of Gods If Jupiter and Neptune be Gods are not their Brethren so too Orcus Acheron Cocytus Styx Phlegeton c why next are not Charon and Cerberus reputed Gods Nostri quidem Publicani cùm essent agri in Boeotia deorum immortalium excepti lege Censoriâ negabant immortales esse ullos qui aliquandò homines fuissent Our Sequestrators when the Law of the Censors had excepted the Lands in Boeotia belonging to the immortal Gods would find no such lands alledging that the Deities there having been once mortal men could never turn into immortal Gods Thus though Socrates his death over-awed those in whose memories the fate of that Philosophical-proto-Martyr was fresh yet length of time having pretty well digested that cold flegm and crude fear which Socrates his Aconite had bred in former Ages the whole company of the then modern Philosophers except Epicurus his herd of Hogs began about our Saviours time to prick up their bristles and proclaim their dislike of that fabulous Divinity that had in former times obtain'd credit in the world In which Age thus well secured from seduction by the most plaufible and insinuating fables for the Apostles to assault the world with naked and plain stories of one Jesus of Nazareth born at Bethlem King of the Jews c. and of things as much exceeding humane belief as any the most unlikely fictions of the vainest Poets would have been the most sottish attempt that ever was undertaken by the most insensate changelings had not the adventurers been themselves throughly perswaded of the truth of those unlikely stories and perfectly instructed with a power to demonstrate the truth thereof to others St. Paul's disputing at Athens the great Mart of Learning concerning the Living God his offering to prove to the Philosophers face that Jesus of Nazareth is that God by a bare telling by babling over as they at first reputed it the History of Christ had been ground enough for Agrippa's charge Paul thou art beside thy self if his own consciousness to its truth and the irrefragable demonstrableness thereof to others by Gods Hand and Seal set to it had not animated him to that attempt Could that chosen vessel hope to vend his commodities had they been adulterate among such cunning Merchants his Gemms had they been but Bristol-stones among such knowing Lapidaries Would he have shown his Treasures of Wisdom to an Age so inquisitive and so happy in its inquest after Wisdom had they not been such as would abide the severest scrutiny even of them that had tryed all former stuffs of the same nature in appearance and exploded them as spurious of them whom the authority of Homer the antiquity of Hesiod the reverence of Orpheus or the fear of Municipal Laws could not impose silence upon when they saw the world imposed upon in matters of Religion by popular fictions The light of Natural Knowledge even in Divine things had never shone brighter neither had the windows of mens minds been ever set more wide open receive in the beams thereof than when the Gospel was first exposed to the world Had not therefore this Eaglet been the genuine Off-spring of supernatural light it would not have ventur'd to out-face this noon-day-sun of Natural Knowlege For that which we read in them hath he set a Tabernacle for the Sun the Ancients read posuit in sole Tabernaculum he hath set his Tabernacle in the Sun and some of them expound it to be a Prophecy of the Apostles publishing the Gospel the summ whereof is the Tabernacling of God in man in the clearest day of Humane Knowledge that had till then shined out upon the world or as the Prophet paraphraseth when men should run to and fro as dissatisfied with former science falsly so call'd and by that disquisition and canvassing of old traditions increase in Knowledge Christ did not shuffle in his Doctrine in the dark but produc'd it when all kind of Humane Literature was improved to that Giantick stature as none before that reached to and whoever since have stood Candidates for the repute of excellent Humanists have not by a general vote obtain'd the honour they stood for except they have been found imitators or emulators of that Age. Among Poets he bears away the Laurel even at this day as the best Lyrick Heroick Satyrist Comick Tragick c. who approacheth nearest those that then flourish'd Horace Virgil Ovid Juvenal Terence Seneca c. Among Orators he hath the general applause that shoots nearest the mark which Pliny set himself who was so far from taking as an opprobrie what M. Regulus objected against him that he was Tully's Ape as he gloried in his being esteem'd an emulator of so unparallel'd a precedent protesting that the eloquence of his own Age was too low a lure for him to fly at Plin. secund lib. 1. ep 5. Among Politicians he 's reputed the craftiest that most resembles Tiberius he the solidest that writes best after the copy of Augustus Among Patriots Cato's among Historians and Martialists Caesar's transcripts are the only men of account in our modern Calculations of mens deserts As for Divine Philosophy the Platonick which attain'd to its full growth about our Saviours time Aristotle being then and many hundred years after scarce taken notice of till in the Reign of Severus Aphrodisaeus brought him into credit hath ever been in St. Austin's judgement de Civit. 8. 4. non quidem immeritò excellentissimâ gloriâ claruit of best esteem and such as all other Sects must strike top-sail to in those Seas Aristotle indeed justly carries away the name of Daemon for his universal insight into all things yet he must yield to Plato the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his surpassing Knowledge in things Divine Now it was against the Sun of Platonick Philosophy shining out in his greatest splendour that the Primitive Church held up the Gospel It was in this Galaxie they shed the milk of the Word had it therefore not been sincere the whiteness of this milky way would have bewrayed the adulterate mixture This observation Tertullian urgeth to the Gentiles in his Apology Apolog. 21. cap. Christus non rapaces feros adhuc homines multitudine tot Numinum demerendorum attonitos efficiendo ad humanitatem temperavit ut Numa sed jam expolitos ipsae urbanitate deceptos in agnitionem veritatis oculavit Christ did not temper to humanity wild and savage men by amazing them with a multitude of Deities whose favour must be purchast as
who were upon the place where the things reported were done If you say this was but a colour and mere pretence to gain the repute of men hating a lye that so they might more easily insinuate the belief of their Stories into their credulous and prepossess'd Hearers that surmise will be answer'd beyond all possibility of a rational Reply by producing clear Evidences of their actual conforming and pertinacious adhering to those Principles against the strongest Temptations to wave them that could possibly be laid in their way Vide quà m sollicitè Paulus distinguat quae à se sunt quae à Domino 1 Cor. 7. 10 11. quà m formidet dicere quae vidit in corpore an extrà corpus viderit 2 Cor. 12. 2. Grotius Quam probabilitatem habet talium documentorum auditores suspicari mentitos quaecunque suum praeceptorem effecisse testificati sunt aut quà m credibile faciant si putent illos omnes sibi inter se consensisse in mendacium c. Euseb. demonst Evang. 3. 7. Observe saith Grotius how carefully the Apostle distinguisheth betwixt what he saith and what the Lord saith how fearful he is to determine whether he was in the body or out of the body when he was rapt up Have we the least reason saith Eusebius to suspect that the hearers of such instructions did feign whatsoever they testifie their Master to have done or is it in the least probable that they should all conspire together to lye But let us here what Pagan Writers give in evidence here Pliny being appointed by the Emperour Trajan to take special cognizance of the Causes of Christians and to give him the best information thereabout which his utmost diligence in enquiring could arrive to gives him this account of them That in their Assemblies for Divine Worship they used so solemnly to bind themselves at the receiving of the holy Sacrament not to falsifie their word but to speak the truth as he could not induce any of them by any methods of either cruelty or flattery that he could invent to say they were not Christians Plinii Epist. lib. 10. ep 103. In so much that Trajan gave order that from his Ministers of State should procede in examining the Causes of Christians upon this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That if any of them that were accused being ask'd whether he were a Christian should say he was not he should forthwith be dismist as not guilty of the charge laid against him Trajanus Plinio epist. 104. And this grounded upon Pliny's Observation Nam ad hoc cogi non possunt qui sunt reverà Christiani for they that are so indeed cannot be forced to deny themselves to be Christians but would persevere to the last gasp in the midst of the greatest torments to roar out this good Confession I am a Christian I tell thee bloody tormentor who I am thou wouldst by the rack force me to deny my self to be what I am I cannot I dare not lye I am a Christian. Tear off my flesh with hooks break my bones with strappadoes pull asunder my joynts with skrews while thou leaves me a tongue in my head I must speak the truth I cannot but tell thee to thy face I am a Christian I worship God through Jesus Christ Tertul. apol 21. dicimus palà m dicimus vobis tormentibus dicimus lacerati cruentati vociferamus Deum colimus per Christum c. Could a more feeling proof be given of their abominating a lye than this They who would rend their Garments at Acclamations made to themselves as Gods that would not take to but spurn at divine honours laid at their feet will rather have the skin torn off their flesh their flesh off their bones their bones by continued and lingring pains drain'd of marrow than suffer the most exquisite tortures to rack from them that self-officious Lye or so much as a consent by silence to them who would have them say that they were not Christians The greatest testimony of a tenacious love to Truth that ever was exhibited what could tempt them to recede from it whom assurance of Life exemption from the torturing Rack and the horror of the most grim-fac'd Death that wittiest malice could contrive could not tempt Balaam put in a good Caution for his speaking truth when for all his love to the wages of unrighteousness he assured Balak That if he would give him an house-full of Silver and Gold he durst not speak more or less than what God should put into his mouth But the Primitive Church put in a far greater pledge limb and life it self for her Veracity And yet this was all the inducement they can possibly be imagin'd to have to persist in their Lye if the Gospel be a Lye as Eusebius excellently Demonst. Evang. 3. 7. Non enim exiguum erit hujus audaciae proemium siquidem non vulgares nos pro tantis certaminibus manent coronae sed quae supplicia videlicet à legibus omnium hominum ut par est contradicentibus injuncta est vincula tormenta carceres ignis ferrum cruces boluae ad quae omnia promptissimo animo est accedendum iisque malis eundum obvià m intrepidè quae praeceptorem nostrum nobis pro exemplo ostentant quid enim pulchrius quà m nulla ratione diis hominibus fieri inimicos c. We have reason sure to persist thus inflexibly in asserting this truth of the Gospel for we know we are to reap no small reward of this boldness to receive no vulgar Crowns for such strivings but those punishments to speak plainly which by the Laws of all men are adjudged meet to be inflicted upon those that contradict them bonds racks goals fire sword crosses and wild beasts To all which we come with a most ready mind and without all fear go to meet those evils that present our Master to us for an example you must think sure we take a great deal of delight in making our selves without all reason enemies to the Gods and men c. If we had not assurance of the Truth which we profess and did not so far abhorr to conceal much more to deny what we know is Truth as rather than do so to save our lives we persevere to our last breath in bearing witness to it It was a truly Christian and Heroick Answer well beseeming the Royal Champion and Defender of the Apostolick Faith which our late King of blessed Memory Charles the First gave to a person who counsell'd him to temporize with his Rebels in a dissembling compliance with those their not only unjust but impious Proposals which his truly tender and rightly informed Conscience disgusted telling his Majesty he might after he had reestablish'd himself in the possession of his just Rights and the Affections of his then abused Subjects watch an opportunity of retracting those extorted Concessions Oh Friend replies the King laying his hand upon his pious heart there is that here
Courtship but Conjurations Magical Spells When the whole World of Antiquaries know that St. Cyprian before his Conversion was not a Conjurer at Antioch where the Legend brings them upon the Stage with his Wench Justina but a Professor of Oratory at Carthage Pontius Diaconus de Passion Cypriani and converted thereby Caecilius far enough from Antioch Such Tares were so early sowen in the Church as there is nothing in the Writings of the Fathers we had need be more cautious of taking up upon their Word than Stories of this Nature than tristia quaepiam superstitiosa mendacia certain over-serious and too Religious Lyes which oftimes are told with that Confidence and Authority saith a Zealous and Learned Romanist Sir Thomas Moor Epist. Thomae Ruthalo praefix Luciani Cynico as some old Crafty Knave perswaded the blessed Father St. Austin that most grave Man and bitter Enemy to lying to report for a Truth that Fable of the two Curinas the one returning to Life the other departing as a thing falling out in his time which Lucian in his Philopseudes the Names only changed so long before St. Austin was born derides It was Demilus the Smith and Cleodemus in Lucian Curina the Common-council-man and Curina the Smith in St. August tom 4. de cura pro mortuis cap. 12. and this Curina the Common-council-man who was restored to life upon the Instant of Curina the Smith's Death was afterwards baptized by St. Austin to whom a while after he told this strange Story attestantibus honestis civibus suis some honest Citizens avouching the Truth of it I make no great doubt but many a Godly Lye of the like Tendency has been told by the Independent Catechills when they gave an Account of the manner of their Conversion But to return to Moor's Discourse It is saith he less to be wondered at if those Men affect the Minds of the gross Vulgar with their Figments who think they have done God an eminent piece of Service and obliged Christ eternally to themselves if they have but devised such a Tale of some Saint or such a Tragedy concerning Hell as will make an old doting woman cry or tremble at the Report of it Hence they have not suffer'd the Life scarce of one Martyr or Virgin to pass without the Intermixture of such like Lyes Pious Lyes As if forsooth there were otherwise danger that Truth could not support it self and stand on her own Legs except she were underprop'd with Lyes neither have they been affraid to contaminate that Religion with Figments which Truth it self instituted and intended should consist of naked Truth nor did they see that such Fables are so far from promoting it as nothing can more prejudice Religion for as St. Austin testifies as soon as Men smell-out the intermingled Lye they suspect the Truth it self whereupon I often grow jealous that the greatest part of such Tales was devised by some Paultry Fellows and Hereticks who had a Design to make Sport with the incautions Credulity of simple rather than prudent Men and to take away Credit from true Christian Histories by interweaving them with feigned Fables wherefore saith this ingenious Authour undoubted Credit must be given to those Histories which the Divinely-inspired Scripture commends unto us but for others let us having with Judgment applied them to the Doctrine of Christ as unto Critolaus his Rule receive or reject them if we would be free from vain Credulity and superstitious Fear How soon would there be an end put to most of the Controversies betwixt us and the Modern Church of Rome were all of that Communion of the truly Catholick Judgment of this Gentleman in this Particular For I cannot call to mind any considerable Point 〈◊〉 betwixt us where their Opinion hath no better or other ground 〈◊〉 Forgeries The declared Intent of the Latin Church Legend is to perswade People to a devout Worshipping and Invocation of those Saints of whom those Tales are forged the Collector of them concluding almost every Story with this Exhortation Let us pray unto him that by his Merits and Intercession we may obtain Salvation What a Monstrous Story without either Head or Foot does Marcellinus Comes tell of the finding of the Baptists Head Cronic Indict 6. Vincomalo Opilione Coss. The Ghost of the Baptist appeared to two Pilgrim Monks commanding them to take up his Head where it was buried in Herod ' s Palace they take it up and carry it away with them in their Scrip till they giving the Scrip to be carried to a Potter of Emissa who had cast himself into their Company He advised by St. John in a Dream steals away from them with the sacred Relick back again to Emissa where at his death he commits it seal'd up in a Box to the Custody of his Sister she not knowing what it was left it to her Successor at last it comes into the Clutches of Eustochius an Arrian Presbiter who by means thereof works strange Cures pretending he did them by his own Holiness but his Knavery being found out he is banished the City and leaves the Baptists Head behind him In the place where it was reposited some Monks happen'd to build their Cells to whose Abbot Marcellus in process of time St. John discovers where his Head was buried and he finds it the twenty fourth Day of February in the sixth Indiction Vin. Op. Coss. This Tale is well made in that Treatise De revelatione Capitis Baptistae wrong father'd upon Cyprian as Erasmus hath well concluded from that Story-writer's mentioning Pipin King of Aquitane long before whose Reign St. Cyprians head lay under a clod This Marcellus saith this Author was commanded by the Baptist to carry his Head to Jurannus Bishop of Alexandria that it might be there interr'd where the rest of his Body rested But there it rests not long for within a while his Ghost appears to one Foelix a Monk and commands him to go to Alexandria and take his Head thence and conveigh it to Aquitane and there deposite it as I shall direct thee Had I been in this Monks place I should have concluded this had been the Ghost of Herod again separating the Baptists Head from his Body The Monk with seven Companions gets away with the Baptists Head to Sea where in token that they should escape a Storm they were in the Baptist's Ghost in the same Form that the Holy-Ghost appeared in when Christ came up out of the Water appears in the shape of a Dove and sits upon the Poop till they safely arrived in Aquitane where by the Grace of this Relick King Pipin totally routs the Vandales then invading his Countrey with the loss only of twenty of his own Men who by applying the Baptists Head to their Corps were all restored to Life and which is the greatest Wonder of all St. Cyprian writes all this many Scores of Years after himself was Martyred Of the same Stuff and upon the same Foundation are
Covenant to Abraham and his Seed in respect of which former Bargain contracted with the Father of the Faithful he could not salvâ side without suffering his Faithfulness to fail without impairing his Truth as well as in respect of his great name King of Saints cast off the Carnal Seed wholly from being his Kingdom till he had taken his Spiritual Seed into their room And indeed God's punishing of his Rebels with total Rejection before he had erected his Kingdom of Grace in the midst of his Enemies the Gentiles would have been the punishing of himself with the forfeiture of his Visible Kingdom of Grace and the stripping of himself into the bare Kingdom of his Providence So far would God have been from encreasing his wealth by their price as he would have made a losing Bargain and bankrupt himself of a peculiar People if he had cast off Judah before the accession of the Gentiles to his Scepter of Grace which did not happen till their flocking in to Christ's Standard As is manifest from their Prophets speaking of this gathering of the Gentiles to Shilo even to the last of them as of a thing de futuro He shall lift up an ensign to the Gentiles Isa. 11. 12. Thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee Isa. 55. 5. My name shall be great among the Gentiles Mal. 1. 11. So that at the Expiration of Old Testament Prophecy this gathering was yet to come It was yet in the shell of the Promise And since Malachy there hath not been any gathering of Gentile Nations to the God of Israel to make his name great in all the Earth saving that of the Christian Flock to that Shepherd whom the God of Israel is not asham'd to call his Fellow his Equal and of whom the Prophets have foretold that he should bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Hitherto therefore that Plea was prevalent We are thy people save us thou never barest rule over them If thou destroy this people What will become of thy great name what will become of thy Promise to Abraham of thy Kingdom of Grace For God was obliged by the Interest of his Glory and by his Promise to the Patriarchs not to remove the Scepter from Judah till Shilo come and the Gentiles were gather'd to him But when Shilo was come the Baptist forewarns Abraham's Children not to trust any longer to that Plea as their security against approaching vengeance Think not to say when you are consulting how to escape wrath to come we are Abraham's children That Plea is now growing out of date For God is able to raise up children to Abraham and a People to himself of stones that is out of the obdurate Gentile World men as hard as Stones and hitherto in respect of Gods Covenant with Abraham and pre-ingagement as uncapable as Stones of becoming the People of the God of Israel in your room of becoming as you are now the Kingdom of God or as Ireneus Advers her lib. 4. cap. 16. renders it of them that worship Stones as the Gentiles did it being usual in the holy Dialect to call Nations by the name of the Idols which they worship as Bell boweth down c. This God was ever able to do in respect of his absolute Power but that Power being as to the exercise of it bounded by his Will for it were Impotency in God to do what he will not and his Will declared to Abraham he became Debter to his own Faithfulness and Truth so far as he had not a Moral Power to do it that is could not do it without impeachment of his Truth before this Fulness of Time came wherein God is to raise up a new Seed to Abraham and to call them a people that were no people to make Japhet dwell in the tents of Sem ejecio scilicet Israele St. Jerom in Gen. 9. 27. i. e. to take the place of Israel to graft the wild Olive Branches upon the Root and Father of the Faithful implied as Isidore Pelusiota well observes in the following words Now is the axe lib 1. epist. 64. Eulampio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to wit of this acute and evangelical Decision that every Tree that brings not forth good Fruit be hewen down laid to the root of the tree not a Mattock to dig the Roots up to make the Covenant with Abraham touching his Seed void but an Axe to cut off witherd Branches after the Gentiles that were grafted in had taken root By which Axe or two-edged Sword as the Apostle stiles it Heb. 4. Is cut in pieces that double Dilemma whereby the carnal Jew deceived himself and thought to intangle God 1. If we be rejected who have Abraham to our Father God breaks the Covenant he made with him And 2. Leaves himself destitute of a People we being his peculiar People and the only Nation in the World over whom he is King The Reply which the Apostles gave to this first Objection was That the prime Article of God's Covenant with Abraham was That he should be a father of many nations that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed and therefore should he not take the Gentiles into his Kingdom now that one Seed that is Christ was come he would have broke Covenant with Abraham As to the Jews he sent Jesus Christ first to bless them but seeing they refused to be blessed upon those Terms of Faith upon which God blessed Abraham thereby declaring themselves to be the Devil's Children quarrelling with that Covenant as the Devil did with that which God made with Adam and not Abraham's who without Hesitancy tergiversation or making his own terms with God simply and unreservedly submitted to God's and seeing the Gentiles accepted of them thereby becoming the Children of faithful Abraham It was not consistent with God's Promise to Abraham to leave him childless as they so far as lay in their power had made him much less would it stand with his Oath that he would bless them that blessed him and curse them that cursed him not to bless those Heathens with the adoption of Sons and reception into Abraham's Family who blessed Abraham with a spiritual Seed and acknowledged themselves his Children by becoming of his Faith and treading in his Steps and that in favour of that fleshly Seed which would have left him no Seed of the Promise no Seed of his Faith but have brought upon him if they might have had their will the Curse of Sterility in that juncture of Time wherein God had promised to multiply it as the Stars of Heaven and to make him a Father of many Nations Act. 13. 46. It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken unto you Jews but seeing you put it from you and judg your selves unworthy of everlasting life loe we turn to the Gentiles for so hath the Lord commanded us saying I have set thee
see it daily happens in questions de Jure and all Propositions built upon articifial Arguments A man may be perswaded of the Truth of the Affirmative to day and to morrow be confident of the Negative if that come arm'd to his thinking with better Reasons But now in Matters of Fact delivered by the Universal Tradition of those that were upon the place we cannot acquit our selves of the belief of them we cannot extricate our selves out of those Chains that are clapt upon our judgement by the most Proteus-like change thereof though into an hundred forms and shapes Let one for instance that upon such an account is perswaded that King Henry the Eighth is dead try if he can writhe himself out of the belief of it by all the versatile windings which the most serpentine invention can prompt if he can hale that Conceipt out of his Mind with a whole Team of the strongest Arguments he can yoak together he will find he labours as much in vain as the Sea-men did in their attempts to bring the Vessel that was freighted with the reputed Mother of the Gods to shore after she was faln a ground The Hair-lace of the vestal though under a suspition of incontinency did more than all their Cables could But in our Case the single twine of current Tradition the votary of the never-dying Flame the preserver of the immortal Memory of things past will draw the mind to a full irreversible Assent against all contrary halings of the Cart-ropes of artificial Reasonings notwithstanding our jealousies of a possibility of Error or Adulteration Nay Universal Testimony forces the belief of those things upon us which we would not believe could we any way baffle the Evidence when it informs us of the death of Friends of the defeating of our Armys of the loss of our Garrisons of the sinking of our richly-laden and homeward-bound Vessels though we could wish to keep St. Thomas his Resolution of not believing till we see and handle the truth of those Relations though we put in an hundred caveats of hope that it s otherwise yet there 's no resisting the evidences of such a Testimony It lays our tatter'd Ships our dismembred Soldiers the pale-fac'd Corps of our Relations though at never so great a local distance from us so manifestly before us as we cannot but hear their dying groans handle their wounds and see them laid out In this Magick Glass we behold our Sea-men pinion'd our Goods rifled our Tackling torn our Masts floating and whatever we would not see nor hear as sensibly as feelingly as if we were upon the place It begets in us a belief of otherwise most unlikely incredible things of such occurrences as without this all the Reason imaginable could not have perswaded us to assent to Abstract Caligula's causing the way to be swept from Rome to Belgium before that Army wherewith he furiously charged the Sea from that Reason which the Currency of that History commends it with to our Belief and then should we muster up all the Mediums in Aristotles Topicks to assail and conquer our Minds to a perswasion That a person advanc'd to such honour in so wise a State might possibly be so pompously mad as to play such freaks or that those Sons of Mars at whose prowess the World trembl'd should be such tame Fools as to be commanded by him to play such Munkey-tricks the issue would shew that to be as vain and fruitless a Charge upon our Judgements as his was against the Ocean But yet the Validity of the Historical Testimony hath in spight of all unlikelyhood gain'd Universal Credit for these Stories It was Heresie at Rome a while ago to assert there were Antipodes the Mathematicks those demonstrative Sciences could not convince the sacred Colledge but that men must fall into the skie if their feet were opposite to ours The Books that made offer to make proof thereof by the strongest Reasons imaginable were as heretical committed to the devouring Flames Aventinus annal Boiorum lib. 3. And in a more knowing Age this Opinion of the Earths globous Form was derided by Lactantius est quispiam tam ineptus qui credat homines esse quorum vestigia sunt superiora quam capita aut ibi quae apud nos jaceat Universa pendere fruges arbores deorsùm versùs crescere pluvias nives grandinem sursùm versús cadere in terram miratur aliquis hortos pensiles inter septem mira narrare quum philosophi agros maria urbes montes pensiles faciunt with more shew of Reason than can be brought against the Evangelical History Instituti lib. 3. cap. 24. Can any man be so egregious a fool as to think that there are men who walk with their feet higher than their heads or a place where such things as here lay upon the ground hangs in the Air that Plants grow with their tops downwards that Rain Snow and Hail fall upwards upon the earth why should we wonder at the pensil Gardens of Babylon one of the seven wonders of the World seeing Philosophers make pensil Fields Walls Cities and Mountains But I presume for all this show of reason to the contrary men are now as verily perswaded that the Earth is round and that there are Antipodes as they are that there is an Heaven What hath conquer'd them to this belief have better Reasons been laid before them none but this of Universal Tradition Since the improvement of Navigation men daily make voyages thither and learn by the report of the Inhabitants of that lower Hemisphere that that part of the World is not grown up of late as a bunch upon the back of ours but of as long a standing as it and hence springs the undoubted confidence of its Existence now and its Pre-existence to our knowledge and discovery § 2. To the other part of the Objection I make this twofold reply 1. In our present Case we are out of danger of receiving damage by being over-credulous were that Testimony which commends to my Belief Gospel-matters of Fact less credible than it is my acquiescing therein would be transcendently advantageous but no way possibly prejudicial a Report goeth abroad that some great Prince upon the motion of his Son who by certain condescentions has promerited the King's favour for them hath sent out his Declaration to his Subjects wherein he proclaims liberty to Captives tenders to those that will embrace his Son and deport themselves as becomes Men advancement to the highest honours and menaceth to such as will not by such inducements be reclaim'd from a bestial Life the most exquisite Tortures that can be invented by abused Love who but short-reason'd Idiots would be over-curious too nice in believing such a Report which if it prove true he is made that conforms to it he undone that does not however the Terms are but reasonable complying therewith at present prefers a man to the Lordship of himself and he
's put to no expence but what he may well disburse out of that Lordship and for the future he is in a more promising way to Happiness than any other course he can stere can bring him to Hereto assents to that of divine Plato Phaedone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If these things touching the happiness of the Soul in a state of seperation which I say be true we shall do our selves a pleasure by believing them but if there remain nothing either of a man or for a man when he is dead yet however the Contemplation of these things will make my present life more comfortable To which is a kin that of Cicero Tusculan preclarum autem nescio quid adepti sunt quod didicerunt se cùm tempus mortis venisset totos esse perituros quod ut it à sit nihil enim pugno quid habet ista res aut laetabile aut gloriosum They think they have obtain'd an excellent point when they have learn'd that by death they will be wholly dissolved say it were so what is there in this thing either joyous os glorious All the danger here lies on the other hand in not believing hereby we may possibly incur the pain threatned to be sure lose the reward promised but what detriment can we sustain by embracing the Gospel save of a little beastly Pleasure of Sin for a season What danger can we become obnoxious to but a little suffering for as short a season which yet will be recompenced an hundred fold even in this Life not only with the Hope of the Recompence of Reward which made the Martyrs rejoyce more when they were condemned than when absolved Magis damnati quà m absoluti gaudemus Tert. ad scapul cap. 1. Nay such were the expressions of the Märtyrs Joys under the most painful sufferings as made whole multitudes of Christians offer themselves without summons to Pagan Tribunals there to receive the sentence of Death insomuch as Tertullian urgeth Scapula to forethink what he would do with so many thousands of Men Women and Children as in Carthage profess'd the Gospel if they should offer themselves to him to be crowned with Martyrdom as the Christians in Asia had done to Arrius Antoninus Id. Ib. Sufferings I say for righteousness sake will be counterballanced not only by the Contemplation of future Glory but with the peace of Conscience and the calm quiet of a Mind not conscious to its self of any base Act or Disposition unworthy of Man And when we die suppose the Gospel should prove a Fable as that Pope unworthy of name stiled it quantum nobis profuit haec de Christo fabula yet our having observed the Rules of it will put us into a fairer capacity of Happiness in the other World than the Rules of any other Religion than our following the conduct of our bruitish Lusts and untamed Passions can in common sence be presumed to do For certainly if Man exist after death his having habituated himself to the life of Man to intellectual Pleasure on this side of it must render the Life of Reason and that 's the lowest degree of life we can be imagin'd there to live more familiar more complacential and satisfactory on that side of it If Man's proper and peculiar Felicity stand in his enjoyment of Communion with God as it must do if there be a God for to desire the possession of the very best is a Quality radically adhering to an humane Soul certainly our inuring our selves to Acquaintance with him and Conformity to him here must make way for our more clear beatifical Vision of him and Converse with him hereafter Should then our Christian Faith prove Credulity yet that Credulity will prove our Wisdom our way to Happiness and therefore is not so much to be feared in our case as the Objection implies Be it an Error 't is the happiest and most profitable Error that Mankind can possibly fall into though many men saith Origen against Celsus are set free from the slavery of their own Passions from the Colluvies and filthy slud of beastly Vices how many have got their savage Manners tamed and charmed upon occasion of hearing the Gospel preach'd which if we were wise we would with all thankfulness embrace were it but for this that it is so soveraign and compendious a Remedy of all Vice we should give it our grace and approbation to pass if not as true yet as most advantageous to humane kind lib. 1. cal 30. Et probanda si non ut vera certè ut humano generi utilissima The truth is all the hurt that the VVorld has received by Christian Religion is the turning of Beasts into Men and Men into Heroes and petty Gods and all the benefit it reaps by rejecting the Precepts of it and sipping the Circean cup of Atheism is the transmuting of Men into Lyons Tigers VVolves Hoggs Harpies Ravens and as many kinds of wilde Beasts and unclean Birds as enterd Noah's Ark Iniquity and injustice towards Man hath ever attended Impiety towards God Dionisius the Atheist after he had rob'd Jupiter of his golden Robe as being too heavy for Summer too cold for VVinter Aesculapius of his golden Beard as not becoming the Son to wear while his Father was beardless and spoil'd the Temples of what was worth taking away and made sale of his sacrilegious Booties commanded those that bought them to restore every man the things he had bought within a set day to the Temples whence they were stoln ità ad impietatem in Deos in homines adjunxit injuriam Haud unquam tulit documenta sors majora Never was more feeling Proofs given of this sad Truth than this Age hath produced nor can a clearer demonstration be made of any thing than the Primitive Times made of the Truth of the former Branch when the Discipline of Christianity bound its Professors to the keeping of the Peace to a modest meek and good behaviour of Heart Tongue and Hand towards all men under the greatest temptation to the contrary that the bloodiest Persecution could suggest though the sufferers were the more numerous party almost in every City Ex disciplina patientiae divinae agere nos satis manifestum esse vobis potest cùm tanta hominum multitudo pars penè major civitatis cujusque in silentio modestiâ agimus When Christians were not otherwise discernable from other Sects but by the badge of emendation of Manners Nec aliundè noscibiles quà m de emendatione vitiorum pristinorum Tert. ad Scap. cap. 2. Nor could be branded with any vice but that supposed one in the name of Christian. Bonus vir Cajus Seius sed malus tantùm quòd Christianus Tert. apol cap. 3. When they durst challenge the Adversaries to shew if they could among all the Christians which their Prisons were thronged with one High-way-man one Cut-purse one Robber of Temples one Cheater Tertul. apol 44. De vestris semper aestuat carcer de
particulars as Symmachus in that conference tell Lamprius that he had transcribed all those things out of the Mysteries of the Hebrews § 7. The same Author de solertia animalium interweaves the Story of Deucalion with the mention of a Dove which being sent out of the Ark by her returning gave notice that the Flood was not yet allay'd and by her not returning when she was sent out the second time signified that the Waters were abated This Story of Noah's Ark and the Flood saith Josephus antiq lib. 1. all Gentile Writers mention Berosus the Caldaean Hieronimus the Egyptian Muaseus also and many more and Nicholas Damascenus lib. 96. The History of Eden's Apples and the Serpent is manifestly recorded by Hyginus in his Poeticon astronomic titulo serpens That of Balaams Ass is plainly couch'd in his Story of that Ass which Bacchus rode upon to the Oracle of Dodona which spake with Man's voyce and disputed with Priapus about Nature titulo Aselli And that of Sampson's conquering the Philistines with the Jaw-bone of an Ass which God shewed him as plainly in his relation how that Hercules being opprest with multitudes of Barbarians and having spent all his Arrows Jove taking pitty of him procured a great many Stones to lay at his feet wherewith he defended himself and put the Barbarians to flight titulo Ergonasia Menander in the Gests of Ithobal King of Tyre Ahabs Contemporary speaks of that Drought that happened in Ahab's Reign Joseph antiquit l. 8. cap. 7. The same Author contrà Appionem lib. 1. sheweth how the Truth of the Jewish Histories was attested to by forreign Writers even of such Nations as most hated and emulated the Jews and produceth the Tyrian Annals in confirmation of Solomon's building the Temple of his being aided therein by Hiram of his wise Questions and Answers there being then when Josephus wrote in the Tyrians hands many Letters which Solomon and Hiram wrote one to another for which also he alledgeth the History of Dius concerning the Phenicians But I refer my Reader for fuller satisfaction in this point to that excellent Defender of the Jewish Antiquities Josephus himself who not only in his Discourse against Appron but in his Jewish Antiquities lib. 1. prosecutes this Argument quoting Abydenus writing the same Story that Moses doth touching the Flood And Marethus Berosus Molus Hestiaeus Hieronimus Egyptius the Phenician Chronicles Hesiod Hecataeus Elaricus Acasilaùs Ephorus and Nicholas affirming that the Ancient Heroes lived 1000 years for that they being the friends of God and using a more wholesome Diet than could he had after the Flood must in Reason be supposed to live longer than their Successors and besides that they might find out Arts profitable for future Generations as Astrology Geometry c. they had a longer life bestowed upon them seeing it was not possible that they could observe the several Faces of the Stars in less than six hundred years which space is therefore called the great year of Revolution And Abydenus for the proof of Moses his History of the building of the Tower of Babel And Sibyl for the Confusion of Languages thus speaking When men were all of one Language they attempted to build a Tower that might reach up to Heaven but the Gods beat down the Tower with Tempests which from the wonderful Confusion of Tongues was called Babel And Hestiaeus making this mention of the Plain of Sinar The Priest who escaped sacrificed to Jove in the Vale of Sinar and the Language of men being confounded they began to inhabit divers parts of the World But I am weary of transcribing consult Josephus and Eusebius de praeparatione Evangelica lib. 9. cap. 1. whose title is that many forreign Writers have admired the Jewish Nation Cap. 2. The Testimony of Haecateus Cap. 3. The Testimony of Clearchus to Jewish Antiquities Cap. 4. That many forinsick Authors agree with the Truth of the Hebrew History CHAP. X. The Adversaries forced upon very great Disadvantages to their own Cause by reason that they could not for very shame resist the Evidences brought in defence of sacred History § 1. Christ accused of working by the Prince of Devils that Accusation withdrawn in open Court and this Plea put in against him that he made himself a King and therefore was an Enemy to Caesar. § 2. Petty Exceptions rebound upon the heads of their Framers § 3. The Modern Scepticks half-reasons too young to grapple with old Prescription § 4. Christ's Works God's Seal to his Mission § 5. The present Age as able to judge of the Nature of those Works as that was wherein they were done § 6. Aheistical exceptions against particular points of Religion an Hydra's head yet they all stand upon one neck and may be cut off at one blow by proving the Divine original of Religion § 1. THese are all the kinds of Testimonies that Matters of Fact are capable off and so full and impartial as I am sure our Modern Disputers cannot produce the like for the probat of any Matters of Fact except those which we have account of in the Gospel I might therefore here conclude But that I may leave the Sceptick without not only all possibility of Reply but of Excuse for his Pertinacy if he hath the face to question the validity of this Argument I shall add this weighty Consideration That the Adversaries of the Christian Religion in their discoursing upon that Subject were put upon exceeding great inconveniencies meerly upon this Reason because they could not for very shame resist those Evidences were brought in defence of the Evangelical History To begin with the Jewish we find the chief of them consulting what they should do to hinder the Progress of the Gospel when they saw such notable Miracles effected by Christ and his Disciples as could not be denyed and fore saw that the whole World would run after them if some stop were not put to this rowling Stone The first Obstacle they lay in its way was the calumniation of those great Works as being done not by the Finger of God but the Hand of Beelzebub But whatever Prestigiator was read of in any History so qualified as Christ was the Institutor of a Society accomplish'd with all Gravity and Virtue a Praeceptor of most sincere and true Doctrine as Eusebius challengeth the Pagan Objectors Demonst. Evang. 3. 8. The only colour of a proof they bring for this for their Fables of Christ's going into Aegypt to learn Magick of his having the Tetragrammaton sown in his Thigh have not the least shew of Probability was the seeming Contradiction betwixt the Law of Moses and of Christ it being on all hands confess'd that Moses was sent of God and assisted in the Wonders he wrought in confirmation of his Mission by a Divine Power and therefore what Christ did in proof of his Doctrine must needs be as they blasphem'd by a Diabolical But when he attempts at the araignment of our Saviour and
his Protomartyr to prove Christ's Doctrine opposite to that of Moses by suborning Witnesses to alledge many things in the New looking a squint upon the Old Testament these two upon examination prove better friends and agree better with one another than the Witnesses do among themselves whose allegations destroy one another while they are combining to prove the Gospel destructive to the Law and in conclusion after they have left no stone unturn'd they are not able to make good one Instance of any such Doctrine And thus while the Jew cannot while he dares not deny the doing of the Works the Delivery of the Doctrine they were so manifest but is forc'd if he will not let the Gospel wholly alone to enter this Plea he runs himself upon the inconveniency of being manifestly baffled and nonsuted in open Court Insomuch as for all his boasting when he put on that Armour he dares not trust to it in the pitch'd Field has not the heart to mutter one word before Pilate of Christ's casting out Devils by Beelzebub though could he have made such a charge but probable it would have administred to him a more plausible occasion of putting Christ to death both in respect of the Law of Moses and Caesar than that which he was at last pinch forc'd to take up viz. he said he was king of the Jews A Plea which of all other the Jew would not have stood upon had not Malice over-clouded his Intellect and prompted him to snatch up in a rage that weapon to offend Christ with which otherwise he could not but forethink the Gospel would take up in defence of the Truth of its History and Delivery of that Doctrine which is the very Soul of our Religion He said he was king of the Jews that is King Messias the great Prophet that was to come into the VVorld This is proved to the Christians hand in open Court Christ is called to make a good Confession of it before Pontius Pilate Pilate causes this Indictment to be writ in Capital Letters in Hebrew Greek and Latin for all to read over his Cross as the Crime of which he was accused and for which he suffered Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews 1. This is enough to evince the Truth of the Gospel as to Matter of Fact and Delivery of Doctrine that the Church hath not feigned this story that Christ really gave out himself to be that Person that the Gospel reports him to be for in saying he was King of the Jews in the common sence of that Age and in the Notion of King Messiah Christ said he was born of the Virgin of the Lineage of David born in Bethlehem fled into Aegypt educated in Nazareth convers'd in Galilee made the lame to leap as an Hart made the Eyes of the blind to see out of obscurity was anointed of God to be that great Prophet whom all are to hear that Seed of the woman that was to break the Serpents head the Desire of all Nations that unknown God whom the Gentiles ignorantly worship'd that Judean King who was to subdue all Kings Scepters to his 2. Can it be imagin'd that one who pretended to this Title would come with his Thumbs in his Mouth and not demonstrate his Right to it by doing such stupendious VVorks as could not be effected but by Divine Power seeing all pretenders to the Messiaship both before and after him made show of working Miracles in confirmation of their Pretensions and not exercise that Office he affirmed he came into the VVorld to manage by giving out his Royal Law by publishing his heavenly Doctrine 3. VVhat VVorks what Doctrine was ever father'd upon Christ so well becoming that Title so like to sting the carnal and blinded Jews to grate upon the proud and envious Pharisee to offend that Generation that opposed him as that whereof the Gospel giveth us an account By what other VVorks but those could Pilate be so far conscientiâ Christianus as Tertullian stiles him convinc'd in judgement that Jesus was indeed what the Jews accused him to say he was the King of the Jews as he could not by their solicitations be perswaded to alter the first Inscription VVhat Doctrine but that could upon trial have been found so holy and blameless as Christ's most malicious and cunning enemies could not suggest one tittle of it to a Judge partial enough on their side that he could find any fault in St. Paul therefore had reason to call that a good Confession which Christ made before Pontius Pilat and to urge it upon Timothy's Conscience in that charge he gives him to observe the Canon of Doctrine and Life propounded in that Epistle as being that Doctrine of Christ which he confirm'd by working of Miracles before the people and by confessing himself before Pilat's Tribunal to be King of the Jews And so much more infatuated did the Jews appear in procuring by the Plea they enter'd against him the publication of this Title in the ears of Jews Romans and Grecians which as it comprehends the Sum of the Christian Faith so it is the Touchstone of all VVorks and Doctrines father'd upon Christ and clearly evinceth the Truth of Evangelical History if we compare what it delivers with what the Prophets foretel the King of the Jews was to say and do § 2. These were their studied and unanimous Pleas against Christ they had some Extempore ones and as it were the Opinions of private Doctors I will but glance at these VVhen the Resurrection is preach'd the Pharisee Applaudes the Sadducee derides when Christ preacheth the paying of Tribute the Herodians approve the Pharisees oppose VVhat means this snarling of the Dogs but that such bones were thrown amongst them Some alledge that no man knows whence the Messias comes and therefore concludes that Jesus was not he they knowing that he came out of Nazareth and having converse with his Mother his Brethren and Sisters Others affirm that the Christ was to come out of Bethlehem and that therefore the Son of Mary was not he being of so obscure an Extract such a Terrae filius as no man knew whence he came Besides the manifest Contradiction whereby those Adversaries to Christ trip up one anothers heels here are the manifest Prints of Christ's twofold Generation one as God eternal of his Father which none can declare another temporal of the Substance of his Virgin-Mother And of two material Passages in the History of Christ pointed at by the Prophets and infallibly conducting us to the places where we are to look for the Messias to wit at Bethlehem as to his so obscure Birth as it was hardly taken notice of and at Nazareth as the place of his Education and constant residence of his fleshly Relations But these are but slight Inconveniencies which the Jew drew upon himself by chusing rather to betake himself to these kind of Exceptions than to oppose the Truth of the Narrative in comparison of those mortal
Wounds he hereby gave his Cause and might have avoided if he had but dar'd to have chosen that ground 1. Had he excepted against the Truth of the History and could have gotten the better there he had been absolute Master of the Field could he for shame have denyed the doing of the Miracles the Doctrine delivered would not have been able to stand out against his assaults who would have followed a Doctrine so repugnant to all mens carnal interest so far above all humane Reason had not God given it out under his own Hand and Seal without which Testimony of Christ's Mission from Heaven he would but have been as a private man and his word of no more than nay not so much as the Doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees for they sate in Moses's Chair and could shew Gods ordinary Commission and therefore if they could have invalidated Christ's extraordinary Call they needed not have feared that his VVord would have been taken before theirs Now what shorter or clearer way could they possibly have proceeded in to make void Christ's Commission even to all mens satisfaction than by proving that those great Works which are reported of him were not done by him had that been feasible Again could they have proved that he did not preach such Doctrine as the Gospel presents the Miracles would have wheel'd about to them and have proved as good a defence of Pharisaism as they are as the Case now stands of Christianity If it had not been so famously known what Christ preach'd as they could not deny nor pervert his Doctrine they might have father'd their own upon him and have alledged the Miracles wrought by him in confirmation of it Had not the Jew wanted face or courage to fall on here he could not have wanted men their love to sin and priding themselves in the Covenant of Peculiarity would have furnish'd him with whole Legions of Voluntiers besides those he might have prest with Bribes as he did the Witnesses and Souldiers to make a breach upon the Truth of Gospel-history had not that attempt been looked upon as desperate upon what other imaginable account can it be that he sneaks about the Shore where ever and anon he either runs on ground or splits against the Rocks and makes such miserable Shipwrack of his Reputation Why avoids he the open Sea and dare not encounter the Gospel there where if he can put her to the worst all 's his own Can any thing stand in his way but cowardise and the desperateness of the adventure It is reported of the northern Augustus the great Gustavus that he seldom brought into the Field an Army of above 10000 men but those veteranes and experienc'd Solders chusing rather to animate a well-set than a corpulent and bulkie Body Such was Christ's Army of Martyrs whereby he subdued the World to the belief of the Gospel and so formidable to the Jew as he despaired to break its ranks with all the force he could raise Methinks I hear him thus discoursing with himself Should I say this or that Passage in the History of Christ is a forgery I could have Seconds more than a good many I could levy more Legions to employ in that service than the Gospel hath Squadrons to defend its Truth But alas mine would be as so many droves of Sheep led up against Lyons Those that she hath are faithful and tried veterane Soldiers Eye and Ear-witnesses of what was done and said and the greatest part of them prest at first against the natural inclination of their will against the Religion of their Country to be on her side and such in this case will do best service meerly by such Conviction as they are not able to withstand It grieved them to hear and see such things but such is the Evidence whereby they commend themselves to the Consciences of all that see or hear them as they cannot be flattered threatned excommunicated reason'd into a denyal of them Who can I muster up that will not be as Grashoppers in the eyes and hands of such Gyants the greatest part of those I can rally being such as were out of the way when the things under debate were done the rest such as all know to be my own Creatures but the worst is when they come to charge they will not be kept in any Order but fall foul upon one another and be in as many different Tales as they are Persons I must therefore let the Gospel alone as to the Truth of its History which sails with so strong a gale as it were desperate fool-hardiness to affront it directly I will rather try what can be done by Consequences I will give it Sea-room to sail by perhaps I may espie something in the works done that may make men suspect they are not the Finger of God something in the doctrine delivered that may argue it not to come from Heaven but as to the doing of the Works the Delivery of the Doctrine they are so manifest as it were madness to oppose the Report This is the plain English of the Jew's behaviour in his opposing the Gospel § 3. Another irrepairable loss he hath sustain'd to the disparagement of his Cause by permitting the History of the Gospel to pass currant through the first Age without any offer of his opposition is that he hath hereby deprived himself and his friends of the advantage of playing an After-game Had he boldly calumniated the Truth of the Story something might have stuck that might have rendred it less credible and afforded its Adversaries in after-ages some colourable appearance against it but now he that lived upon the place and narrowly watched for Christ's halting for the faultring of the Pen of the sacred Scribes having nothing to say against these Matters of Fact has wholly disappointed and bereav'd succeeding Generations of all possible Pleas. Orpheum Poetam docet Aristoteles nunquam fuisse hoc Orphicum Carmen Pythagorici ferunt cujusdam fuisse Cecropis Cotta in Cicer. de natura deorum l. 1. Aristotle taught that there never was any such Poet as Orpheus and the Pythagoreans report that the Poem that goes under the name of Orpheus is the work of Cecrops But both he any they were too young to gain upon the VVorld's Faith that had been grounded upon the former ancient and universal Tradition that there was such a Poet and that the Verses that go under his name are his Let the Sceptick if he can produce one single Testimony of that validity that these against Orpheus are against the blessed Jesus How then can our Modern Atheist think his silly and importune Quarrels against the Evangelical History are of any Validity with intelligent Persons his Quarrels now in the end of the World sixteen hundred years too young to bear witness against that which its Contemporaries had not the face to deny If Jephtha's Replie to the King of Ammon demanding of him to restore the Towns which Israel had taken
to foretel things from beginning to end yet they shew not they declare not those future things in such clear expressions and incontroversial Terms as speak the Author of those Responds to have had the knowledge of what they seem to speak but rather a design to cover their own Ignorance and save their credits under the shelter of ambiguous words such as whatever should fall out might equally be applied to them and gathered from them according to the different Glosses which several Fancies might put upon them Of which though I have elsewhere given several examples I shall here add that out of Homer observ'd by Macrobius in his de Som. Scipion. lib. 1. cap. 7. Divulgatis etiam docemur exemplis quà m penè semper cùm praedicantur futura ità dubiis obserantur ut tamen diligens scrutator nisi divinitùs impeditur subesse reperiat apprehendendae vestigia veritatis c. We are taught saith he by famous examples how that almost constantly when future things are foretold they are sealed up in doubtful words yet so as the dilligent searcher if he be not divinely impeded may find out some footsteps of Truth therein hinted As when the Grecian Emperor commanded by Jove in a Dream that the day following he should draw up his Army and give Battail to the Trojans and encouraged with manifest hope of promised Victory did as he was commanded but came off with so great loss of men as he had much ado to make a retreat to his own Camp Was he deluded with a lying Oracle by no means saith Macrobius but the Fates intending that mischance to the Grecians there was that lurking in the words of the Dream which had they observ'd would have directed them how they might either obtain the Victory or avoid Fighting For Jove's Precept was that the whole Army should be drawn up meaning that the King should forthwith make his peace with Achilles who upon disgust had drawn off his Party and deserted the Cause The King therefore not following Jove's Instructions did both deservedly sustain that detriment and absolve the Dream from the envious charge of lying Such another Plaister this great Humanist applies for the Salving of the credit of that Deliâ—n Oracle which put Aeneas to so many years wandring and such dangerous voyages in the quest of the native soil of his Progenitors which he might have sav'd had he understood that one ambiguous word Dardanidae But why did not Apollo avoid the Equivocation with a man so pious as Aeneas if indeed he himself had certainly known what place Providence had allotted for that Trojan Colony to sit down in or understood any more touching that point than any ordinary person might have arrived at by discourse to wit That their Mother-soil was likeliest to receive them into her lap now that the Trojan soil had proved a Step-mother to them but whether Crete whence Teucer or Italy whence Dardanus sprung would give Aeneas entertainment the Oracle durst not determine and therefore to save its credit gives this uncertain sound Quid opus est circuitione anfractu ut sit utendum interpretibus potiùs quà m directè Deus siquidem nobis consulebat hoc facito hoc nè feceris diceret Cicer. Divin Et si Medicus aegroto im peret ut sumat terrigenam herbigradam domiportam sanguine cassam potiùs quà m hominum more Cochleam dicere Pucuvianus Amphion quadrupes tárdigrada agrestis humilis aspera capite brevi cirvice anguinâ aspectu truci eviscerata inanima cum animali sono Cùm dixisset tum Attici respondent non intelligimus nisi apertè dixeris at ille uno verbo Testudo non potueras hoc igitur a principio citharista dicere Id. Ib. Why such winding and abruptness That he that inquires hath need of an interpreter Why do not Oracles rather answer Directly Sure if it were God that gave advice he would say Do this beware of doing this c. As if a Physician should injoyn his Patient to take the Earth-born grass-creeping house-carrying bloodless Insect rather than a Snail in the plain usual way of speech when Pacavianus Amphion thus canted The four foot slow-pac'd rude low rugged Creature with a sharp head Snakes neck fierce look and no howels nor soul yet having the voice of a living Creature We understand thee not cried the Athenians speak plain I mean quoth he in one word a Tortoyse why couldst thou not pittiful Fidler have said thus at first Reply they § 4. Fourthly if those Oracles at any time plainly foretold any Contingents which took effect The Responds were as contingent as the things they foretold Those blind Bards might hap-hazzard stumble upon a Truth as the veriest Lyar in the World may while those great Lotteries were frequented though most of the Fortunes were Blanks yet some lucky hand might perhaps once in an Age draw a Prize or throw a Venus upon the Prenestine Dice once in an hundred casts To that Samothracian who made offer to prove Neptunes faithfulness to his Votaries by the multitude of votive Tables which were dedicated by such as had escaped Shipwrack yea replied Diogoras but were there a Table hung up for every one that has been drowned while they were most devoutly invocating Neptune the Temple would not contain them Quis enim est qui totum diem jaculans non aliquando collimet Et Plutarch de oracul defect pag. 679. sicut ii qui saepè jaciunt saepenumerò scopum attingunt He has very bad luck that shoots all day long and never comes near the mark saith Cicero de Divin 3. Upon these accounts these Oracles grew into that contempt as the Spartans would not trust to the Respond of Dodona till they had sent Agesilaus to Delphos to propound this Question to Apollo whether he was of the same mind with his Father and notwithstanding they had the assurance of two Oracles Agesilaus to cure the Despondency of his Army was fain to suborn the Augur to imprint Victory upon the Liver of the Sacrifice and pretend he found it there And therefore Epaminondas in contempt of both lucky and adverse Oracles laid the one at his right hand and the other at his left telling his Souldiers it was at their choice whether of those Fortunes they should have wishing them to depend more upon their own Valour than upon the most favourable Respond Plutarch apothegmat mor. Tom. 1. § 5. But now the God of Israel communicated to his Prophets the foreknowledge of future things whose Causes were then only in his own Preference with all their Circumstances in plain terms of which Prophecies not one tittle has fail'd but in its time appointed received its accomplishment Of all which properties whereby the Sacred Oracles are discriminated from prophane and Diabolical those are eminently partakers that relate to the Messias and are fullfil'd in our Jesus Which 1. Distinctly foretell the place of his Birth Bethlehem of his Retreat from Herods rage Aegypt
the Illumination of Faith could not understand what Christ meant when he spake to them of his Resurrection and were ready to give up their hopes that he was he that should redeem Israel when they saw him giving up the Ghost and hanging down his Head upon the Cross as St. Thomas though he had seen Lazarus rais'd from the dead and heard it reported by credible Witnesses that Christ was risen would not believe it As Celsus Orig. cont Cels. l. 2. cal 41. rather than grant the Truth of the Christian Hypothesis denied the possibility of it As it seemed good to the holy Ghost to confirm the report of Christs Resurrection by all those Signs which the Apostles wrought after his Ascension by the name of the Holy Child Jesus while with great power they gave witness of his Resurrection Acts 4. 33. Yea so much did divine Goodness condescend to Humane imbecility as to give a fuller proof of that point so far above Reasons comprehension and much more out of the Sphere of Natural Power than the report of Eye-witnesses than the Confession of Adversaries than the Seal of those Miracles afforded by that Grace that was upon all the Publishers and fell upon all the Receivers of that Doctrine a Grace enabling them to live up to the Gospel and to bring forth those Fruits of Holiness Righteousness Temperance Meekness as sufficiently commended to the morallized part of the World that Root of Faith from whence they issued as far outstript the most glorious glittering productions of the Moral Philosophers as infinitely transcended the results of fantastick Credulty and put all other Religions to the blush at the sight of their own impotency CHAP. XII The Supernatural Power of Salvifick Grace § 1. The Church triumphs over the Schools § 2. Christianity layes the Axe to the Root § 3. The Rule imperfect before Christ. § 4. The Discipline of the Schools was without Life and Power § 5. Real exornations before Verbal Encomiums § 1. HEre Christian Reader I must crave thy help and beg thy aid towards the convincing the World of the Divine Original of Christian Religion which though it apparently bear the stamps of heavenly Wisdome in its Prophecies of in finite Power in its Miracles commends it self more to the Consciences of men by engaging its Fautors to a Conversation answerable to its Sacred Rules than by affording the most substantial Grounds of discoursing in its Defence by any other Arguments Religion is better maintain'd by Living than Disputing A Gospel-becoming Converse falls under the Observation and speaks to the Hearts of all men even of those who are not able to fathom the depth nor feel the ground of the most rational verbal Discourse well exprest by the Apostle of the Circumcision 1 Pet. 3. 1. Dr. Hammond annot in the Argument whereby he perswades Christian Matrons to be in subjection to their own though Gentile Husbands that if any obeyed not the Word submitted not to the Gospel upon the Demonstration of the Spirit and of Power they also without the Word which the Apostles preach'd in confirmation of the Resurrection of Christ might be won by the Conversation of their Wives while they beheld their chaste Conversation that Modesly which the true fear of God Christian Religion which alone rightly Disciplines persons in that fear taught them In his motive 1 Pet. 2. 12 13. to Christian Subjects to yield obedient subjection to their Heathen Magistrates and in that point particularly to lead an honest life among the Gentiles that whereas they were evil spoken of as Jews by reason of the turbulency and frequent rebellions of their Countrymen the Gentiles might see that Christian-Jews were of another spirit than the rest of that Nation and upon that account might revere them for their good works and glorifie God the Author of a Religion that had made them so much more meek regular and quiet under the Heathen Government which was over them than the other Jews were when the Proconsuls should be sent to make enquiry of the Commotions made by the unbelieving Party of that Nation It was by this Argument that the old Laic-Confessor silenc'd convinc'd and converted that proud and subtile Philosopher who bore up himself against all the Reasonings of the Learned Teachers of the Nicence Council Crab. tom 1. pag. 249. In the name of Jesus Christ saith he O Philosopher hear the Dictates of Truth There is one God Maker of Heaven and Earth who Created all things visible and invisible by the power of his Word and confirm'd them by the Sanctity of his Spirit This Word therefore which we call the Son of God having mercy on Mankind vouchsafed to be born of a VVoman to converse with Men and die for them and will come again to give sentence upon the Lives of all men By the belief of those things we Christians are freed from Error and from that Religion wherein Men live like Beasts into a state of living like Men. Upon this the Philosopher cries out that he is a Christian and assures his Fellows he was drawn to it not upon light grounds but by that ineffable Vertue which attended the embracing of Christianity In this Argument the ancient Patrons of the Christian Cause triumph'd over all other Religions and Disciplines The Christian Churches saith Origen contr Cels. lib. 3. cal 8. compared with other Societies are really the Lights of the VVorld who is there that must not confess if he make an impartial collation of them that the worst part of the Church excells vulgar assemblies for the Church of God at Athens for instance is meek and quiet c. the Pagan Assemblies seditious turbulent c. And to that Calumny of Celsus that the Christians invited the worst of sinners Origen makes this Reply that the Christian Philosophy did dayly reform the most degenerate Natures not by converting one or two in so many Ages as Phaedo who coming Piping hot out of the Stewes into Plato's School took those impresses from his Doctrine as Plato in his Dialogues brings Phaedo in discoursing of the Immortality of the Soul Or Palemon who by attending to Philosophical Discipline became of a Ruffian so temperate as he succeeded Xenocrates in his School but great multitudes Christs Fishers of men caught them by whole shoales when these Philosophical Anglers drew them up by unites Tertullian apolog 46. outvies the greatest Philosophers with common Christians Thales one of the seven VVisemen could not satisfie Craesus when he askt him what God was but required time for the return of an answer and the more he thought upon it was further off from finding a solution when every Mechanick Christian hath found and can shew all that can be askt concerning God though Plato says the framer of the Universe is neither easie to be found out nor to be exprest If we compare them in point of Chastity we read that one part of the Attick sentence against Socrates condemn'd him of Sodomy