Principles of Natural Reason and Religion But when Miracles were perform'd which both for the End and Design of them as well as for the Manner and Circumstances of their Performance had all the Credibility that any Miracle could have if it were really wrought by God's immediate Power to confirm a Revelation if these Miracles have been foretold by Prophecies as on the other side the Prophecies were fulfill'd by the Miracles if they were done publickly before all sorts of Men and that often and by many Men successively for divers Ages together and all agreed in the same Doctrine and Design if neither the Miracles themselves nor the Doctrines which are attested by them can be discover'd to have any Deceit or Defect in them but be most excellent and divine and most worthy of God in such a Case we have all the Evidence for the Truth of the Miracles and of the Religion which they were wrought to establish that we can have for the Being of God himself For if these Miracles and this Religion be not from God we must suppose either that God cannot or that he will not so reveal himself by Miracle to the World as to distinguish his own Revelation from Impostures Both which Suppositions are contrary to the Divine Attributes contrary to God's Omnipotence because he can do all things and therefore can exceed the Power of all finite Beings and contrary to his Honour and Wisdom and Goodness because these require both that he should reveal himself to the World and that he should do it by Miracles in such a manner as to make it evident which is his Revelation But if he both can and will put such a Distinction between False Miracles and True as that Men shall not except it be by their own Fault be seduc'd by false Miracles then that Religion which is confirm'd by Miracles concerning which nothing can be discover'd to be either impious or false must be the true Religion For we have seen that there must be some Reveal'd Religion and that this Religion must be reveal'd by Miracle and we have the Goodness and Truth and Justice of God engag'd that we should not be impos'd upon by false Miracles without being able to discern the Imposture And therefore that Religion which both by its Miracles and Doctrine and Worship appears to be Divine and could not be prov'd to be false if it were so must certainly be true because the Goodness and Honour of God is concern'd that Mankind in a Matter of this Consequence should not be deceiv'd without their own Fault or Neglect by Impostures vented under his own Name and Authority Upon which account the Sin against the Holy Ghost in ascribing the Miracles wrought by Christ to Belzebub was so heinous above all other Crimes this being to reject the utmost Means that can be us'd for Man's Salvation and in Effect to deny the Attributes and very Being of God The Summ of this Argument is That though Miracles are a most fit and proper Means to prove the Truth of Religion yet they are not only to be consider'd alone but in Conjunction with other Proofs and that they must necessarily be true Miracles or Miracles wrought to establish the true Religion when the Religion upon the account whereof they are wrought cannot be discover'd to be false either by any Defect in the Miracles or by any other Means but has all the Marks and Characters of Truth Because God would not suffer the Evidence of Miracles and all other Proofs to concur to the Confirmation of a false Religion beyond all Possibility of discovering it to be so 3. How Divine Revelations may be suppos'd to be preserv'd in the World It is reasonable to suppose that Divine Revelations should be committed to Writing that they might be preserv'd for the Benefit of Mankind and deliver'd down to Posterity and that a more than ordinary Providence should be concern'd in their Preservation For whatever has been said by some of the Advantage of Oral Tradition for the Conveyance of Doctrines beyond that of Writing is so notoriously fanciful and strain'd that it deserves no serious Answer For till Men shall think it safest to make Wills and bequeath and purchase Estates by Word of Mouth rather than by Instruments in Writing it is in vain to deny that this is the best and securest way of Conveyance that can be taken So the common Sense of Mankind declares and so the Experience of the World finds it to be in things which Men take all possible Care about and it is too manifest and much to be lamented that Men are more sollicitous about things Temporal than about Eternal which affords too evident a Confutation of all the Pretences of the Infallibility of Oral Tradition upon this Ground That the Subject Matter of it are things upon which the Eternal Happiness or Misery of Mankind depends Now go write it before them in a table and note it in a book that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever Isa xxx 8. 4. It is requisite that a Divine Revelation should be of great Antiquity Because upon the same Grounds that we cannot think that God would not at all Reveal himself to Mankind we cannot suppose that he would suffer the World to continue long under a State of Corruption and Ignorance without taking some Care to remedy it by putting Men into a Capacity of knowing and practising the Duties of Vertue and Religion 5. Another requisite of a Divine Revelation is that it should be fully promulg'd and publish'd to the World for the general Good and Benefit of Mankind that it may attain the Ends for which a Revelation must be design'd THE Reasonableness and Certainty OF THE Christian Religion PART II. FROM what has been already Discours'd it appears That these Things are requisite in a Divine Revelation I. Antiquity II. Promulgation III. A sufficient Evidence by Prophecies and Miracles in Proof of its Authority IV. The Doctrines deliver'd by Divine Revelation must be Righteous and Holy consistent with the Divine Attributes and suitable to their Condition to whom it is made and every way such as may answer the Design of a Revelation CHAP. I. The Antiquity of the Scriptures AS it is evident from the Divine Attributes that God would not so wholly neglect Mankind as to take no Care to discover and reveal his Will and Commandments to the World so when there was so great a Necessity of Divine Revelation in order to the Happiness of Mankind both in this World and the next it is not to be believed that he would defer it so long before he made known his Will as till the Date of the first Antiquities amongst the Heathen It cannot be deny'd that some Books of the Seripture are much the Ancientest Books of Religion in the World for it were in vain to pretend that the Works in this kind or indeed in any other of any Heathen Author can be compar'd with
But thus much in this place shall suffice all particulars having been largely insisted upon in their proper places And since as sure as there is a God there must be a Revealed Religion if any Man will dispute the Truth of the Christian Religion let him instance in any other Religion that can make a better Plea and has more certainty that it came from God let him produce any other Religion that has more visible Characters of Divinity in it and we will not scruple to be of it but if it be impossible for him to shew any such as has been proved then he ought to be of this since there must be some Revealed Religion and if that Religion which has more evidence for it than any other Religion can be pretended to have and all that it could be requisite for it to have supposing it true and which it is therefore impossible to discover to be false if it were so If this Religion be not true God must be wanting to Mankind in what concerns their eternal Interest and Happiness he must be wanting to himself and to his own Attributes of Goodness Justice and Truth And therefore he that upon a due examination of all the Reasons and Motives to it will not be a Christian can be no better than an Atheist if he discern the consequence of things and will hold to his own Principles for there can be no Medium if we rightly consider the Nature of God and of the Christian Religion but as sure as there is a God and nothing can be more certain the Gospel was revealed by him CHAP. II. The Resolution of Faith HAving proved the Truth and Certainty of our Religion I shall in the last place upon these Principles give a Resolution of our Faith which is a subject that has caused such unnecessary and unhappy Disputes amongst Christians in these latter Ages for in the Primitive Times this was no matter of Controversie as indeed it could not then and ought not now to be 1. Considering the Scriptures only as an History containing the Actions and Doctrines of Moses and the Prophets and of our Saviour and his Apostles we have the greatest humane Testimony that can be of men who had all the opportunities of knowing the truth of those Miracles c. which gave Evidence and Authority to the Doctrines as Revealed from God and who could have no Interest to deceive others but exposed themselves to all manner of dangers and infamy and torments by bearing Testimony to the Truth of what is contained in the Scriptures whereas Impostures are wont to be invented not to incur such sufferings but to avoid them or to obtain the advantages and pleasures of this world And so this Testimony amounts to a moral certainty or as it is properly enough called by some to a moral infallibility because it implies a moral impossibility of our being deceived by it such a certainty it is as that nothing with any reason can be objected against it We can have as little reason to doubt that Christ and his Apostles did and suffered and taught what the Scriptures relate of them in Jerusalem Antioch c. as that there ever were such places in the world nay we have that much better attested than this for many men have died in Testimony of the Truth of it II. This Testimony being considered with respect to the nature of the thing testified as it concerns eternal Salvation which is of the greatest concernment to all mankind it appears that Gods Veracity and Goodness are engaged that we should not be deceived inevitably in a matter of this consequence So that this Moral Infallibility becomes hereby Absolute Infallibility and that which was before but Humane Faith becomes Divine being grounded not upon Humane Testimony but upon the Divine Attributes which do attest and confirm that Humane Testimony and so Divine Testimony is the ultimate ground why I believe the will of God to be delivered in the Scriptures it is no particular revealed Testimony indeed but that which is equivalent to it viz. the constant Attestation of God by his Providence For it is repugnant to the very notion of a God to let men be deceived without any possible help or remedy in a matter of such importance And so we have the ground of our Faith absolutely Infallible because it is evident from the Divine Attributes that God doth confirm this Humane Testimony by his own III. The Argument then proceeds thus If the Scriptures were false it would be impossible to discover them to be so and it is inconsistent with the Truth and Goodness of Almighty God to suffer a deceit of this nature to pass upon mankind without any possibility of a discovery therefore it follows that they are not false Here is 1. The object or thing to be believed viz. that the Revelation delivered to us in the Scripture is from God 2. The Motive or Evidence to induce our Belief viz. Humane Testimony 3. A confirmation of that Testimony or the Formal Principle and Reason of our Belief viz. the Divine Goodness and Truth The object therefore or thing believed is the same to us that it was to those who saw the miracles by which the Scriptures stand confirmed viz. the revealed Will of God and the Ground and Foundation of our Belief is the same that theirs was viz. the Divine Goodness and Truth whereby we are assured that God would not suffer Miracles to be wrought in his own Name according to Prophecies formerly delivered and with all other circumstances of credibility only to confirm a Lye The only difference then between the resolution of Faith in us and in the Christians who were Converted by the Apostles themselves is this that tho we believe the same things and upon the same grounds and reasons with them yet we have not the same immediate motives or evidence to induce our Belief or to satisfie us in these reasons and convince us that the Revealed Will of God contained in the Scriptures is to be believed upon these grounds that is to satisfie and convince us that the belief of the Scriptures being the Word of God is finally resolved into the Authority of God himself and is as well certified to us as his Divine Attributes can render it For they were assured of this from what their own senses received but we have our assurance of it from the Testimony of others The Question therefore will be whether the motives and arguments for this Belief in us or the means whereby we become assured that the Revealed Will of God is contained in the Scriptures be not as sufficient to produce a Divine Faith in us and to establish our Faith upon the Divine Authority as the motives and arguments which those had who lived with the Apostles and saw their Miracles could be to produce that Faith in them which resolved it self into the Divine Authority And this enquiry will depend upon these two things 1. Whether
equivalent to the Distinction of Persons among Men. That there is this Unity and this Distinction we learn from the Scriptures but what kind of Distinction this is or how far it is to be reconciled with our Notion of Persons amongst Men and after what manner it is consistent with the Unity of the Godhead the Scriptures have not told us and it is impossible for us to determine II. Other things are and must be believed by us which are as little understood as this Doctrine Our Knowledge at the best concerning Finite Things is very imperfect which is so generally acknowledged by all Men of Wisdom and Experience that it is esteemed a great point of Wisdom for a Man to be truly sensible of his own ignorance and it is the Character which Solomon himself giveth of the Fool that he rageth and is confident Prov. xiv 16. But when we consider things Infinite we are much more at a loss That there must of necessity be something Eternal must be acknowledged by all who understand what is meant by the word even those that are so foolish as to say in their hearts there is no God yet must believe something else to be Eternal they must believe that there always was something because if ever there had been nothing there never could have been any thing For how could any thing have been produced by Nothing Out of Nothing it might but then there must have been something to produce it We can be certain therefore of Nothing if we are not sure of this that there is something Eternal the Atheist himself cannot deny it unless he be so stupid as not to know what it means And yet what apparent contradictions may he fancy to himself in the Notion of Eternity For what is Eternal can never be capable of either a shorter or a longer Duration than it always had so that Millions of Ages hence it will not have continued longer than it had done as many Million of Ages past And how strange and contradictory doth this seem to be that not only Three Ages and one Age should be the same but that there should be no difference between one Hour or Moment and never so many Ages in respect of Eternity And there is no avoiding this difficulty if a Man be of any Religion or no Religion let him but apprehend what is meant by Eternity and he must own both that there is such a thing and that he is utterly unable to explain it Here then is an unaswerable Difficulty in a thing which all the World must believe if they have it but so proposed to them as to be made understand what it is And there is no difficulty imaginable in the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity which can be pretended to be greater than that which is inseparable from this Notion which all must of necessity hold And if we do but observe it in Finite things which are usual and familiar to us and the Objects of our Senses every day we Believe what we very little understand or are capable of understanding Our Knowledge indeed is so very imperfect concerning the Nature of most things that I may almost venture to say that if we will but be contented for the present to believe what God has delivered concerning his own Nature we may hereafter know God himself as plainly as now we know many things here For now we see through a Glass darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then shall I know even as also I am known 1 Cor. xiii 12. If it be thought unreasonable however that such abstruse Mysteries should be made necessary to Salvation and that we should pronounce that whosoever will be saved must thus think of the Trinity and that all who do not thus think and believe shall without doubt perish everlastingly Let it be considered that in all Religions whether Natural or Revealed there must be something believed which is above all Humane Comprehension and which can be known no further than in order to be believed there can be no Faith without all Knowledge but Knowledge if it were compleat would exclude Faith which is the Evidence of things not seen Knowledge may be considered either as it is general and imperfect or as it is particular and adequate to the Nature of the thing known we must have a general Knowledge of whatever is the Object of Faith but if we had a particular and adequate knowledge of it there could remain nothing of it unknown to be the Object of Faith The difference between Science and Faith is not that we are less certain of the Objects of Faith than of the Objects of Science but that we know less of them For Certainty depends upon our general Knowledge as that God is true and therefore what he has revealed is as certain as if we saw it or could demonstrate it in every particular And this general Knowledge which is necessary in order to Faith is in Natural Religion attained to by Reason and in Revealed Religion from Revelation Thus we attain to such a general Knowledge of the Divine Nature by Rational Evidence as to be convinced that Infinite Power and Goodness and Truth and all manner of Infinite Perfections belong to it but we believe the Divine Perfections without any particular comprehensive Knowledge of them in like manner from Revelation we attain to this general Knowledge that the Divine Nature consists of Three Persons in One undivided Essence but we believe these Three Persons to be One God without any particular and comprehensive Knowledge of so great a Mystery for then it would no longer be a Mystery and Faith would be no more Faith I would therefore ask the Adversaries of this Doctrine whether the Belief of a God Omnipresent Eternal Almighty Omniscient Infinitely Holy Just and Merciful be not necessary to Salvation No rational Man can deny it I enquire further whether Insants and Ideots are obliged necessarily under pain of Damnation to this Belief They must certainly answer no because none can be obliged to Impossibilities I demand then again whether if one or more of these Attributes or the Agreement of them one with another be impossible to be understood with a general and imperfect Knowledge by any who are capable of knowing and believing the rest the ignorance of these Articles which are above their Understandings even as to this general and imperfect way of Knowledge can be destructive of their Salvation They must needs say it cannot because God can require nothing impossible of any Man And the very same Answers applied to the Cavils against the Athanasian Creed will be sufficient to Silence them That Creed contains such Truths as are necessary to be believed in order to Salvation but necessary to particular Persons so far only as they are capable of knowing them in order to believeing them He that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity but this supposes him capable of thinking
demure Pretenders to Humane Reason and Moral Vertue and the Enemies of Revealed Religion We are fallen into an Age in which there are a sort of Men who have shewn so great a forwardness to be no longer Christians that they have catch'd at all the little Cavils and Pretences against Religion and indeed if it were not more out of charity to their own Souls than for any credit Religion can have of them it were great pity but they should have their Wish for they both think and live so ill that it is an argument for the goodness of any Cause that they are against it It was urged as a confirmation of the Christian Riligion by Tertullian that it was haved and persecuted by Nero the worst of Men And I am confident it would be but small Reputation to it in any Age if such Men should be found of it They speak evil of the things they understand not and are wont to talk with as much confidence against any point of Religion as if they had all the Learning in the World in their keeping when commonly they know little or nothing of what has been said for that against which they dispute They seem to imagine that there is nothing in the World besides Religion that has any difficulty in it but this shews how little they have considered the Nature of Things in which multitudes of Objections and Difficulties meet an observing Man in every Thought And after all Religion has but one fault as they account it which they have been able to discover in it and that is that it is too good and vertuous for them for when they have said all they can this is their great quarrel against it and as it has been truly observed no charity less than that of the Religion which they despise would have much care or consideration for them Thus have some Men dishonoured Religion by their Lives some by an affectation of Novelty some by invalidating the Authority of Books relating true Miracles and Prophecies and others by forging false ones some again by their too eager and imprudent Disputes and Contentions about Religion whilst from hence others have taken the liberty to ridicule it and to dispute against it but so as to expose themselves whilst they would expose Religion And thus has the clearest and most necessary Truth been obscured and despised whilst it has been betrayed by the vanity and quarrels of its Friends to the scorn and weakness of its Enemies However in all their opposition and contradiction to Revealed Religion I find it asserted by these Men that Atheism is so absurd a thing that they question whether there ever were or can be an Atheist in the World I have therefore here proved from the Attributes of God and the Grounds of Natural Religion that the Christian Religion must be of Divine Revelation and that this Religion is as certainly true as it is that God Himself exists which is the plainest Truth and the most universally acknowledged of any thing whatsoever And because there is nothing so true or certain but something may be alledged against it I shall besides discourse upon such Heads as have been most excepted against In which I shall endeavour to prove the Truth in such a manner as to vindicate it against all Cavils though I shall not take notice of particular Objections which is both a needless and indeed an endless labour for there is no end of Cavils but if the Truth be well and fully explained any Objection may receive a sufficient Answer from the consideration of the Doctrine against which it is urged by applying it to particular Difficulties as one Right Line is enough to demonstrate all the variations from it to be Crooked It is very easie to cavil and find fault with any thing and to start Objections and ask Questions is even to a Proverb esteemed the worst sign that can be of a great Wit or a sound Judgment Men are unwilling to believe any thing to be true which contradicts their Vices and the weakest Arguments with strong Inclinations to a Cause will prove or disprove whatever they have a mind it should But let Men first practise the Vertues the Moral Vertues which our Religion enjoins and then let them disprove it if they can nay let them disprove it now if they can for it stands in no need of their favour but for their own sakes let them have a care of mistaking Vices for Arguments and every profane Jest for a Demonstration I wish they would consider whether the Concern they have to set up Natural against Revealed Religion proceed not from hence that by Natural Religion they mean no more than just what they please themselves or what they judge convenient in every case or occasion whereas Revealed Religion is a fix'd and determined thing and prescribes certain Rules and Laws for the Government of our Lives The plain truth of the matter is that they are for a Religion of their own contrivance which they may alter as they see sit but not for one of Divine Revelation which will admit of no change but must always continue the same whatever they can do Vnless that were the case there would be little occasion to trouble them with Books of this kind for the Arguments brought against the Christian Religion are indeed so weak and insignificant that they rather make for it and it might well be said as M. Paschal relates by one of this sort of Men to his Companions If you continue to dispute at this rate you will certainly make me a Christian I shall venture at least to say of this Treatise in the like manner as he doth of his That if these Men would be pleased to spend but a little of that time which is so often worse employed in the perusal of what is here offered I hope that something they may meet withal which may satisfie their Doubts and convince them of their Errors But though they should despise whatever can be said to them yet there are others besides the profess'd Adversaries of Revealed Religion to whom a Treatise of this nature may be serviceable The truth is notwistanding the great Plainness of the Christian Religion I cannot but think that Ignorance is one chief cause why it is so little valued and esteemed and its Doctrines so little obeyed A great part of Christians content themselves with a very slight and imperfect Knowledge of the Religion they profess and are able to give but very little Reason for that which is the most Reasonable thing in the World but they profess it rather as the Religion of their Country than of their own choice and because they find it contradicts their sensual Desires they are willing to believe as little of it as may be and when they hear others cavil and trifle with it partly out of Ignorance and partly from Inclination they take every idle Objection if it be but bold enough for an unanswerable
worought to confirm any sound and useful Doctrine The Confession of the False Gods when they were adjur'd by Christians p. 401. CHAP. IV. The Defect in point of Doctrine in the Heathen Religions The Theology of the Heathens absurd p. 403. Their Religious Worship wicked and impious p. 405. Humane Sacrifices customary in all Heathen Nations p. 406. No Body of Laws nor Rules of Good Life proposed by their Oracles p. 402. But Idolatry and Wickedness approved and recommended by them ibid. CHAP. V. Of the Philosophy of the Heathens The Heathen Philosophy very defective and erroneous p. 411. Whatever there is of Excellency in the Philosophy of the Heathens is owing to Revelation p. 423. If the Heathen Philosophy had been as certain and as excellent as it can be pretended to be yet there had been great need of a Divine Revelation p. 429 CHAP. VI. The Novelty and Defect in the Promulgation of the Mahometan Religion p. 436. CHAP. VII The want both of Prophecies and Miracles in the Mahometan Religion p. 439 CHAP. VIII The Alcoran is false absurd and immoral p. 441 CHAP. IX Of Mahomet That he was Lustful Proud and Cruel appears from the Alcoran it self p. 443 PART IV. CHAP. I. THat there is as great Certainty of the Truth of the Christian Religion as there is of the Being of God p. 447 CHAP. II. The Resolution of Faith The Scriptures considered 1. As Historically true 2. As to their Doctrine which concerns Eternal Salvation p. 451 452. From both these Considerations it follows that they are infallibly True p. 455. In many cases there is as much cause to believe what we know from others as what we see and experience our selves p. 456. And thus it is in the present case concerning the Resolution of Faith p. 460. The Evidence of Sense and of Humane Testimony in this case compared p. 462. The Certainty of both ultimately resolved into the Divine Veracity c. ibid. An Objection from Joh. xx 29. answered p. 467. The Truth of the Christian Religion evident even to a Demonstration p. 470 Newly Publish'd CHristian Thoughts for every Day in the Month with Reflections upon the most Important Truths of the Gospel To which is added Prayers for every Morning and Evening Price 1 s. A Course of Lectures upon the Church Catechism By Thomas Bray D. D. The Third Edition Price 5 s. Very proper to be read in Families A Minister's Counsel to the Youth of his Parish when Arrived to Years of Discretion Recommended to the Societies in and about London By Francis Bragge Vicar of Hitchin Hertfordshire Price 2 s. THE REASONABLENESS AND CERTAINTY OF THE Christian Religion BOOK I. PART I. IN Discoursing of the Reasonableness and Certainty of the Christian Religion I shall use this Method I. I shall shew That from the Notion of a God it necessarily follows That there must be some Divine Revelation II. I shall enquire into the Way and Manner by which this Revelation may be suppos'd to be deliver'd and preserv'd in the World III. I shall shew That from the Notion of a God and the Nature and Design of a Divine Revelation it follows That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are that Divine Revelation IV. That no other Books or Doctrines whatsoever can be of Divine Revelation V. I shall from hence give a Resolution of our Faith by shewing That we have the same Evidence for the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures that we have for the Being of God himself because it follows from the Notion of a God both that there must of necessity be some Divine Revelation and that the Scriptures are that Divine Revelation VI. Having done this I shall in the last Place endeavour to clear such Points as are commonly thought most liable to Exception in the Christian Religion and shall propose some Considerations which may serve to remove such Objections and obviate such Cavils as are usually rais'd against the Holy Scriptures CHAP. I. That from the Notion of a God it necessarily follows that there must be some Divine Revelation IN the first Place I shall shew how Reasonable and Necessary it is to suppose That God should Reveal himself to Mankind And I shall insist the rather upon this because it is not usually so much consider'd in this Controversie as it ought to be for if it were it certainly would go very far towards the proving the Divine Authority of the Scriptures since if it be once made appear that there must be some Divine Revelation it would be no hard Matter to prove that the Scriptures are that Revelation For if it be prov'd that there must be some Revealed Religion there is no other which can bear any Competition with that contain'd in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament My first Business therefore shall be to shew from the Consideration of the Attributes of God and of the Nature and State of Mankind that in all Reason we cannot but believe that there is some Revealed Religion in the World There is nothing more evident to Natural Reason than that there must be some Beginning some first Principle of Being from whence all other Beings proceed And nothing can be more absurd than to imagine that that wonderful Variety of Beings in the Heavens and Earth and Seas which all the Wisdom of Man is not able in any Measure to understand or throughly to search into should yet be produc'd and continu'd for so many Thousand Years together without any Wisdom or Contrivance that an unaccountable Concourse of Atoms which could never build the least House or Cottage should yet build and sustain the wonderful Fabrick of the whole World that when the very Lines in a Globe or Sphere cannot be made without Art the World it self which that is but an imperfect Imitation of should be made without it and that less Skill should be requir'd to the forming of a Man than is necessary to the making of his Picture that Chance should be the Cause of all the Order and Fortune of all the Constancy and Regularity in the Nature of Things and that the very Faculties of Reason and Understanding in all Mankind should have their Original from that which had no Sense or Knowledge but was meer Ignorance and Stupidity This is so far from being Reason and Philosophy that it is down-right Folly and Contradiction From a Being therefore of infinite Perfection must proceed all things that are besides with all their Perfections and Excellencies and among others the Virtues and Excellencies of Wisdom Justice Mercy and Truth must be deriv'd from him as the Author of all the Perfections of which the Creatures are capable And it is absurd to imagine that the Creator and Governor of the World who is infinitely more Just more Wise and Good and Holy than any Creature can be will not at last reward the Good and punish the Wicked For Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do Right
those Apprehensions with their accustomed Arguments for Atheism and Infidelity I hope to prove in this Discourse That all but Atheists must he convinc'd of the Truth of the Revelations deliver'd down to us in the Old and New Testament if they will but take the pains to consider them And Atheists could never be convinc'd of any Revelation whatsoever for Men must first believe that there is a God before they can believe that he reveals himself either to themselves or others But besides their being ineffectual and never to be expected by such as this Conceit must be calculated for this Supposition of immediate Revelations to every Man in particular would fill the World with continual Impostures and Delusions For if every one had a Revelation made to himself every one might pretend to others what he pleas'd and we know from the Example of the Prophet who was sent to prophesie against the Altar at Bethel that a Man may be deluded by the Pretence of a Revelation made to another against an express Revelation made to himself and we may conclude that this would often happen from what we every day experience For if Men can be perverted by the Arts and Insinuations of others against their own Reason and Judgment they might as well be prevail'd upon to act against a Revelation made to them though Revelations were as common and familiar a thing amongst Men as Reason it self is So that immediate Revelations to every particular Man would have been needless and superfluous they would have been unsuitable to the Majesty and Honour of God and they would have been ineffectual to the Ends for which they must be suppos'd to be design'd and would have given many more Pretences to Impostures than there are now in the World But there were many Considerations even in a wicked World to move the Compassions of Infinite Mercy towards Mankind Though all were under the Dominion of Sin and unable of themselves to become righteous yet some were more wicked than others great Numbers of Men were carry'd away to commit heinous Impieties through their own Ignorance and the Example of others and though the Heathen were never without Excuse yet they were chiefly inexcusable because God had always a Revealed Will which he would by some Means or other have brought them to the Knowledge of if they had liv'd according to their Natural Knowledge of him and of their Duty towards him and though the Heathen had many Opportunities of becoming acquainted with the Revealed Will of God yet much Allowance was to be made for the Times of Ignorance before the Gospel God was pleas'd to reveal himself from time to time and at last by the Gospel in a more wonderful and evident Manner than ever he had done before and to afford Men fuller Means of Conviction and greater measures of Grace to comply with it and work out their own salvation And God has made these Revelations of his Will by enduing certain Men with a Power of Prophesying and working Miracles who were to declare his Will to others and to certifie the rest of the World that it was indeed his Will and Commandments which they deliver'd And this was the most proper Method and most worthy of God For as I have prov'd God would not create Mankind and then take no further Care of them since in the State of Innocence they better deserv'd his Care and have ever after stood in so much need of it and could at no time be happy either in this World or the next without it And it cannot with any Reason be objected by those who have never so great a Mind to cavil at the Terms and Means of Salvation by the Gospel That God should apply himself to every Person by a particular Revelation both because so much Condescension and Indulgence would be ill bestow'd upon those who have so little deserv'd it and because it would have no better Effect than Prophecies and Miracles have had towards the Conversion of Men but a very ill one in affording Pretences to all sorts of Impostures And where two several Means are alike suitable to any End no Man surely will presume to prescribe to Almighty God and say that he ought to have us'd one rather than the other much less when one is inconvenient and the other the only proper Means to be us'd II. I proceed therefore to shew That Prophecies and Miracles are the most sitting and proper Means for God to discover and reveal himself to the World by It is evident that they are not accompany'd with those Inconveniences with which immediate Revelations would have been there is no Prophecy nor Miracle but it has the design'd Effect upon many Persons the Majesty and Honour of God is not expos'd to the Scorn of every prophane and obstinate Offender and there is as effectual Care taken to prevent Impostures as possibly could have been And as Prophecies and Miracles have none of the Inconveniences which immediate Revelations would have had so I shall shew that they have all the Advantage and Usefulness which it can be suppos'd that immediate Revelations would have had if they had been granted to every Person in particular All that any immediate Revelation could do is to afford Men the Means of Conviction and Assurance that the Revelation proceeds from God as certainly as that God himself is And this Prophecies and Miracles do 1. Concerning Prophecies it is observable That the Oracles and Lying Divinations with which the Devil has impos'd upon the World shew That it is natural for Men to expect that God should reveal himself by Prophecies Which made them so prone to receive false Prophecies from their false Gods And this may teach us that true Prophecies are to be expected from the True God Many Prophecies are of that Nature that none but God Omniscient could be the Author of them and these in their Accomplishment must carry an indisputable Evidence of Divine Revelation along with them Such are the Predictions of Things to be fulfilled many Ages afterwards which in the fulfilling depend upon the Counsels and Determinations of free Agents and Predictions of the Sins of Men which they could not be determin'd to but by their own Choice It is above the Capacity of Humane Understanding to conceive how it is possible that Things should be foreseen so long before either the Actions or the Agents themselves have any Existence or how Contingencies can be the Object of Infallible Prescience And therefore for God to foretell Things of this Nature by his Prophets is a most proper and certain Way of Revelation because it is above the Power of any finite Being to do the like It is the Prerogative of him that formeth the Mountains and createth the Wind to declare unto Man what is his Thought The Lord the God of Hosts is his Name Amos iv 13. For which Reason the False Gods are challeng'd to foretell these Things Shew the Things that are to
come hereafter that we may know that ye are Gods Isai xlii 23. But because Things foretold may sometimes come to pass by Chance or it may be in the Power of Evil Spirits to foretell them when they are in Design and Agitation and just ready for Action or to discern Things done at distant Places and to make probable Guesses which may prove true from the various Circumstances of Affairs which they observe in the World We may therefore be assur'd from the Consideration of the Divine Attributes of Goodness and Truth that God will not suffer false Religions to be impos'd upon the World under his own Name by Diabolical Predictions without affording Means to discover them to be such When a Prophet speaketh in the Name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously thou shalt not be afraid of him Deut. xviii 22. This is the Mark of Distinction between a False and a True Prophet That whatever the latter foretold in the Name of the Lord should come to pass but whatever the first foretold in his Name should not come to pass which implies that God will disappoint such Predictions and not suffer them to come to pass otherwise the coming to pass of Things foretold could be no certain Mark of a true Prophet because they might come to pass by Chance The Prophet which prophesieth of peace when the word of the Prophet shall come to pass then shall the Prophet be known that the Lord hath truly sent him Jer. xxviii 9. But if the Prophecy were not pretended to be in the Name of the True God but were given out with a profess'd Design to entice Men to the Worship of False Gods then God might suffer it to be fulfill'd to prove his People Deut. xiii 1 2 3. For this was consistent with God's Truth and Goodness especially after Warning given and after so clear a Revelation both by Prophecies and Miracles If any Man in this Case would be seduc'd by any Wonder or Prophecy to follow other Gods it must be great Perverseness in him But when Prophecies are deliver'd by many Prophets in divers Ages and different Places all teaching the same Doctrine and tending to the same End and Design in their several Revelations and that End is the Discouragement of all Wickedness and the Maintenance of all Vertue and true Religion these Prophecies have all that can be requisite to assure us that they are from God and God by suffering them to pass so long in the World under his own Name and with all the Characters of his Authority upon them has given us all possible Assurance that they are his and engag'd us in Honour to his Divine Attributes to believe that they really are by his Authority And the Certainty of Prophecies being thus grounded upon the Divine Attributes besides the direct Evidence which they afford to whatever is deliver'd by them they add an undeniable Confirmation to those Miracles which have been foretold and are wrought at the Time and in the Manner and by the Persons foretold by the Prophets and the Prophecies likewise receive as great a Confirmation from such Miracles For Prophecies and Miracles which are singly a sufficient Evidence of Divine Revelation do mutually support and confirm each other and hereby we have all the Assurance that can be expected of any Divine Revelation And therefore as Prophecy is in it self a most fitting and proper way of Revelation so in Conjunction with Miracles it is the most certain way that can be desir'd 2. The Suitableness and Efficacy of Miracles to prove a Divine Revelation It is an extravagant thing to conceive that God should exclude himself from the Works of his own Creation or that he should establish them upon such inviolable Laws as not to alter them upon some Occasions when he foresaw it would be requisite to do it For unless the Course of Nature had been thus alterable it would have been defective in regard to one great End for which it was design'd viz. it would have fail'd of being serviceable to the Designs of Providence upon such Occasions The same Infinite Wisdom which contriv'd the Laws for the Order and Course of Nature contriv'd them so as to make them alterable when it would be necessary for God by suspending the Powers or interrupting the Course of Nature to manifest his extraordinary Will and Power and by the same Decree by which he at first establish'd them he subjected them to such Alterations as his Wisdom foresaw would be necessary We can as little doubt but that He who made the World has the sole Power and Authority over it and that nothing can be done in it but by his Direction and Influence or at least by his Permission and that the Frame and Order of Nature which he at first appointed can at no time be alter'd but for great Ends and Purposes He is not given to change as Men are and can never be disappointed in his Eternal Purposes and Designs But when any thing comes to pass above the Course of Nature and contrary to it in Confirmation of a Revelation which for the Importance and Excellency of the Subject of it and in all other respects is most worthy of God we may be sure that this is his doing and there is still further Evidence of it if this Revelation were prophesy'd of before by Prophets who foretold that it should be confirm'd by Miracle As when Men Born blind receiv'd their Sight when others were cur'd of the most desperate Diseases by a Touch or at a Distance when the Dead were rais'd and the Devils cast out these were evident Signs of a Divine Power and Presence which gave Testimony to the Doctrine deliver'd by those by whom such Miracles were wrought and the Divine Commission and Authority was produc'd for what they did and taught For what could be more satisfactory and convincing to Men or more worthy of God than to force the Devils themselves to confess and proclaim his Coming To cause the most insensible things in Nature to declare his Power by giving way as it were and starting back in great Confusion and Disorder at his more immediate and particular Presence to inform Men that the God of Nature was there This gave Testimony to the Things reveal'd and challeng'd the Belief of all Men in a Language more powerful than any Humane Voice whilst God shew'd forth his Glory and made known his Will by exercising his Sovereignty over Nature in making the whole Creation bow and tremble and obey All which was perform'd according to express Prophecies concerning Christ that there might be a visible Concurrence both of Prophecies and Miracles in Testimony of him And this Dispensation of Miracles was admirably fitted to propagate that Religion which concern'd the Poor as well as the Rich the Unlearned as well as the Learned Miracles were suitable
Condemnation And it is not only Just but Merciful for him to with-hold the Knowledge of his Reveal'd Will from those who he forefees would reject it and abuse the Opportunities which should be offer'd them to the Aggravation of their own Guilt and Punishment Especially if it be observ'd 2. That as to particular Persons we have reason to believe that God who by so wonderful a Providence has taken care that every Nation under Heaven might have the True Religion preach'd in it and who has the whole World at his Disposal and orders all things with great regard to the Salvation of Men we have abundant cause to think that he would by some of the various Methods of his Providence or even by Miracle bring such Men to the knowledge of the Truth who live according to their present Knowledge with a sincere and honest Endeavour to improve it When St. Peter was by Revelation sent to Cornelius he made this Inference from it Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him Act. x. 34 35. From whence what less can we conclude than that every Man in any part of the World who is sincerely good and pious in the Practice of his Duty so far as it is known to him shall rather by an express Revelation have the rest discover'd to him as in the Instance of Cornelius which gave occasion to these words of S. Peter than that he should be suffer'd to perish for want of a true Faith and sufficient Knowledge of his Duty And it is Just with God to punish those Heathens who sin without any Reveal'd Law for their Sins against Natural Reason and Conscience and for neglecting to use and improve their Reason and to embrace the Opportunities afforded them of becoming Christians We may likewise be certain that besides Natural Reason and Conscience God in his Goodness is not wanting to afford such inward Motions and Convictions of Mind to such of the Heathen as are not wilfully blind and stupify'd by their Vices as may prepare them for the reception of the Gospel which by his Providence he gives them so many Opportunities of becoming acquainted withal And if once they do discern the Defects and Faults of their own Religions which are so grosly against Natural Reason and Conscience they may make enquiry of Christians concerning their Religion as some of the Americans did of Cortes's and the Christians some of them at least however negligent they be in propagating it would never refuse to instruct them in it And it must be remembred that among those who have not receiv'd the True Religion yet many Points are taught and believ'd which had their Original from Revelation as is evident not only of the Mahometans but of several Heathen Nations which Points are so many Steps and Preparatives towards the Reception of the whole Truth if they be not wanting to themselves in pursuing them in their immediate Tendency and Consequences I shall not say That the Merits of Christ and the Salvation of the Gospel do extend to those who in the Integrity of their Hearts dye under an invincible Ignorance of it I believe rather that God suffers no Man so qualify'd and dispos'd to remain in invincible Ignorance But it is sufficient to vindicate God's Justice and Goodness that all Nations have had such Opportunities of coming to the Knowledge of the Truth and great Allowances may be made at the Last Day for the Ignorance and unhappy Circumstances of particular Men. It was well said That when God hath not thought fit to tell us how he will be pleas'd to deal with such Persons it is not fit for us to tell Him how he ought to deal with them But if it be difficult for us now to think how it will please God to deal with the Heathen it would be a thousand times more difficult to conceive how the Gracious and Merciful God could Govern and Judge the World if all Mankind were in the State of Heathens without any Divine Revelation What will become of the Heathen as to their Eternal State is not the Subject of this Discourse nor doth it concern us to know some of them will have more to plead for themselves in point of ignorance than others can have and they are in the hands of the Merciful Creator and Saviour of Mankind and there we must leave them But it must be acknowledged that it is much more agreeable to the Goodness and Mercy of God to reveal his Will and to give so many Opportunities to the World to be instructed in it though never so many should neglect the Means of Salvation than it is to suppose him to take no care to reduce Mankind to the sense and practice of Vertue and Religion but to let them continue in all manner of Idolatry and Wickedness without giving them any warning against it I have not spoken in secret in a dark place of the earth Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth for I am God and there is none else Come ye near unto me hear ye this I have not spoken in secret from the beginning from the time that it was there am I Isa xlv 19 22. xlviii 16. Having proved That the Scriptures want nothing requisite to a Divine Revelation in regard either of the Antiquity or Promulgation I proceed to shew That they have sufficient Evidence both by Prophecies and Miracles in proof of their Authority This Evidence depends upon Matter of Fact which concerns either the Prophecies and Miracles themselves in their several circumstances as we find them stand Recorded or the Lives and Personal Qualifications of those by whom they were performed or by whom they are related in the Scriptures For if we can be assured both that they are truly related and that if they were done as they are related they could proceed from none but a Divine Power we have all the Evidence for the Truth of the Scriptures that can be had for a Revelation CHAP. III. Of Moses and Aaron THat Moses was a very Great and Wise Man is related by several of the most eminent Heathen Writers and I think it has never been denied by any Man But it is no less evident that he was likewise a very Good and Pious Man He frequently declares his own Failings and Infirmities Exod. iii. 11. iv 1 10 13. Num. xi 10. xx 12. xxvii 14. and never speaks any thing tending to his own Praise but upon a just and necessary occasion when it might become a prudent and modest Man especially one Divinely Inspired For all the Praise of such an one doth not terminate in himself but is attributed to God whose Instrument and Servant he is and in such cases where God's Honour is concerned it was a Duty to set forth the Favour and Goodness of God towards him though some Honour did redound
teach them what they should say Exod. 4.12 15. And our Saviour tells his Disciples ye shall be brought before Governours and Kings for my sake for a testimony against them and the Gentiles But when they deliver you up take no thought how or what ye shall speak for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak Matt. 10.18 19. And if Moses was inspired upon that particular occasion and the Apostles were inspired in things which were personal as in the defence that they made for themselves they must much rather be inspired in their Writings which concern the Church in all ages St Luke had perfect understanding of all things from above Luke 1.3 so Dr Lightfoot renders it with great probability for thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in many places of Scripture Joh. 3.3 31.19.2 Jam. 1.17.3.17 And this the Church of Coriuth expected from St Paul they sought a proof of Christ speaking in him 2 Cor. 13.3 as that Apostle tells them he did and that not in a weak and obscure but in a powerful and effectual manner He writes for the same reason to the Thessalonians ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus 1 Thess 4.2 and he distinguisheth between his own Judgment assisted and enlightened though not infallibly by the Holy Ghost and the Commandments of the Lord or the infallible dictates of the Spirit 1 Cor 7.10 12 25 40. The Holy Ghost taught the Apostles all things and brought all things to their remembrance Jo. 14.26 and guided them into all Truth Joh. 16.13 and the Vnction from the holy one instructed 'em to know all things 1 Joh. 11.20 that is all things pertaining to Salvation this is said of their Disciples and therefore may in a more especial manner be affirmed of the Apostles themselves insomuch that the words themselves are ascribed to the Holy Ghost which things also we speak not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual 1 Cor. 2.13 For they were under the conduct and influence of the Holy Ghost in the choice of every word they used tho not so as to be inspired with a new style and dialect the words themselves were not always suggested but they were always inspired in the use of them and tho they might be permitted to chuse their own words and expressions yet it was with this limitation that they were never permitted to make choice of such as would not fully and infallibly express the mind of the Holy Ghost And therefore 1 Cor. 14.13 the Apostle gives this direction Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret that is let him pray that he may have the Divine Inspiration to assist him in expressing himself in a known tongue by which he is enabled to speak in an unknown one and that he may be infallible in rendring that in his own tongue which he infallibly speaks in another Which makes it evident that when they spoke by Inspiration in their own language they had the Guidance and Inspiration of the Holy Ghost in the use of their words and this was the reason why those that spoke by Inspiration in a strange tongue durst not presume to interpret the words which the Holy Ghost dictated to them in that tongue so as to give them out for Divine Revelation unless they were particularly empowered to render them in their own language with the same exactness with which they were inspired to speak in a strange tongue For that the necessity of praying that they might interpret could not proceed from any inability to interpret by reason of the force and heat of the Rapture which was upon 'em that made 'em unable to utter their conceptions in their own language or to retain the sense of them in their minds afterwards seems plain from verse 27. if any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be by two or at the most by three and that by course and let one interpret c. For if they had been acted by such rapturous heats and extasies they could have been as little able to refrain when the Rapture was upon them and to remember what they had to deliver when their course came to speak as they are supposed to have been to remember what they were inspired to speak in one language when they went to express it in another Neither were they ignorant themselves of what they spoke but when it is said vers 14. for if I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth but my understanding is unfruitful the meaning of that is that it was of no benefit to others tho he that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifyeth himself vers 4. Some men were inspired to speak in strange tongues with as much readiness and more exactness than they could do in their native language but this was insignificant to such as understood not the tongue in which they spoke What is it then I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also vers 15. i. e. I will pray by the Guidance and Inspiration of the Holy Ghost but in my own language in which my understanding is employed and the words are not all directly suggested to me by the Spirit as they must be in a language which I speak meerly by Inspiration but I am only so far guided and assisted in the choice and use of my words as to speak infallibly the mind of the spirit Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit c. verse 16. Those who had the gift of tongues were it seems so pufft up with it that they would worship God in no other but in those languages tho none of the Assembly understood them and would be always unnecessarily and unseasonably repeating the Revelations which they had received in strange languages the Apostle tells such men that it was very improper and absurd to deliver their Revelations in an unknown Tongue or to pray or give thanks in a Language not understood by those that heard them but that they should pray that they might interpret or forbear the use of the gift of to agues unless before them who understood the Tongues in which they spoke that it might be for edification For in their Inspirations they were consined at certain times to some particular Language as the Spirit gave them utterance and it might have done great prejudice to the Truth of Religion if they of themselves had ventured to render that into their own Language which was revealed to them in a strange Tongue and for this reason it was not permitted those who spoke with Tongues to speak in any but that in which the Revelation was made to them unless they were enabled to do it by being inspired with a Power of Interpretation For to speak with tongues and to interpret were distinct gifts 1 Cor. 12.10 30. and whatever
of the World had the true Religion brought home to them by the Patriarchs who were sent from place to place to sojourn to be a Pattern and Example to the rest of Mankind And Men who travell'd so far and conversed with so many Nations and were so zealous for God's Honour and had such frequent Revelations and the immediate Direction of God himself in most of the Actions of their Lives and who were so Great and Powerful and so Numerous must needs mightily propagate Religion where-ever they came and leave the Idolaters without excuse and it cannot be doubted but that they had great success in all places for even out of Aegypt where they endured the greatest hardship and were in such contempt and hatred yet a mix'd multitude went up also with them besides the Native Israelites Exod. xii 38. And as Chaldaea and Aegypt were famous for Learning and Commerce and proper Places by their situation from whence the Notions of Religion might be propagated both towards the East and West to other Parts of the World so I must again observe that God's Mercy was particularly manifested towards the Canaanites before their Destruction The Example of Melchizedeck who reigned among them and the sojourning of Abraham and Lot and Isaac and Jacob not to mention Ishmael and Esau with their numerous Famllies afforded them continual Invitations and Admonitions for their Instruction and Amendment especially the Judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah and the miraculous Deliverance of Lot was enough to strike an Awe and Terrour into the most Obdurate But when they would not make any due use of these Mercies when they persisted still in their Impieties and proceeded in them till they had filled up the measure of their Iniquities God made them an Example to others after they would take no Warning themselves yet still executing his judgments upon them by little and little he gave them place of repentance not being ignorant that they were a naughty generation and that their malice was bred in them and that their cogitation would never be changed Wisd xii 10. How much the true Religion prevailed by these Dispensations of Providence among other Nations besides the Hebrews we have an illustrious Instance in Job and his Friends who were Princes in their several Dominions they had knowledge of the Fall of the Angels Job iv 18. and of the Original Corruption of Man which is expressed with this emphasis that he cannot be clean or righteous who is born of a woman because by Eve's Transgression Sin came into the World Job xiv 1. xv 14. and xxv 4. Adam is mention'd chap. xxxi 33. the Resurrection is described chap. xiv 12. and it appears that Revelations were vouchsafed to these Nations chap. xxxiii 15. It appears that the Fundamentals of Religion were known Doctrines amongst them and are therefore mention'd both by Job himself and by his Friends in as plain terms as may be and as fully as can be expected in a Book which is Poetical the nature whereof requires that known things should be alluded to but not so particularly related as in History And there is no doubt but the Propagation of Religion in other parts of the World would be as evident if the Scriptures had not occasionally only and in the Course of other things but of set purpose treated of this matter as me may gather from the footsteps to be found in Heathen Authors of what the Scriptures deliver to us and from the several Allusions and Representations in the Rites and Ceremonies of their Religions expressing though obscurely and confusedly the chief Points of the Scripture-story as has been shewn by divers learned Men. 2. In succeeding Ages after the giving the Law when the Jews by their Laws concerning Religion and Government may seem to have been wholly separated from the rest of the World and the Divine Revelations confined to one Nation there still were sufficient Means and frequent Opportunities for all Nations to come to the Knowledge of the Truth And here I shall shew 1. That the Law of Moses did particularly provide for the Instruction of other Nations in the Revealed Religion and that the Scriptures give frequent Commandment and Encouragment concerning it 2. That the Providence of God did so order and dispose of the Jews in their Affairs as to offer other Nations frequent Opportunities of becoming instructed in the true Religion and that multitudes of Proselytes were made of all Nations 1. The Law of Moses did particularly provide for the Instruction of other Nations in the Revealed Religion and the Scriptures give frequent Commandment and Encouragement concerning it The Strangers or Proselytes amongst the Jews were of two sorts for either they were such as became Circumcised and obliged themselves to the Observation of the whole Law of Moses who were styled Proselytes of Righteousness or of the Covenant or they were such as believed in the True God and professed only to observe the Precepts given to Noah which comprised the Substance of the Ten Commandments and these were called Proselytes of the Gates because they were permitted to live amongst them within their Gates these are the Strangers in their Gates mention'd Deut. xiv 21. who might eat of such thing 's as the Israelites themselves were forbidden to eat of If any would be Circumcised and undertake the Observation of the whole Law they had full liberty and the greatest encouragement to do it At the first Institution of Circumcision not only Abraham and his Seed but his whole Family and all that were bought with money of any Stranger were to be circumcised Gen. xvii 12 27. and at the Institution of the Passover the Stranger is commanded to observe it as well as the Natural Israelite Exod. xii 19. God made no distinction in the Institution of both these Sacraments between the Jews and those other Nations that dwelt amongst them and were willing to conform themselves to the Observation of the Law but first to Abraham when he appointed Circumcision and then to Moses when the Passover was instituted particular Order is given concerning Strangers or Proselytes who would betake themselves to them one law shall be to him that is home-born and to the stranger that sojourneth among you Exod. xii 49. Deut. xxix 11. And as the receiving the Seal of Circumcision was an admission into Covenant with God and implied an Obligation to observe the whole Law and a Right to the Privileges of it which was confirmed and renewed by their partaking of the Passover so it is to be observed not only that God did in general admit Strangers and Aliens to the same Worship with the Jews but that throughout their whole Law frequent mention is made of them and care taken for their Reception and Behaviour for though what is but once said in Scripture is a sufficient Proof of the Will and Pleasure of God in any matter yet when a thing is often mention'd and every where inculcated it is an
the Law and that so many should die rather than depart from it Upon the Revolt of the Ten Tribes Jeroboam would certainly have discover'd it if he had but suspected any such thing as an Imposture or could but have hoped to make the People believe that the Laws of Moses were not of Divine Institution but of Humane Invention and Contrivance but he supposed the Truth of its Divine Original whilst he tempted the People to the transgression of it Behold thy Gods O Israel which brought thee up out of the land of Aegypt 1 King xii 28. he supposes them brought out of the land of Aegypt and brought out by a Divine Power and endeavours to persuade them that the two Calves which he had set up in Dan and Bethel were the Gods who delivered them and by whose Authority the Law was given them and that therefore either of those Places was as proper to sacrifice in as Jerusalem which however absurd it were yet he did not think so absurd as to endeavour to make them believe that their Law it self was no better than an Imposture he had some hopes to succeed in this Project and the Event shews he understood the Temper and Principles of the People he had to deal with but the other was too gross for him to attempt The true Prophets of Israel were ever as zealous for the Law of Moses as the Prophets of Judah and the False Pophets of either Kingdom never durst deny its Authority these False prophets affronted and contradicted the Prophets of the Lord but they ever owned the Law and pretended to speak in the Name of that God who had deliver'd it to Moses And this Division of the Ten Tribes made it impossible afterwards for either the Kingdom of Israel or of Judah to make any Alterations in the Books of Moses because there was so great emulation and enmities betwixt the two Kingdoms that they could never have agreed to insert the same Corruptions and if either of them had attempted such a thing it would soon have been discovered by the other and therefore the agreement of the Samaritan with the Hebrew Pentateuch is a plain argument that they are but different Copies of the same Book and that it is undoubtedly genuine The Children of Israel notwithstanding their great proneness to Idolatry never cast off the Law of Moses as they would certainly have done being so often brought into bondage by their neighbour-Nations if they had not been well assured of the Authority of that Law which they transgress'd but they were reduced to the Obedience of the Law by the Oppressions of Iolatrous Nations they hoped for Deliverance upon their Repentance according to the Promises made in it and could by no Temptations or Torments be persuaded or forced to renounce it But the long Captivity in Babylon wrought a perfect cure in the Jews as to their inclination to idolatry which could never have been unless by their own experience in seeing the Prophecies fulfilled and by other Arguments they had been sully convinced of the Truth of their own Religion beyond all others If it had been of their own invention the People would have made their Law in every respect more favourable to themselves they would not have cloyed it with burthen some Ceremonies to distinguish themselves from the neighbour-Nations whose Idolatries they were so long prone to and which these Câ—remonies were designed to restrain them from They who were for a long time so fond of the Idolatries of the Heathen would never have invented Laws so uneasie to themselves and so contrary and odious to other Nations they would never have framed them themselves and then have pretended a Divine Revelation for those Laws which they were so little pleased with They would never have exposed themselves to the whole World thro' all Ages as a stubborn and rebellious People notwithstanding so many and so convincing Miracles so long wrought amongst them The Miracles which I have mention'd were most of them Judgments upon the Israelites for their Disobedience and they would never have set down these Miracles but would rather have lest them out though they were true as disgraceful to their Nation For thus Josephus has omitted some things to avoid the Scandal which he was a ware would have been given to the Heathen by a full and punctual Relation of the whole History of the Jews as it is described in the Books of Moses And they could be as little ignorant as Josephus what would prove disgraceful to them and what would make for their Honour and Renown and when the design of these supposed Forgeries and Falsifications must have been to advance the Glory of the People of Israel they would never have made such as these No if they had made any Alterations it would have been to strike out those numerous Passages which are so reproachful to their Nation and to have inserted others which might raise the Fame and Glory of Themselves and of their Ancestors and to have changed those Ceremonies that were so burthensome and so singular for those which would have been more easie to themselves and might have recommended them to the good opinion and esteem of the neighbour Nations But when so refractary a People became so zealous for such a Law so uneasie at first and so distastful to them it is an undeniable argument that they had the greatest Assurance of its Divine Original and that they would neither falsifie it themselves nor sufter others to falsifie it The People of Israel must be supposed to be unanimous to a Man in the making these Laws if they were of their own making for if any one had dissented he could not fail of Arguments to draw others after him In making Laws the Interests and Conveniencies of the Law-makers are always the Motives for the enacting them and besides the Publick Honour and Welfare of the Nation which too often are less considered the particular Interest of every single Man would have made him concerned to put a stop to such Laws No People can be supposed to consent to the making Laws by which they are forbidden to sow their Land every Seventh Year and are commanded to leave their Habitations and go up to the capital City from every part of their Country thrice in a Year no People could agree to enact such Laws of their own contrivance because none could subsist in the observation of them without a Miracle How can we conceive it possible for any People to subsist by such Laws if they had been of their own making or that any Nation should agree in the enacting such Laws as must provoke all their neighbour Nations to make War against them nay by which they actually declared an irreconcileable War against seven Nations at once For one Nation to distinguish themselves by their Laws and Constitutions from all other People to lay the very Foundations of their Government in the disgrace and infamy of all their neighbour
of Babylon and be carried to Babylon Ezekiel That he should not see Babylon Jeremiah That he should die in peace and be buried after the manner of his Ancestors Ezekiel That he should die at Babylon and if we compare all this with the History nothing ever was more punctually fulfilled For Zedekiah saw the King of Babylon who commanded his Eyes to be put out before he was brought to Babylon and he died there but died peaceably and was suffered to have the usual Funeral Solemnities 2 King xxv 6 7. And therefore both Prophecies proved true in the Event which seemed before to be inconsistent And so critical an Exactness in every minute Circumstance in Prophecies delivered by two Persons who were before thought to contradict each other was such a conviction to the Jews after they had seen them so punctually fulfilled in their Captivity that they could no longer doubt but that both were from God Jeremiah foretold also That the Kingdom of the Chaldaeans should be destroyed and that the Jews should be restored after a Captivity of Seventy Years these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years And it shall come to pass when seventy years are accomplished that I will punish the King of Babylon and that nation saith the Lord for their iniquity and the land of the Chaldaeans Jer. xxv 11 12. For thus saith the Lord That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word towards you in causing you to return to this place Jer. xxix 10. And this Prophecy of Jeremiah the Jews depended upon under the Captivity Dan. ix 2. Zech. i. 12. and it was exactly fulfilled to them The Generations of Nebuchadnezzar's Posterity that should succeed him till the Destruction of that Monarchy are foretold Jer. xxvii 7. The Destruction of Babylon with the manner of Taking the City as it was foretold and described by the Prophet agrees punctually with the Account of it by (l) 〈◊〉 â—odo◠〈◊〉 c. 191. Herodotus One post shall run to meet another and one messenger to meet another to shew the king of Babylon that his City is taken at one end and that the passages are stopped and the reeds they have burned with sire and the men of war are affrighted And this was declared in a memorable and solemn manner by writing it down and by casting the Book into Euphrates Jer. li. 31 32 62 63. The Destruction of Tyre and Zidon and of Aegypt was foretold by the Prophet Ezekiel and the Restoration of the Aegyptians after Forty Years Ezek. xxviii 19. xxix 12 13. The Prophanation of the Temple and of the Sanctuary by Antiochus Epiphanes with the Death of Antiochus and a Description of his Temper and of his very Countenance was clearly delivered by Daniel Four hundred and eight Years (m) Joseph Antiquit. l. 11. c. 11. before the accomplishment Dan. viii Daniel likewise described the Fate of the Four Monarchies the Restoration of the Jews and the Rebuilding of their City and the Birth of the Messias with the precise Time of it And Alexander the great is said (n) Ibid. l. 11. c. 8. to have been encouraged by Daniel's Prophecy in his Expedition Indeed his Prophecy and the History of the Four Monarchies are so exactly parallel that Porphyry could find no other evasion but to say That the Book of Daniel was writen after the Events which as Grotius observes is as absurd as if a Man should maintain that the Works of Virgil were not written under Augustus but after his time For the Book of Daniel was as publick and as much dispersed and as universally received as ever any Book could be Lastly Haggai and Malachi prophesied That Christ should come before the Destruction of the Second Temple Hag. ii 7 9. Mal. iii. 1. And Hosea foretold the present state of the People of Israel in those remarkable words They shall be wanderers among the nations Hos ix 17. Not to insist therefore upon other Miracles and Prophecies which were concerning things of lesser moment or less remarkable in the eyes of the World these may suffice which were of that Publick nature that there could be no deceit or mistake in them multitudes of Men whom Prejudice or Malice had prepared to make the utmost Discoveries were Witnesses to the Miracles and both the Prophecies themselves and the Fulfilling of them were notorious to other Nations as well as to the Jews to whom they were delivered and in whose hands they have ever since been being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath-day The Jews had as good Evidence for Instance that Elijah wrought his Miracles as they could have that there was such a Man in the World And when the publick Transactions and Councils of Princes the Fate and Revolution of Empires with the Prefix'd Time and Place and the very Names of the Persons were so particularly foretold Two or Three hundred Years before the Things came to pass we may as well question the Truth of all History as the Certainty of these Revelations For indeed they are the History of Things that were to come set down in the very Circumstances in which they afterwards were brought to pass And yet if a Man should dispute whether there ever were such a Man as Elijah or such a Prince as Josiah or Cyrus he would but make himself ridiculous but if he deny that Elijah wrought such Miracles or that Isaiah spoke of Cyrus and another Prophet of Josiah by Inspiration perhaps he may be thought to have made some great Discovery and to know something above the rest of Mankind and shall be likely to meet with Applause instead of that Contempt which such Pretences deserve so strangely partial are Men for any thing which is but against the Authority of the Scriptures For I think it will be hard for Men to bring better Proof that there were such Men as Elijah and Josiah and Cyrus than may be brought to shew that the latter were by Name prophesied of long before their Birth and that the first wrought all the Miracles related of him or to produce clearer Evidence that there was such a City as Jerusalem before the Reign of Cyrus than we have that the Destruction of the City and Temple and the Captivity of the people with their Restoration after Seventy Years was foretold by Jeremiah The prophets did their Miracles in the most publick manner and their Prophecies were delivered not in corners but openly before all the People not in obscure and ambiguous Words but in plain Terms with a particular Account of Persons and Time and Place they were kept they were read and studied by that very People who at first as little regarded them as any Man now amongst us can do but slew the prophets themselves and rejected their Prophecies with rage and indignation but were afterwards by the Event of Things so fully convinced which was likewise foretold Ezek. xxxiii 33. of their
patience which was necessary for men that were to declare an ungrateful and despised truth amongst those who would think themselves so much concerned to oppose and suppress it If they had wrought no Miracles their courage and resolution might have pass'd for a groundless confidence and if they had not had the courage to stand so resolutely to the truth of what they delivered their Miracles themselves might have become suspected but acting by a Divine Power and being supported in all their sufferings by a supernatural constancy and greatness of Mind and being so suddenly changed and raised above themselves in all they did or suffered and working the same change in others they gave all the evidence and certainty of the truth of the Doctrines they taught that it was possible for men to give And as a power of working Miracles was derived from the Apostles down upon their Disciples so was the spirit of meekness and patience under afflictions communicated to them And it is observable that God was pleased not to raise up any Christian Emperor till above three hundred years after Christ that he might shew that the Religion which came from heaven could need no human aid nor be suppress'd by any human force and that he might recommend the great vertues of meekness and patience to the world by the examples men as eminent for these as for the Miracles they wrought and might instruct mankind in a suffering Religion For to assure the world of the truth of it he would not grant it protection from Christian Emperors till most of the Empire was become Christian and Christianity had diffused it self into all the known parts of the Earth For before the last Persecution begun by Dioclesian (l) Euseb Hist lib. viii c. 1. the Church flourished as much and had the favour of the Court and of great men in as high a degree almost as under Constantine himself till their Prosperity caused their sins and these brought Persecution But at last the persecuting Emperors were forced by a divine power manifested in miraculous diseases inflicted on them to restore the Christians to their former liberty in their worship of God that so it might appear to all the world that the Christian Religion needed no Patronage of men for God would compel its worst Enemies to become its Protectors when he saw it fitting And (m) Sozom lib. v. c. 16. when Julian made it his great aim and business to restore Paganism again in the world he saw to his grief how ineffectual all his endeavours proved he observed that the Christian Religion still retained a general esteem and approbation and that the Wives and Children and Servants of his own Priests themselves were most of them Christians If any one then upon a serious consideration of all circumstances can withstand the conviction of so great evidence I would only ask him whether he believes any History or relation of matters of fact which he never saw and desire him to shew what degrees of certainty he can discern in any of them which are are not to be found here and besides to consider that if in a vicious and subtile Age a Doctrine so contrary to flesh and blood by so weak and incompetent means could obtain so universally amongst men of all Tempers and Professions and Interests in all Nations of the world against so violent opposition without the help of Miracles this is as great a Miracle as can be conceived either therefore the Christian Religion was propagated by Miracles or it was not if it was then the Miracles by which it was propagated prove it to be from God if it was not propagated by Miracles the Propagation it self is a Miracle and sufficient to prove it to be from him CHAP. XVII Of the Writingâ— of the Apostles and Evangelists IT is justly esteemed a sufficient reason for the credibility of any History if it be written by men of Integrity men who have no suspicion upon them of dishonesty and have no Temptation to deceive and who relate nothing but of their own Times and within their own knowledge though the Authors never suffered any loss nor run any hazard in asserting what they deliver But the History of Christ has this further advantage that many of the most considerable things in it were done in the sight of his enemies and that which is an History to future Ages was rather an Appeal to that Age whether the things related were true or not The History of our Saviour's Life and Death and Resurrection and Ascension as it hath been proved was attested by his Apostles to the faces of his very Crucifiers and they all remained upon the place where what they witnessed had been done for several years afterwards declaring and preaching to all people the things which they had seen and heard And soon after his Ascension when all the proceedings against him were fresh in memory they committed the same to writing in Greek which was the most common language and generally known at that time St. Matthew who first penned his Gospel is said to have written it in Hebrew or Syriack tho it was soon after translated into Greek so that whover of the Jews did not understand the Greek tongue might read the Gospel in their own Language Not long after the other Gospels were penned and they were all in a short time dispersed into the several parts of the world and translated into all Languages It is particularly related (a) Eâ—iphan Haerâ—â— Ebion that St. John's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles were soon translated into the Hebrew tongue The Evangelists give such an account both of the Birth and Death of our Saviour as must suppose them recorded at Rome For there the censual Tables were kept where by St. Luke's account the name of our Saviour must have been registered and his Death and Resurrection were so remarkable as they relate them that according to the custom used in the Government of the Roman Provinces the Emperor must have a relation sent him of them and as I have shewn both Justin Martyr and Tertullian appeal to the Roman Records for the truth both of the Birth and Resurrection of our Saviour The memory of the Massacre of the Infants by Herod is preserved to us by a saying of Augustus concerning Herod upon it (b) Macrob Saturnal lib. ii c. 4. which is mentioned in Macrobius a Heathen Author For Augustus was told that among others Herod had caused his own child to be slain which whether true or no gave occasion to the Emperor to make this observation that it was better to be Herod's Swine than his Son Tacitus mentions our Saviour's suffering under Pontius Pilate and Tertullian in his (c) Tertul. Apol. c. 21. Apology tells the Heathens that the miraculous Eclipse of the Sun which was at Christ's Death stood upon Record in their own Registers whether it were for the strangeness of the thing it being contrary to the course
when he proposes Rules of Vertue and cautions to arm men against Vice and Temptation how much short doth he fall of the Christian Doctrine If any man says he tell you that such an one hath spoken ill of you make no Apollogy for your self but answer He did not know my other faults or else he would not have charged me with these only cap xlviii This is a sine saying a pretty turn of thought but what is there in it comparable to that aweful and sacred Promise Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven Mat. v. 11 12. Again when a man values himself says Epictetus for being able to understand and explain the Books of Chrysippus say you to your self unless Chrysippus had written obscurely this man would have had nothing to boast of But what do I design To study Nature and follow it cap. lxxiii This is no ill Satyr upon the vanity of men but is there any thing in it like that Piety and Authority with which St. Paul reproves the same vice 1 Cor. viii 1.2 3. The best thing that can be said of the Heathen Philosophers is that most of them frequently confest the great imperfection of their Philosophy and placed their greatest wisdom in this That they were more sensible than others of their ignorance and Socrates profest that to be the Reason why the Oracle of Apollo declared him to be the wisest man because he knew how ignorant he was better than other men did As to the Chinese Philosophy we know little of it their (u) Confuc lib. iii. Par. 4. p. 36. Philippi â—â—uplet Prooem Declar. Books of Philosophy being all destroyed at the command of a Tyrant who reigned about two hundred years before Christ from the Fragments which were afterwards gathered up and yet remain among them we can only perceive that Confucius and the rest of their best Philosophers taught no more than what they had learnt by Tradition from their Ancestors and when they forsook this Tradition they fell into the grossest errors which are maintained by the learned men amongst them at this day II. Whatever there is of excellency in the Philosophy of the Heathens is owing to Revelation It is generally supposed that humane Reason could have discovered the more common and obvious Precepts of Morality contained in the Scriptures but it is more probable that it could not have discovered most of them if we may judge by the gross absurdities which we find as to some particulars in the best Systems of Heathen Philosophy and from the general practice of offering up men for sacrifices to their Gods and of casting away and exposing their Children in the most civilized Nations But it is evident from what has been already proved at large that the Heathens were not left destitute of many helps and advantages from the Scriptures which divers of the Philosophers had read and many things which seem now to be deductions from natural Reason might have their Original from Revelation for things once discovered seem easie and obvious to men which they would never have been able to discover of themselves We wonder now how men should ever suppose there could be no Antipodes and are apt to admire how America could lie so long concealed rather than how it came at last to be discovered and the case is the same in many other Discoveries especially in moral Truths which are so agreeable to Reason that they may seem the natural Productions of it though a contrary custom and inclination and the subtlety of Satan working upon our depraved Nature might perhaps have made it very difficult if not impossible without a Revelation to discern many Doctrines even of Morality which now are most common and familiar to us What Maxim is more agreeable and therefore as one would think more obvious to humane Reason than that every man should do to others as he would have them do to him And yet Spartianas an Heathen Historian says that Alexander Severus had this excellent rule of natural Justice and Equity either from the Jews or Christians There is no Book of Scripture which seems to contain plainer and more obvious things than the Proverbs of Solomon and (x) Ld. Bacon Advance of Learning B. viii c. 2. yet an Author of great Learning and Judgment has given an Essay how a considerable defect of Learning may be supplyed out of this very Book producing such cautions instructions and axioms from thence relating to the business and government of humane Life in all varieties of occasion as are no where else to be met withal No man can tell how far humane Reason could have proceeded without Revelation since it never was without it but always argued from those Principles which were at first delivered by God himself to Noah and were propagated amongst his Posterity throughout all Ages and Nations though they were more corrupted and depraved in some Ages and Nations than in others (y) Plat. de Legib. Dialog 1. Plato derives the Original of all Laws from Revelation and the Doctrines of Morality of the most ancient Philosophers were a kind of Cabbala consisting of general Maxims and Proverbs without argument or deduction from Principles and it is the same thing at this day in those Countries where Aristotle's Philosophy has not prevailed who was one of the first that undertook to argue closely from Principles in Morality And in other parts of Philosophy I shall prove by some remarkable instances that humane reason failed them in the explication of things which were generally received and acknowledged The existence of God is clearly and unanswerably demonstrated by Tully and (z) Tull. de Legib. lib. 1. the Unity of the God-head is as plainly asserted by him with what strength of Reason with what plainness with what assurance doth (a) Tull. de Natur. Deor. lib. 2 ii Balbus the Stoick speak concerning the existence of the Deity but when he would explain the Divine Nature he describes a mere Anima Mundi and exposes himself to the scorn and laughter of his Adversary which shews that humane Reason could go no further than to discover the existence of God and that we can know little of his nature but by Revelation and that whatsoever true and just notions the Heathens had of the Divine Nature must be chiefly ascribed to that That the world was created the Philosophers before Aristotle generally asserted and that Water was the first matter out of which it was formed is acknowledged by (b) Arist de coelo lib. i. c. 10. Metaphys lib. i. c. 3. Aristotle to be esteemed the most ancient opinion but when he set himself to argue the point he concluded the world to be eternal which according to modern Philosophy is as absurd and impossible as any thing that can be imagined The Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul was delivered down from all
Antiquity as Tully assures us but the Antients gave no reasons to prove it by they only received it by Tradition Plato was the first who attempted to prove it by Argument for though Pherecydes Syrus and Pythagoras had asserted it yet they acquiesced in Tradition by which they had received it from the Eastern Nations but Plato as it is generally supposed conversing with the Jews in Egypt or at his coming into Italy being there acquainted (c) Tull. Tusc Qu. lib. i. with the Doctrine of the Souls immortality amongst other notions of the Pythagoreans began to argue upon it but not being able to make it fully out has only shewn how far reason could proceed upon those grounds which were then known in the world from Revelation Seneca (d) Epist 54.102 tho he sometimes asserts the immortality of the Soul yet at other times doubts of it and even denies that the Soul has any subsistence in a separate State And yet this Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul which the greatest of the Heathen Philosophers could not certainly prove from reason was firmly believed even amongst (e) Grot. de verit lib. i. Anot. Barbarians (f) Consuc lib. iii. Part. 4. p. 36. Confucius the famous Chinese Philosopher profest himself not the Author but the Relater only of the Doctrine which he taught as he had received it delivered down from all Antiquity and (g) Arist Metaph. lib. xii c. 8. Aristotle has declared that the Ancients left many Traditions which their Posterity had corrupted but from the remains of those Traditiwe know that they were originally derived from Revelation The first of the Philosophers that taught the immortality of the Soul was (h) Tull. Tusc Qu. lib. i. Pherecydes and he left his Writings to Thales from whence he had the notion that all things were produced from water Pythagoras was a Scholar of Pherecydes and Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle conversed with the Learned Jews (i) Plat. Phaed. Socrates disputed of a future State from Tradition and (k) Plat. Phileb profest that he always followed the Tradition which had descended from Antiquity and that he was at a loss whenever that failed him (l) Plat. Timae And this Tradition could not have its Rise from the Greeks who were confest to understand little or nothing of Antiquity The notions in Philosophy of the latter Heathens were much improved by Ammonius a Christian and a Teacher of Philosophy at Alexandria And we find that upon the propagation of the Gospel Moral Philosophy in a few years attained to greater perfection than ever it had done before as we may see in the works of Seneca Epictetus Plutarch M. Antoninus Maximus Tyrius and others We may therefore reasonably conclude that the Precepts and Rules of Morality which Philosophers all along taught had their original from Revelation rather than from the strength and sagacity of their own reason because they err in things no less obvious to natural reason and it appears that they had opportunities of becoming acquainted with the Scriptures and that they spared no pains either by reading or conversation in their own or in foreign Countries in their search and enquiries after truth III. If the Heathen Philosophy had been as certain and excellent as it can be pretended to be yet there had been great need of a Divine Revelation For 1. The rules of Philosophy lie scattered up and down in large and learned works mixt with many wrong and absurd notions and therefore must be in great measure useless how certain and excellent soever they may be in themselves they can be no rule of Life to us No perfect rule of Manners is to be found in any one Author and if it were possible to compile such a rule out of them all yet what man is able to collect them (m) Lact. de vit Beat c. 7. Lanctantius is of opinion that if all the truths dispersed up and down among the several Sects of Philosophers could be collected together into one System they would make up a Body of Philosophy agreeable to the Christian Doctrine but then he concludes it to be impossible for any man to make such a collection without a supernatural Assistance And if there were no other reason for it but this it is no wonder that we find (n) Tull. de Orat. lib. i. the XII Tables preferred before all the Writings of the Philosophers If there be nothing so absurd as Tully says but the Philosophers have taught it then it is necessary that men should not be left to the uncertainties and absurdities of Philosophy for tho some few of them might be free from such extravagancies yet their Notions were no Rule or Standard to the rest and the best were not without many great Errors 2. The Rules of Philosophy were no better than good Advice and carried no Authority with them to oblige men in Conscience they had not the force of a Law and failing in this necessary point whatever their intrinsick worth had been they never could have had that effect upon the Lives of men which Revealed Religion has Vertue was propounded by Philosophers rather as a matter of Honor and Decency than of strict Duty those were esteemed and admired indeed that observed it but such as did not only wanted that commendation Some Philosophers spoke great and excellent things but they past rather for wise sayings than for Laws of Nature their own Reputation which was greater or less with different sorts of men was the only Authority they had it might be prudence to do as they taught but there appeared no absolute necessity for it They commonly represented Vertue as very lovely with many very great and powerful charms and all that were of another mind did not know a true Beauty and that was an intolerable disgrace the Sanction of Rewards and Punishments in the next Life was little insisted upon by them They recommended Vertue for it's own sake not as it is enjoyed by God and will be rewarded by him and the contrary punished and those who could not soar to their Heights were rather the worse than the better for such Doctrines which they looked upon as the impracticable speculations of some who had a mind to speak great things And they often spoke the Truth indeed which they had from Tradition or from the excellency of their own Wit and Genius but they were not able to make it out by any such Principles as are wont to influence and govern humane Actions Accordingly we find that as the several Sects of Philosophy suited to the Tempers and Humors of particular men so far they prevailed and no farther The curious and inquisitive betook themselves to the Academicks the soft and effeminate to the Epicureans and the Morose to the Stoicks men applyed themselves to what ever opinion they liked best and found most agreeable to their Nature and Disposition Thus a severe and haughty Gravity made up the
but as if that were not enough he has taken care to insert such particulars concerning himself as to suffer no man to be ignorant of the Spirit and Temper by which he was guided in penning it He blasphemously introduceth God thus speaking to him (a) Alcor c. xxxiii O Prophet we permit thee to know the Women to whom thou hast given Dowry the Women Slaves which God hath given thee the Daughters of thine Vnkles and of thine Aunts that have abandoned with thee the company of the wicked and the true believing Wife that shall be given thee if thou wilt marry her and that she be not the Wife of a true Believer It seems he gave himself the liberty to take away the Wives of any that were not of his Religion Thou shalt retain whom of thy Wives thou shalt desire to retain and shalt repudiate such as thou shalt desire to repudiate and shalt lye with them that shall please thee By this means his Family of Wives became pretty numerous some say they were fifteen others say one and twenty beside Concubines and therefore it was fit he should take some care to keep them true to him and so he bespeaks them after this manner (b) Ib. Oh! Ye Wives of the Prophet Such of you as shall be unchaste shall be punished doubly more than other Women this is a thing easy to God Such among you as shall obey God and his Prophet and shall do good works shall be rewarded more than other Women an exceeding great reward is prepared for you Oh ye Wives of the Prophet Ye are not like other Women of the World fear God and believe not in the discourse of such as have a design to seduce you speak with civility abide in your Houses go not forth to make your Beauty appear and to make a shew as did the ignorant of old This explains what was mentioned before of a Revelation Mahomet pretended to have concerning something that one of his Wives was to say to him he had a mind to make them believe that he knew whatever they did or said that so he might keep them in a we that they might not dare to prove false to him His Pride is evident in this which follows (c) Ib. Ye that believe enter not into the Houses of the Prophet without permission except at the hour of Repast and that by chance and without design if ye are invited enter with freedom when ye shall have taken your repast depart out of the house and tarry not to discourse one with another this molesteth the Prophet he is ashamed to tell you the truth But this is not all his number of Wives made him incurably jealous and therefore he adds you ought not to importune the Prophet of God neither to know his Wives this would be a most enormous sin The fierceness of Mahomet's Spirit may be seen by this one saying (d) Ib. ic xxii He that is angry that God giveth Succour and Protection to Mahomet in this World let him tye a Cord to the Beam of his House and hang himself he shall see if his choler will be allayed It is notorious that he set up his New Doctrine in oppressing his own Country-men who would not submit to his Imposture first and in Rebellion against the Emperor Heraclius then at War with the Persians afterwards and his Alcoran is fit only for a Saracen Camp Preaching Lust to his followers but blood and destruction towards all others This may satisfie any Man that there is nothing in the Author of the Mahometan Religion nor in the Religion it self which may incline him to believe it to be of Divine Revelation But whoever would know more of this vile Imposture may see it fully displayed in the Life of Mahomet lately published by the Learned Dr. Prideaux THE Reasonableness and Certainty OF THE Christian Religion PART IV. CHAP. I. That there is as great certainty of the Truth of the Christian Religion as there is of the Being of God FROM what has been discoursed the Truth of the Christian Religion is evident by all the arguments by which any Religion can possibly be proved to be Divine and if there be any such thing as true Religion the Christian Religion must beit and if this be made appear it is all that need be said in defence of the Christian Religion to any one but an Atheist The Scriptures are defective in nothing that is requisite in a Divine Revelation but have all that can be required in the highest degree to instance here only in Miracles and in those only of our Saviour and his Apostles Our Saviour wrought his Miracles in the midst of his Enemies and extorted a Confession from the Devils themselves of his Divine Power And if the Apostles had not been well assured and absolutely certain of his Resurrection they would never have had the confidence and the folly for it could have been no less to maintain so soon after his Death in Jerusalem the City where he was Crucify'd that he was risen from the Dead they would never have chosen that above all places to Preach this Doctrine and work their Miracles in if they had not been true at least they would never have done it at the great and solemn Feast of Pentecost to provoke the Jews to expose them to all the World for Impostors no they would have taken time to have laid their design with some better appearance and contrivance to be sure they would have avoided Jerusalem as much as they could and above all times at so solemn a Festival as that of Pentecost they would have gone rather to the remotest corners of the Earth 〈◊〉 have told their story than have run the hazard of such a discovery But when they stood the Test of all that the Jews could say or do to them when in that very City where he had been so lately Crucify'd they told the Jews to their face and before that numerous concourse of People which was then met together at Jerusalem that they were Murtherers that they murther'd their Messias but that he was risen from the Dead and that by vertue of his Resurrection they spoke those Languages and did those Works which they then saw and heard This was plain and open dealing and there could be no deceit in it if any thing of this could have been disproved they had been for ever silenced but their worst enemies were so far from being able to disprove what they said that about three thousand Converts were made on the day of Pentecost The innocent and Divine Life of our Saviour the holiness and excellency of his Doctrine the simplicity and meekness and constancy of his Disciples the continuance of Miracles for several Ages in the Church the wonderful Propagation of the Gospel by a few poor ignorant despised and persecuted Men every passage every circumstance in the whole dispensation of the Gospel is full of evidence in proof of it
and such Prophecies delivered as give to the Scriptures the full evidence and authority of a Divine Revelation If therefore it be enquired why we believe the Scriptures to be the word of God the Answer is upon the account of the Miracles and Prophecies which concurring with all other circumstance requisite in a Revelation confirm the Truth of them If it be asked how we know that these Prophecies and Miracles are true and effectual and not feigned or insufficient I answer because we have them so related and attested that considered barely as matter of Fact they have all the credibility that any matter of Fact is capable of and therefore may as safely be relied upon as any thing which we do our selves see or hear If it be further urged that for all this I may be deceived since all men are fallible and no man is infallibly assured that there is such a place as Rome who never saw it though no man neither can any more doubt of it than he can doubt whether there be such a place as London who lives in it I acknowledge that there is a bare possibility of being deceived in all humane evidence but yet I deny that we can possibly be deceived in this case because though the evidence it self be humane yet the things which it concerns are of that Nature that God would never suffer the World to be thus long imposed upon in them without all possibility of finding out the Truth So that here we resolve our Faith into the Divine Authority by reason of the same Miracles by reason whereof the Eye witnesses of them did resolve theirs into it but they believed these Miracles as seen by themselves and we believed them as seen and witnessed by others but both they and we believe them as the works of God himself It might have been alledged if we had seen those Miracles that we might possibly be decived and so indeed we might if we could not have securely relyed upon Gods Truth and Goodness that they were designed by him to confirm the Doctrine for the sake of which they were wrought and we may with equal security rely upon the same Truth and Goodness for the certainty of the History of them as we could have done for the sufficiency of them to the purpose for which they were wrought tho they had been performed in our sight since it is as impossible to find out any deceit in the account given of them as it would have been for us to find any in the Miracles themselves at the time of their performance Humane Testimony is the conveyance and the means of delivering the Truths contained in the Holy Scriptures down to us and we who could neither see the Miracles nor hear the Doctrines at the first hand have at this distance of time the truth of them ascertained by a continued successive Testimony till we arrive at such as were immediate witnesses of them Now those that saw and heard all things which are delivered to us in the Scriptures could not esteem their sences infallible but they notwithstanding believed our Saviour and his Disciples to be so of whom yet their senses only could give them means of assurance that they were infallible They knew their senses might deceive them or that they might be mistaken concerning the objects of sence but nevertheless they believed that our Saviour and the Apostles could not deceive them upon this only ground that their sences or their reason by deduction from sence told them so There was not one man of them perhaps but had often observed his senses misrepresent objects to him and yet in this case upon the sole Testimony of their senses they grounded an infallible Faith because though their sences had misrepresented objects yet it was in a wrong medium at an undue distance or by reason of some indisposition of the sense it self and still their sences or rather their reason by the help of their sences discovered that their sences had led them into mistakes But in the present case when the Object was placed in open and frequent view to the greatest advantage when it was publick and exposed to multitudes when all agreed in the same opinion concerning it and when the matter was of infinite importance here they had reason to conclude that the God who framed their Sences would not suffer them to be so hurtful to them as they must needs have been if they had been deceived by them In like manner in the Testimony which descends to us from former Ages we see with other mens eyes and hear with other mens ears and though the Testimony of others may often fail us and is subject to a double inconveniency through the incapacity and unfaithfulness of witnesses yet as in the former case so here when all circumstances are weighed and considered and after the utmost tryal no reason can be found to with-hold our assent but all things stand undisproved and no just scruple appears but only a bare possibility of being deceived and this arising not from any defect but that of humane nature it self here Gods Goodness and his Truth must needs interpose to take away that only impediment which otherwise must unavoidably hinder any thing from ever being known to be infallible The only certainty which we can have that our sences are true is this That God will not suffer them to be deceived where the disposition of the medium and distance of the Object and all other circumstances are rightly qualified because that would be inconsistent with his Attributes of Justice Goodness and Truth but it would be inconsistant with these Attributes not upon the account of our Bodies for they would be provided for as well though our sences were deluded we should see and hear and taste just as we do now though we were never so much deceived in these sensations therefore the Truth and Goodness and Justice of God are engaged not to suffer us to be deceived in respect to our Souls not in regard to our Bodies and if we have no certainty that our sences do not deceive us but because God would not suffer such a cheat to be put upon us as we are intelligent and rational Beings we have the same and much greater reason to conclude that he would not suffer us to lye under such a delusion in reference to our eternal Interest If God would not suffer our minds unavoidably to lye under a temporal delusion of no great consequence have we not much more reason to conclude that he would not suffer us unavoidably to be deceived by any means whatsoever in reference to our eternal Interest For in this case to be deceived is to be destroyed and to suffer it is a thousand times worse than if he should suffer all Mankind at once not only to be deceived by their sences but to be poisoned by that deceit and therefore the special Providence and particular care of God must be concerned to prevent it
If we have nothing to object but the imperfection of human nature we may rely upon God that this shall never mislead us in a matter of such consequence whether the imperfection be in our own sences or in the Testimony of others In short the Miracles related in the Scriptures will as effectually prove a Divine Revelation to us as they could to those that saw them but the difference is that they believed their sences and we believe them and all things considered we have as much reason to believe upon their evidence as they could have to believe upon the evidence of their sences Let us consider History as a medium by which these Miracles become known to us and compare this medium with that of Sight If a man would be sceptical he might doubt whether any medium of Sight be so fitly disposed as to represent objects in their due proportion and proper shape he might suspect that any Miracles which he could see were false or wrought only to amuse and deceive him and there would be no way to satisfy such an one but by telling him that this is inconsistent with the Truth and Goodness of God So in this other medium of History which to us supplies the want of that of Sight a man may doubt of any matter of Fact if he Pleases notwithstanding the most credible evidence but in a matter of this nature where our Eternal Salvation is concerned we may be sure God will not suffer Mankind to be deceived without all possibility of discovering the deceit The circumstances have all the marks of credibility in them and therefore if they be duely attended to cannot but be believed and the Doctrine which they are brought in evidence of being propounded to be believed under pain of Damnation require that they should be attended to and considered and that which is in its circumstances most credible and in its matter is supposed necessary to Salvation must be certainly true unless God could oblige us to believe a Lye For not to believe things credible when attended to and known to be such is to humane nature impossible and not to attend to things proposed as from God of necessity to Salvation is a very heinous Crime against God and to think that God will suffer me to be deceived in what I am obliged in Honour and obedience to him to believe upon his Authority is to think he can oblige me to believe a Lye But it may be objected if this be so how comes it to pass that they are prâ—nounced blessed who have not seen and yet have believed John xx 29. Which seems to denote that a peculiar Blessing belongs to them because they believe upon less evidence I answer that they are there pronounced Blessed who had so well considered the nature and circumstances of things the Prophecies concerning the Messias and what our Saviour had delivered of himself as to believe his Resurrection upon the report of others not because others might not have as sufficient Grounds for their Belief as those who saw him after his Resurrection but the evidence of sense is more plain and convincing to the generality of men though Reason proceeds at least upon as sure and as undeniable Principles A demonstration when it is rightly performed is as certain as the self evident Principles upon which it proceeds though it be so far removed from them that every one cannot discern the connexion Demonstrations may be far from being easie and obvious but are oftentimes we know very difficult and intricate which yet when they are once made out are as certain as sense it self The Blessing is pronounced to him who believes not upon less evidence But upon that which at first seems to be less which is less observable and less obvious to our consideration but not less certain when it is duly considered For which reason our Saviour after he had wrought many Miracles that were effectually attested by sufficient witnesses required Faith in those who came to be healed of him because the Testimony of others was the means which in Ages to come was to be the motive of Faith in Christians and he thereby signified to us that there may be as good Grounds for Faith upon the report of others as we could have from our own sences and generally those who came in unbelief went away no better satisfied Wherefore it is said that in his own Country because of their unbelief he could do no mighty work save that he laid his hands upon a few sick Folk and healed them Mark vi 5. He could not do his mighty works because they would be ineffectual and would be lost upon them and he could do nothing Insignificant or in vain if they would reject what had been so fully witnessed to them they would not believe whatever Miracles they should see him do It is very remarkable that amidst all his Miracles our Saviour directs his Followers to Moses and the Prophets and appeals to the Scriptures for the Authority of his very Miracles and that even after his Resurrection he instructs his Disciples who saw and discoursed with him out of the Scriptures to confirm them in the truth of it Luke xxiv 26 27. He requires the Jews to give no greater credit to his own Miracles than that which he implies they already gave to the wrirings of Moses so as firmly and stedfastly to believe that he came from God And we having all the helps and advantages which the Jews had to create in them a Belief of the Scriptures of the Old Testament and many more and greater Motives if it be possible to believe these of the New must therefore have sufficient means to excite in us that Faith which our Saviour required of those who saw his Works and heard his Doctrine which certainly was a Divine Faith and all the Faith which if it be accompanied with sincere and impartial obedience is required in order to Salvation Upon the whole matter I conclude that the Truth of the Christian Religion is evident even to a Demonstration for it is as Demonstrable that there is a God as it is that I my self am or that there is any thing else in the World because nothing could be made without a Maker or created without a Creator and it is as Demonstrable that this God being the Author of all the perfections in men must himself be infinitely perfect that he is infinitely Wise and Just and Holy and Good and that according to these Attributes he could not suffer a false Religion to be imposed upon the world in his own Name with such manifest Tokens of credibility that no man can possibly disprove it but every one is obliged to believe it FINIS BOOKS Printed for and Sold by R. Wellington at the Dolphin and Crown in St. Paul 's Church-Yard Newly Published A Treatise of Medicines containing an Account of their Chymical Principles the Experiments made upon them their Various Preparations and Vertues and the
Modern way of using them together with a short View of the Nature and Period of Diseases in which they are proper and some Cautions relating to the Disorders they sometime occasion the Medicines are rang'd in their proper Classes according to their Vertues and drawn up in Tables for the Readers conveniency with their just doses Annex'd Written Originally in French by M. Tauvry M. D. Member of the Colledge of Physicians There is in the Press and will speedily be Publish'd Howell's Abridgment of his History of the World Epitomiz'd by himself Sub praelo Compendium Michaclis Etmulleris opera Medica tam praxis quam Chimia Cui Subjiciuntur Institutiones Medicae The History of Polybius the Megalopolitan containing a General Account of the Transactions of the whole World but principally of the Roman People â—uring the First and Second Punick Wars Translated by Sir Hâ—nry Sheers and Mr. Dryden In Three Volumes The Third Volume never before Printed A Mathematical Companion or the Description and Use of a new Sliding Rule by which many Useful and Necessary Questions in Arithmetick Military Orders Interests Trigonometry Planometry Stereomerry Geography Astronomy Navigation Fortification Gunnery Dyalling may be speedily resolved without the help of Pen of Compasses By William Hunt Philomath Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning By William Wotton B. D. Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Nottingham The Second Edition with large Additions With a Dissertation ugon the Egistles of Phalaris Themistocles Socrates Euripides c. and Aesop's Fables By Dr. Bentley An Italian Voyage or a compleat Journey thro' Italy In Two Parts With the Character of the People and Description of the chief Towns Churches Monasteries Tombs Libraries Palaces Villa's Gardens Pictures Statues and Antiquities as also of the Interest Government Riches Force c. of all the Princes with Instructions concerning Travel By Richard Lassel Gent. The Second Edition With large Additions by a Modern Hand THE REASONABLENESS AND CERTAINTY OF THE Christian Religion BOOK II. Containing Discourses upon such Subjects as are thought most liable to Objections By Robert Jenkin Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Exeter and late Fellow of St. John's College in Cambridge LONDON Printed for Peter Buck at the Sign of the Temple near the Inner-Temple-Gate in Fleet street 1700. THE PREFACE THERE never appeared I believe among Christians so general a Disaffection as in the present Age to the Christian Religion in Men pretending at least to Reason and Learning and Natural Religion and Moral Vertue And tho' I could have little Encouragement to hope that I should write any thing which might much prevail with Men of these Accomplishments yet I was persuaded that so good a Cause tho' but in weak Hands could not fail of some Effect upon all that would be at the pains to consider it And to this Purpose I thought the best way would be not to read Lectures as it were of Anatomy upon the several Parts of it and represent it Piece-meal like a lifeless Carcass divided and dissected tho' I had been able to shew never so much Skill in the Operation but to give an entire View of the Grounds and Reasons of Christianity the connexion of its Parts between themselves and the Preference which it has to all other Religions from whence I knew it must appear in as true a Light and with as much Life and Force as it could do under the Disadvantages which might be expected from no better a Pen. There is an Excellency in every Part of our Religion separately consider'd but the strength and vigour of each Part is in the Relation it has to the rest and the several Parts must be taken altogether if we would have a true Knowledge and make a just Estimate of the Whole But that which I made my more particular Care and which I thought the more requir'd my Pains because I had not observed it to be much insisted upon by others was to shew the Necessity of a Divine Revelation the insufficiency of Natural Religion and the Imperfections and Errors of Philosophy as well as the manifest Falshood of the Religions both of the Heathens and of the Mahometans and moreover to prove that besides all other Things requisite to a Divine Revelation the Religion delivered in the Old and New Testament has received a full Promulgation in all Parts of the World From these Foundations thus laid and secur'd we have no less than a Demonstration for the Truth of our Holy Religion We are often told by those that are no Friends to our Religion that we must by all means take great Care of not being deceived through the Prejudices derived from our Education but I believe it would be found upon Enquiry that such Men are so far from being prejudiced in Favour of our Religion that their Prejudices lie extreamly against it For besides the Corruption of Humane Nature always inclining to Error and Vice tho' they had the Principles of Christianity instill'd into them in their tender Years yet they could learn them then only as confest Truths to be receiv'd for Articles of Faith and Rules of Life But the first thing probably to which they have set themselves with any Application was the reading of Heathen Authors and when perhaps they have studied Philosophy and other Humane Learning for many Years but never considered Divinity as a Science and have searched into it no farther nor have any other Notion of it than what they were taught in their Childhood or Youth they look back upon their first Instructions as groundless and fit only for Children because they find little or nothing of them in those Authors with whom they have been so long conversant and whom upon many Accounts they have so just Reason to admire This seems to be the Case of many who have read antient Heathen Authors without the Regard which ought always to be had to That which is acknowledg'd by All who have made any due Enquiry into these Things to be the best Learning and of greatest Antiquity and is no where to be had but from the Scriptures Others there are who have often heard of the Names of Socrates Plato and Aristotle and of Tully Seneca and other Famous Writers they find them frequently quoted and commonly with Commendation seldom to discover any Fault in them unless it be in their Notions of Natural Philosophy where Religion seems to be less concerned They have heard too of the Greek and Latin Historians and these for any thing that they know or consider may be as Faithful and as Antient as the best But tho' all these Authors have indeed very many Excellencies yet we must not so far mistake as to think all things Excellent which they deliver I shall therefore besides what I have already observed make some farther Reflections in this place both upon the History and upon the Philosophy of Heathen Nations and then I hope I may be allowed to expostulate with
Errors and both he and Socrates practised the Idolatries of their Country They asserted many excellent Truths which they had received as they profest from Antiquity but whenever they argu'd any Point they commonly fell into mistakes which oftentimes were of very ill consequence So weak a thing is Humane Wisdom without the guidance of Divine Revelation And of this the Philosophers were so sensible that divers of them would have it thought that they had some supernatural Assistance tho' they were able to bring no sufficient Proof of it The Pretences of others deserve no Regard their Impostures were too Notorious to admit of any Denial or Excuse The Genius of Socrates may be supposed Worthy of more Consideration yet it amounts to no more than this that Socrates declared that a certain Genius had accompanied him from his Childhood which often forbad him to do what he had design'd but never put him upon doing of any thing and by the Information of this Genius he often forewarned his Friends of the ill Success of what they were about to undertake But after the best Search I have been able to make concerning this Genius of Socrates I cannot but look upon it as an intricate and perplext Business It may suffice in this place to observe that (x) Xenoph. de exped Cyri. lib. 111. Xenophon acquaints us that when he advised with Socrates whether he should follow Cyrus in his Expedition Socrates sent him to the Oracle of Apollo who he said was to be consulted in obscure and uncertain Affairs which affords no very advantageous Character either of Socrates himself or of his Genius (y) Ciâ—â—dâ— Divtâ— lib. â— Tully informs us that Antipater the Sâ—oick had made a Collection of such things as Socrates's Geniu had discovered to him but whatever they were it appears that Tully had little regard to them And this we are sure of that all the Philosophy of Socrates ended in nothing but Uncertainties For when he had just before his Death discours'd of the State after this Life the most that he could say to his Friends in Conclusion was (z) Plato Phaed. that they had a Noble Prize before them great Hopes and a glorious Venture and therefore ought to possess and Charm their Minds with those Thoughts The suggestions of his Genius signified little to him if it left him no better instructed as to a future State in the last Moments of his Life It must be acknowledg'd that Socrates made great Improvements in the Moral and useful part of Philosophy He was of an excellent Understanding loving and belov'd of honest Men and had Courage and Resolution enough to bear the Affronts and withstand the Malice of others he minded none but the practical Doctrines of Philosophy and tho' he never had travelled in search after Learning as it was the Custom in those Ages for Philosophers to do but scarce ever stirr'd out of Athens yet he knew how to make the best use of the Notions which were brought to him by those who had been in foreign Countries It must be confess'd that if Plato had not made Socrates the Author of things which he had never sâ—â—d as not only (a) A. Gell lib. 14 c. 3. Diog. Laert. in Platon Xenophon but Socrates himself declar'd but had â—iven us as plain an Account of Socrates's Philosophy as Arrian has of that of â—pictetus we might have known more of him than we now are able to do But from what Plato and Xenophon have said of Socrates we may be assur'd that he did not reâ—â—ain from Idolatrous Worship nor reject the Heathen Oracles nor deliver his own Doctrines without much Uncertainty and Diffidence Plato carried his Philosophy to far greater Heights than Socrates had done and the sublimer Parts of it were not to be discovered to the Vulgar which were so difficult that he declares to (b) Epist 2. Dionysius that Men of Great Abilities and as great Application and Industry after the Study of thirty Years at last with much ado understood them Some things were not to be written at all or so obscurely as not to be intelligible if they should fall into the hands of Men who were not fit to be trusted with the Secret of them and he acknowledgeth that his best and only sure Argument for the Immortality of the Soul without the Knowledge of which all Philosophy can be but of little worth was from (c) Epist. 7. antient and sacred Tradition The Notions and Traditions which Plato had brought from other Countries with his delightful way of setting them forth gain'd him great Reputation some Attempts were made by himself and those of his Sect to bring his Laws into practice and to erect a Commonwealth after the Model of them his Name and Memory was had in Great Esteem his Birth-day was kept and the Solemnity of it was renewed about two hundred Years ago by some of his Admirers as we are told by (d) Comment in Conviv Plat de Amere c. 1. Ficinus one of that Society But there is too much Alloy found in his Philosophy for any Endeavours to gain it a constant and general Reception His Errors in some Cases are so notoriously gross and scandalous that (x) Vid. Plat de Repub lib. v. Serran edit Serranus sets over against them in the Margin Prima Insania hominis delirantis and Portentosa Insania (e) Orig. coâ—r Cels â—lib 2. Aristotle had studied twenty Years under Plato but he so often confutes and contradicts his Master that he has been charged with Ingratitude for it And if Socrates and Plato did not firmly believe the Souls Immortality Aristotle believ'd the contrary as (f) vid. Jac. Billium in Greg Nariam Orat 3â— many have prov'd out of several places in his Works (x) Diog. Leert His Will shews that he was both in his Practice and Judgment for the Idolatries of his Country His Books by an Accident lay conceal'd till they were brought to Rome upon the taking of Athens (g) Strabo lib. 13. Plut. in Sylla by Sylla But they were known to few Philosophers in (h) Lic Topiâ— Tully's time And a Learned Author has given an Account what their Fate has been since The Sect of the Stoicks is observed by Josephus in the Account of his own Life to have been like that of the Pharisees which (i) Grot. ad Mat. xxii 23. Grotius says is no wonder since in Cyprus which was Zeno's Native Country there were always many Jews But if the Stoicks were at first indebted to the Jews they certainly afterwards borrow'd much more from the Christians This Sect was very numerous and had Men of great Note in the Primitive Ages of Christianity who did not lose the opportunity offer'd them of improving it But the Philosophers then began to carry on a Joint-Interest and those who denominated themselves from any particular Sect were no longer strict in adhereing nicely to its Principles For
v. Aristot Polit lib. viii c. 16 Plato and Aristotle who contradicts him in most other things follows him in this Indeed this was so general a Practice (o) Aeâ—ian lib. iâ— c 7 that it is taken particular Notice of that the Thebans had a Law to forbid it (p) Dionys Halicarn lib 2. Romulus made a Law to regulate this Practice and to hinder it in some Cases (q) Taciâ— Hist lib v. 〈◊〉 Morib Germ. cum notis â—ips Tacitus observes it as a thing deserving his Remark that this was not practised either by the Jews or the Germans tho' the latter had a Custom of casting their Children into the Rhine for a tryal of their legitimacy But that which is more strange is (r) Senâ—â— de Iâ—a lib. 1. c. 15. Plut. in Lyeurg that Seneca â—â—d Plutarch who liv'd since the Preaching of the Gospel should approve of such Barbarous Cruelty (Å¿) Fragm apud Stobae Serm. 73. Hierocles who as Lactantius informs us was well acquainted with the Scriptures was contented to say that it is natural and answerable to the ends of Marriage to bring up all or at least most Children which was a great Concession in a Philosopher Solon was as Famous for his Philosophy as for his Laws and the Legislator to that State which was the Seat and proper Soil as it were of Philosophy by an express Law (x) Sext. Empiric Pyrrh Hypot lib. 3. c. 24. indemnifyed all that killed their Children and the Philosophers were ever true to these Principles I have insisted upon this the more not only because it is an evident instance of the insufficiency of Heathen Philosophy but because some Readers may be as difficult to believe a thing which must needs seem very Monstrous to Christians as (t) Al Pelgas Cent. 1. Epist 85. Lipsius's Friend was to whom he wrote a long Epistle to convince him that this was the Practice of Heathen Nations and agreeable to the Judgment of their Philosophers So that many of the Adversaries of the Christian Faith may perhaps owe their Lives to that Religion which they Blaspheme I have purposely avoided too curious an enquiry into the lives of the Philosophers and rather chose to cast a Veil over what not only their Enemies but their Friends have said of them The Practice of Men is generally worse than they confess it ought to be they never live above their Rule and Profession it is well if in most things they do not fall much short of it and if their Principles be Bad what must we expect from their Examples But the Actions of the Philosophers concerned those with whom they lived our Business is with their Writings and I need not fear the Censures of Learned and Judicious Men in any thing I have said of them for they will acknowledge it to be Truth and others ought to be told so that they be no longer willing to change the Bible for the Works of Philosophers which they commonly read and understand as little as they do the Bible it self The utmost that Philosophy could reach was no farther than to uncertain Hopes and doubtful Arguments But our Saviour and his Apostles taught with Authority and not as did the Philosophers The Words which they spake they were Spirit and they were Life They came with full Power and had their Credentials from Heaven to produce which are the same that we now allege for the Authority of their Commission And what can be more certain than plain Matter of Fact which is clearly prov'd by undeniable Circumstances and by Witnesses beyond Exception and which is of that Nature that all the Divine Attributes are engag'd for the Truth of it It is strange that Men should pretend to fetch their Infidelity from the Depths of Philosophy and the Oracles of Reason as if any floating confus'd Notions might not serve for objections But it is to the advantage of a bad Cause to involve it in tedious and unnecessary Disputes to make Digressions into doubtful Points of Criticism and Philosophy to amuse the Reader and draw him off from the main Question Whereas a good Cause may commonly be brought to a clear and short Issue The present Controversy will admit of all kinds of Learning but has no need of it My Business therefore has been to free this Matter as much as may be from all the Intricacies of Learning to reduce it to plain Circumstances of Fact whereof every man may be capable of making a true Judgment and to bring it to that very Case in which St. John argues He that believeth not God hath made him a Lyar because he believeth not the Record that God gave of his Son 1 John v. 10. And how can we forbear to adore the Wisdom and Goodness of God who by the wonderful Dispensations of his Providence has not suffered himself to be without Witness in any Age or Nation If Idolatry spread it self from Egypt into many other parts of the World as (x) Herod lib. ii c. 43. c. Diod Sic. lib. 1. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus have shewn we have the more reason to admire the wisdom of divine Providence in appointing Egypt to be the place where the People of Israel did so long sojourn and where so many signal Miracles were wrought to give a check and stop to Idolatry in the very Source and Fountain of it if Men had not been beyond all measure obstinate in their Folly and Disobedience And the same goodness of God has not been wanting to any Nation of the World For (u) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Athan. de Incarnation Verbi Dei tho' the Law of Moses was peculiarly designed for the People of Israel yet provision was made for the receiving of all such as were willing to become partakers of it to the observation even of their ceremonial and typical Service none besides the Israelites were required to observe it but neither were any excluded from it And by the constitution of the Jewish Law and Government as well as by the Providence of God in all his Dispensations towards that People effectual Care was taken that all the necessary points of Religion which concern Mankind in general should by them be communicated to the rest of the World But the Christian Religion was by its original Institution and Design equally extended to all Nations and was soon propagated all over the World Nations but lately known to us have been constant objects of the Divine Care and had early Discoveries made to them of the reveal'd Will of God as I have proved at large by the Testimonies of Protestants as well as of Papists And it is very observable which (u) Varen de Relig in Regn. Japan c. 5. Varenius has remark'd that the Jesuits in some places at least have Preached the substance of Christianity without the mixture of many of those Doctrins which are peculiar to the Roman Communion and he owns that their Success
fitting to reveal such things to us as are above our understandings but then we must be contented to take his word for the Truth of them and not apply our Principles and Maxims taken from things of an inferiour Nature to things of which we can have no conception but from revelation which would be as absurd as for a deaf man to apply the Notion which he has of Colours to Sounds or for a blind man to fancy that there is no such thing as Colours because he is told they cannot be heard And there must be a due proportion between the Faculty and its object For the Faculties both of our Bodies and Minds are confined and limited in their exercise about their several objects The parts of Matter may be too small and fine to be any longer discerned or perceived by sense For only Bodies which are so big as to reflect a due quantity of Rays to the eye can be perceived by the sight it self the quickest and subtilest of all our senses And as objects in their bulk are sensible but are insensible in their minute parts so it is in the inward sensations or preceptions of the mind in respect of its objects We may puzzle and perplex our selves in the deductions which may be made from the most common Notions Nothing is more certain and familiar to our Minds than our own thoughts that we think and understand and will we all know but what is the principle and subject of thought in us and how our understanding and will act upon and determine each other is matter of perpetual dispute The summ of this argument is that our Faculties are finite and of no very large extent in their operations but are confined to certain objects and limited to certain bounds and periods Both our Natural and Acquired knowledge is conversant about certain kinds of objects and our Faculties are fitted and suited to them and from the properties and affections which we observe in them we form Notions and make Conclusions and raise Maxims and Axioms Now if we apply our Natural Notions to things which we know only by Revelation we must be very liable to great mistakes about them For thus it is in things not so much out of the reach of our capacities and which are not of a spiritual Nature if we frame speculative and abstract Ideas from the Principles and Maxims which are formed in our Minds from sensible objects we may soon puzzle our selves and seem to demonstrate contradictions which demonstrates only that all arguments of this Nature are vain and unconcluding And therefore it must be absurd to reject the Mysteries of Religion because they will not come under the Rules of Logick and Philosophy when they are acknowledged to be incomprehensible and therefore not to be judged of as to the Manner and Nature of them by the Rules and Principles of Humane Sciences What has been here alledged concerning the Contradictious about the divisibility of Matter is no more than has been generally confest by the best Philosophers and Mathematicians And the excellent Mr Boyle having produced the Testimony of Galileo and Des Cartes upon this subject concludes with this observation (a) Considerat about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion Sect 2. If then such bold and piercing Wits and such excellent Mathematicians are forced to confess that not only their own Reason but that of Mankind may be passed and non-pluss'd about Quantity which is an object of contemplation Natural nay Mathematical and which is the subject of the rigid demonstrations of pure Mathematicks why should we think it unfit to be believed and to be acknowledged that in the attributes of God who is essentially an infinite being and an ens singularissimum and in divers other divine things of which we can have no knowledge without Revelation there should be some things that our finite understandings cannot especially in this life clearly comprehend II. Every man believes and has the experience of several things which in the Theory and Speculative Notion of them would seem as incredible as any thing in the Scriptures can be supposed to be It was well observed by (b) Sunt onim plurima vera quidem sed parum credibilia sicut falsa quoque frequenter verisimilia Quintil. Institut l. 4. c. 2. Quintilian aad may be observed by any one that will consider it that very many things are true which scarce seem credible and as many are false which have all the appearance of Truth and yet the cause of unbelief in matters of Religion is chiefly this that we are hardly brought to believe any thing possible to be done which we never saw done and judge of things not from any principle of Reason but from our own experience and make this the measure of what is possible to be not considering that many things may be altogether as possible which we never knew done and that we should think many things impossible of which we have the daily experience if we had never seen nor known them to be For what we have the daily experience of we are apt to think very easy and scarce suspect that there can be any difficulty in it but frame to our selves some kind of account of it and please ourselves perhaps with a conceit that we perfectly understand it and conclude that such and such things must needs come to pass from the causes which we assign For when a thing is common and familiar to us we either take no pains at all to consider the nature of it or when we do observe and consider it being ashamed to confess our own ignorance we perswade ourselves that there is no such great difficulty in it but fancy we understand the true Reason and Cause of it And if it were not for the carelesness of some in not minding the wonderful effects of Nature and the Pride of others in fancying that they are ignorant of nothing which is the constant object of their senses I am perthat there are several things in the World which we daily see and experience that would seem as wonderful almost as the Resurrection itself or any Mystery in Religion The greatest Philosophers have been able to give but a very imperfect account of the most ordinary and obvious things in Nature and if we had only a relation of them without any tryal or experience we should be inclin'd to conclude them impossible The King of Siam it is said would not believe the Dutch Ambassador but thought himself affronted when he was told by him that in Holland Water wou'd become so hard in cold weather that Men or Elephants might walk upon it and the relations of things in those Countries would have seem'd as strange to us if the constant report of men who have been there had not made them familiar to us It was formerly disbelieved nay absolutely deny'd as absurd and impossible that there could be any such place as that which is now known
by the name of America or that the Torrid and Frigid Zones could be habitable No mystery in Religion can seem more incredible to any man than these things did appear even to Wise and Learned men and if they had not been found to be by Navigation they might have seem'd incredible still for ought we can tell tho now we wonder at the ignorance of former times that they should make any doubt of them and admire how they came to lye so long unknown for these things seem obvious when they are once discovered and it would be a disparagement to us if we could not make as great discoveries at home as those do who travel to the Indies And if we will but consider a little with our selves we shall find that we may be at least as much mistaken in our Philosophy about the things of another World as our Ancestors were for so many ages concerning so much of this and shall conceive it very possible that there may be a Heaven and a Hell tho we never spoke with any body that had been in either of those places and that there may be a Trinity and a Resurrection tho we were able to give no account of them For Nature it self exceeds our comprehension and therefore the Divine Essence and the Almighty Power of God must needs much more exceed it The motion of the Heavens and of the Winds and Seas the light of the Sun and Moon and Stars the conception and birth of all Creatures nay the growth of Corn and of the very Grass of the Field and all the most obvious and inconsiderable productions of Nature have so many wonderful difficulties in the explication of them that if we were not mightily inclined to flatter our selves I am afraid we should sooner turn Scepticks than be able to imagin that we can give any tolerable account of them For when all is done we know just enough of them to acknowledge and admire the infinite Power and Wisdom and Goodness of God and to be led to a stedfast belief and assurance of what he has revealed of himself and of the World to come that the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World may be clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal Power and Godhead Rom. 1.20 How little is it that we know of this Earth where we live and which we dote so much upon For by the least calculation it is above three thousand and five hundred miles to the Center but the Art and Curiosity of Man has never reached according to Mr. Boyle's account after all his enquiries among Navigators and Miners (a) Excellency of Theology Sect. 4. above one mile or two at most downward and that not in above three or four places either into the Earth or into the Sea yet all Astronomers agree as he afterwards observes that the Earth is but a Physical point in comparison of the Starry Heaven Of how little extent then says he must our knowledge be which leaves us ignorant of so many things touching the vast bodies that are above us and penetrates so little a way even into the Earth that is beneath us that it seems confined to but a small share of the superficial part of a Physical Point And to shame the pride and vanity of Mankind the chiefest discoveries in Philosophy as he likewise observes have been the productions of Time and Chance not of any Wisdom or Sagacity Which is a remarkable acknowledgment in a person who has oblig'd the world with so many wonderful Improvements in experimental Philosophy The Circulation of the Blood has been but lately found out and was looked upon as absurd at its first discovery tho now what man can doubt of it And some of the most common effects of Nature might seem as strange as any if the frequency of them did not prevent our wonder Maimon More Nevoch pt 2. c. 18. If as Maimonides puts a case we suppose a man of never so good natural parts so brought up as to be ignorant of the manner how the several species of Animals are preserved and propagated in the world how many scruples might he raise to himself concerning their Conception and Formation Might he not object that it is impossible that the Infant should ever live and be nourished and grow in the Womb and would he not offer abundance of Demonstrations to prove that the Natural Birth of Mankind and of all other Creatures is utterly impossible Our Saviour in his discourse with Nicodemus answers his Doubts concerning the New Birth by putting him in mind that he was as little able to give an account of the Wind and that he could not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth implying that there is much less reason to doubt of things of a Spiritual nature because we are able to give no sufficient explication of them when we are thus at a loss about the most common and obvious things in the world Joh. 3.8 And S. Paul confutes all objections against the Resurrection by a like Argument alledging that as it would be intolerably absurd to deny or doubt of the growth of Corn because it cannot perfectly be explained so it is much more absurd to deny or doubt of the Resurrection for no better reason since supernatural things must be more obscure and harder to be understood by us than natural 1 Cor. 15.36 Indeed Infidelity could never be more inexcusable than in the present Age when so many discoveries have been made in Natural Philosophy which would have been thought as incredible to former Ages as any thing perhaps that can be imagined which is not a downright contradiction That Gravitating or Attractive Force by which all Bodies act one upon another at never so great a distance even through a Vacuum of prodigious extent lately demonstrated by Mr Newton the Earth together with the Planets and the Sun and Stars being placed at such distances and dispos'd of insuch order and in such a manner as to maintain a perpetual ballance and poise throughout the Universe is such a discovery as nothing less than a Demonstration could have gained it any Belief And this System of Nature being so lately discovered and so wonderful that no account can be given of it by any Hypothesis in Philosophy but it must be resolved into the sole Power and good Pleasure of Almighty God may be a caution against all Attempts of estimating the Divine Works and Dispensations by the Measures of Humane Reason The vastness of the World's extent is found to be so prodigious that it would exceed the Belief not only of the Vulgar but of the greatest Philosophers if undoubted experiments did not assure us of the Truth of it We are assured by men of the best art and skill in those things * See Mr Boyle of the high vencration Mans Intellect owes to God that every Fixt Star of the first magnitude is above an hundred
Watches for Animals and could not imagine how men could hold correspondence at a distance by a little piece of Paper What man is there among the Vulgar that can conceive how the dimensions and distances of the Sun and Stars can be taken and how the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon and of the Satellites of Jupiter can be calculated And is not the knowledge of the wisest man upon earth infinitely more surpass'd by the Divine Wisdom than his Knowledge can excel that of the greatest Idiot III. Those who disbelieve and reject the Mysteries of Religion must believe things much more incredible I. He that will not believe the Being of an Eternal God must believe Matter to be eternal for it is certain something must be eternal because nothing could produce nothing and unless there always had been something there never could have been any thing But this Eternal Matter must either have been once without Motion or always with it if it were once without Motion then Matter must move itself that is Motion must be produced without any thing to produce it If it were always in Motion then there must have been an eternal Succession since Motion cannot be all at once for the very nature of Motion supposes Progression and no Body can move in this space and the next at the same instant for then it must be in two places at once But all Succession of Duration is gradual and the Degrees of it are capable of being numbred and to suppose an Eternal Succession is to suppose an Infinite Number that is a Number to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be substracted or a Number which is no Number Motion therefore could not be Eternal and consequently the World could not exist from Eternity But since there must be something Eternal there must be something the duration whereof is indivisible or which has all its existence together so as to have existed now no longer than it had done before the Beginning of the World For this is the notion of Eternity that it has neither Beginning nor End and therefore things eternal never had a less or shorter duration than they now have and can never have a longer after millions of Ages than they had the first year or day from whence we may be supposed to begin the computation of those Ages For a longer or shorter Duration must suppose a Beginning from whence the computation is made and therefore that which is eternal and had no Beginning can have neither a longer nor a shorter Duration but always the same and by consequence Time can bear no proportion to Eternity because that which had a Beginning can bear no proportion to that which had none Yet Eternity must coexist with Time in all the differences and successions of it and must be present with every part of it that is the Eternal Being exists the space suppose of a thousand years and a Temporal or Created Being exists at the same time as long and the Temporal Being becomes a thousand years older than it was but the Eternal no older than it was before because tho it coexist with Time yet it has no respect to the division of it into Past Present and Future There is no Mystery in Religion more difficult and perplexing than this and yet this is no more than what every one tho he be a Deist or an Atheist must acknowledge to believe if he will but consider it 2. Whoever believes that there is a God and yet believes no Revelation or that the Scriptures are not by Revelation from him must believe a God and yet deny the Divine Attributes he must believe that there is a God * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyrill Alex. contr Julian lib. 8. who is not essentially just and good and holy which is in effect to believe no God at all as I have proved at large in the former Book Much more might be said upon so copious a subject but this is enough to make us more humble and modest in judging of the Divine Mysteries For shall poor Mortals who know so little and that little so imperfectly presume to censure the Holy Scriptures because they contain things which they cannot understand Shall he that cannot fully explain the Nature of the vilest Infect reject what God hath delivered concerning himself because he doth not comprehend it The thoughts of mortal men are miserable and our devices are but uncertain For the corruptible Body presseth down the Soul and the earthly Tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things And hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth and with labour do we find the things that are before us but the things that are in heaven who hath searched out Wisd 13 14 15 16. But * Ld Bacon ' s Advancement of Learning B. 3. c. 2. out of the contemplation of Nature and out of the Principles of humane Reason to discourse or earnestly to urge a point touching the mysteries or Faith and again to be curiously speculative into those secrets to ventilate them and to be inquisitive into the manner of the mystery is in my judgment not safe Da fidei quae fidei sunt For the Heathens themselves conclude as much in the excellent and divine Fable of the Golden Chain that Men and Gods were not able to draw Jupiter down to the Earth but contrarywise Jupiter was able to draw them up to Heaven Wherefore he laboureth in vain who shall attempt to draw down Heavenly mysteries to our Reason it rather becomes us to raise and advance our Reason to the adored Throne of Divine Truth CHAP. II. Of Inspiration ALl the Motion of Material things is derived from God and the best account which those who have the most studied the nature of Motion have been able to give of it is only this that it is an effect of the Divine Power manifesting itself according to certain Laws or Rules which God has been pleased to prescribe for the communication of Motion from one Body to another And it is at least as conceivable by us that God doth act upon the Immaterial as that he acts upon the material part of the World and highly reasonable to suppose that he concerns himself with our Souls much more than with our Bodies There is no doubt to be made but that separate and unbodied spirits have ways of of conversing or communicating their thoughts to one another indeed all the communication and discourse that is among men in this world is properly between their Souls which use their Bodies as instruments for the conveyance of their Thoughts and Notions from one to anoand as their Bodies are more or less fit and serviceable to this end so their discourse is more or less easily convey'd and therefore Souls when they are at Liberty from these Bodies must have a Power to communicate their
own thoughts in a way much more free and unconfin'd than in this Life as they have more knowledge in a separate state so they must have fitter means to communicate it And since the happiness of Heaven consists in the Vision of God that is in the communications of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness God certainly can as well act upon the minds of Men in this mortal state tho we be less capable of receiving or observing the influences of his Spirit Since finite Spirits can act one upon another it is reasonable to believe that the Spirit of God the God of the Spirits of all flesh doth move and work upon the Spirits of Men that he enlightens their understandings and inclines their Wills by a secret Power and Influence in the methods of his ordinary Grace And he can likewise act upon the Wills and the understandings of some men with a clearer and more powerful Light and Force than he is pleased to do upon others in such a manner as to render them infallible in receiving and delivering his Pleasure and Commandments to the World He can so reveal himself to them by the Operations of his Holy Spirit as that they shall be infallibly assur'd of what is revealed to them and as infallibly assure others of it Which kind of Revelation is styl'd Inspiration because God doth not only move and actuate the minds of such men but vouchsafes to 'em the extraordinary Communications of his Spirit the Spirit then more especially may be liken'd to the Winds to which it is compared in Scripture for by strong convictions and forcible but gracious Impressious he breaths upon their Souls and infuses his Divine Truths into them But upon those to whom God did thus reveal himself by inward light and knowledge he did moreover bestow a power of giving external evidence by miraculous works that their pretences were real and that what they spoke was not of them but was reveal'd to them from God This inspiration the Apostles profest to have both in their Preaching and Writings and this evidence they gave of it In speaking of the Inspiration by which the Scriptures were written I. I shall shew wherein the Inspiration of the Writers of the Scriptures did consist or how far it extended II. I shall from thence make such inferences as may afford a sufficient answer to the objections alledged upon this subject I. I shall shew wherein the Inspiration of the Writers of the Scriptures did consist or how far it extended And here we must consider both the Matter and the Words of Scripture The Matter is either concerning things reveal'd and which could not be known but by Revelation or it is something which was the object of Sense and Matter of Fact as when the Apostles testify that our Saviour was crucify'd and rose again or lastly it is matter of Reason as discourses upon Moral subjects and inferences made from things reveal'd or from matter of Fact God who is a Spirit can speak as intelligibly to the spirits and minds of Men as Men can speak to the ear and in things which could not be known but by Revelation the notions were suggested and infused into the minds of the Apostles and Prophets by the Holy Ghost but they might be left to put them into their ow 〈◊〉 * Praeterea scito unumquemque Prophetam pecuâ—iare quid habere ea lingua eaque loquendi ratione quae ipsi est familiaris consueta ipsum impelli à Prophetia sua ad loquendum ei qui intelligit ipsum Maimon More Nevoch Part 2. c. 29. Words being so directed in the use of them as to give infallibly the sense and full importance of the Revelation In matters of Fact their Memories were according to our Saviours promise assisted and confirm'd In matters of Discourse or Reasoning either from their own natural Notions or from things Reveal'd or from matters of Fact their understandings were enlightned and their Judgments strengthned And still in all cases their natural Faculties were so supported and guided both in their Notions and Words as that nothing should come into their Writings but what is infallibly true They had always the use of their Faculties tho under the infallible Direction and Conduct of the Holy Ghost and in things that were the proper objects of their faculties the Holy Ghost might only support and guide them as in matters of sense and natural Reason and Memory and in their Words and Style to express all these But in things of an higher Nature which were above their faculties and which they could have no knowledge of but from Revelation the things themselves were infused tho the words in most cases might be their own but they were preserv'd from error in the use of them by that Spirit who was to guide them into all Truth For tho the several Writers of the Scriptures might be allowed to use their own Words and Style yet it was under the infallible guidance and influence of the Spirit as when a man is left to the use of his own Hand or manner of Writing but is directed in the Sense and Orthography by one who dictates to him or assists him with his help where it is needful Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1.21 All Scripture is given by Inspiration of God 2 Tim. 3.16 The Holy Ghost saith by the Psalmist to day if ye will hear his Voice Hebr. 3.7 David saith of himself the Spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my Tongue 2 Sam. 23.2 And God is said to speak by the hand of Moses his servant and by the hand of his servant Ahijah the Prophet 1 Kings 8.53.14.18 By which it appears that he used the Prophets as his Instruments in revealing his Will For as Miracles were by the immediate power of God though wrought by the hands of men so the Revelations were of God though spoken or written by the Prophets and Apostles But though God used them as his Instruments yet not as mechanical but as rational Instruments and as in working their Miracles they were not always necessarily determined to the place or to the persons on whom they were wrought but in general were guided to work them when they were proper and seasonable and the Actions by which they wrought them were their own though the power that accompanied them was of God so in their Doctrines they might be permitted to use their own Words and Phrases and to be guided by prudential Motives as to time and place and persons with a directive power only over them to speak and write nothing but infallible truth upon such occasions and in such circumstances as might answer the end of their Mission with which they were entrusted God promised Moses when he sent him to Pharaoh that he would be with his mouth and with Aaron's mouth and would
the Greeks as the Scriptures mention the children of Israel and other Greek Authors say the children of the Physicians as the Scriptures say the children of the Bride-chamber and the children of Light * Grot. ad 4. Reg. 19.2 ad Ezech. initio Grotius compares Isaiah to Demosthenes a sublime but a most natural and judicious writer the same Author compares Ezekiel to Homer for the beauty and nobleness of his style †Pref. to Pindarick Odes and Notes upon Pind. Ode â—n Isai 34. Mr Cowley compares the Prophets especially Isaiah to Pindar but of Pindar he says that if a man should undertake to translate him word for word it would be thought that one mad man had translated another For which he gives this reason that we must consider in Pindar the great difference of time betwixt his Age and ours which changes us in Pictures at least the colours of Poetry the no less difference betwixt the Religions and Customs of our Countries and a thousand particularities of Places Persons and Manners which do but confusedly appear to our eyes at so great a distance and lastly we must consider that our ears are strangers to the Musick of his numbers which sometimes especially in Songs and Odes almost without any thing else makes an excellent Poet. And of David he observes that the best Translators have been so far from doing Honour or at least Justice to that Divine Poet that methinks says he they revile him worse than Shimei And Buchanan himself comes in his opinion no less short of David than his Country does of Judea Yet Isaiah and the râ—â—â— of the Prophets and the Psalms are translated into our Language word for word as far as it is possible for one Language to be thus render'd into another and notwithstanding all the differences of Time and Place and Customs and Persons no sensible man reads them in the English Tongue but he must acknowledge that their style with all these disadvantages is truly great and excellent Whereas * Quod sicui non videtur Linguae gratiam interpretatione mutari Homerum ad verbum exprimat in Latinum Plus aliquid dicam eundem in fuâ linguâ prosae verbis interpretetur videbit ordinem ridiculum Poetam eloquentissimum vix loquentem Hieron Praef. in Chron. Euseb there are none of the Heathen Authors that are so much esteemed which if they were literally translated as the Scriptures are would bear the reading but they would appear ridiculous and impossible to be understood For the Spirit and Genius and peculiar Idioms of most Tongues being so very different one from another and depending upon the Customs and Humours of the people of several Countries it was the evident care and providence of God to cause great part of the Scriptures tho written by so many different men and at such distant times and some Books of them in the earlier Ages of the World to be penned in such a language and style as is most natural and which without any want of Art exceeds the most artificial and studied Eloquence in sublime and noble thoughts and expressions and in all the beauties and ornaments of Speech and yet which in all the necessary points of Salvation is easie to be understood under all the disadvantages of a Verbal Translation by men of ordinary capacities who live so many Ages after The Prophesies of Isaiah cannot be read or heard or thought of without being moved by them with what Life then with what Zeal and Flame must they have been delivered And what a mighty Blessing was such a Prophet to his own Age and to all succeeding Generations Of Royal Blood and of a Style and Behaviour suitable to his Birth of Divine Virtues and of Divine Eloquence He declares things which were not to be fulfilled till many Ages afterwards as plainly as if he had seen them before his eyes and would make all others to see them he speaks of Christ as clearly as if with Simeon he had had his Saviour in his arms or with the Wise men had been kneeling down before him and presenting him with more precious Gifts than any they had to offer and describes his Passion as fully as if he had followed him through every part of it and having been Crucified with him had been just entring with him into Paradice If this be thought a Digression from my subject I hope it may easily be excused for who can speak of Isaiah without a Digression when men choose the food of Swine and trample upon Pearls as things of no value as if he and the other Prophets had always the hard fate to preach to the Rulers of Sodom and the People of Gomorrha But if the style of the Scriptures be not in all places alike excellent and exact let it be considered that 1. The same stile is not suitable to all subjects and the stile and dialect is different according to the difference of the matter or of the persons for whose use it was immediately designed What concerns the Assyrian Monarchy in the Prophet Daniel is in the Chaldee Tongue and what relates directly to the Jews is in the Hebrew Part of Ezra is in Chaldee being a relation of Matter of Fact contained in the Chaldee Chronicles and Jer. 10.11 is in the same Tongue that the Jews might reject the Idolatry of the Chaldeans in their Language and openly profess their own abhorrence of it And as upon these occasions the Language of Scripture is changed with respect to the subject and the persons concerned so the style must be sometimes altered upon the same account 2. Artificial strains of Rhetorick whereby the passions are moved to the utmost heighth were very necessary to gain a present point and carrry a Cause by a violent and sudden transport before Reason could interpose But Religion being to be propounded upon reasonable motives there could be no need of Rhetorick when the evidence of those Miracles by which it was established afforded so many other more certain and powerful means of perswasion The Scriptures are not written in the enticing words of mans wisdom but in truth and simplicity and therefore might well have been without any advantages of Eloquence as needing no such helps to recommend them to serious and impartial Minds And tho God has been pleased to condescend so far to the infirmities of men as to convey very much of his Revealed Will to us in such a style as for its own sake is highly to be esteemed and admired Yet it was fit that other parts of the Scriptures should have the bare force and evidence of truth only to convince men that it might appear that our Religion was propagated not by any Arts of humane Eloquence but by its own Worth and Excellency For Eloquence was not used where it would have been most necessary if any humane means could be so in asserting and propagating the Divine Truth In the propagation of the Gospel all the
main they are aâ—â—eed and whoever will be at the pains to consulâ—â—â—em may be greatly confirmed in the Truth of the Prophecies upon this very consideration that there is less difference in the explication of the Principal Prophecies than there is in the Comments upon most Histories and that those who differ in other matters must have the greater evidence for that in which they do agree Tho there be some difficulty and variety of opinion in the calculation of the precise time when some Prophecies were fulfilled because it is disputed where the computation is to begin or how some other circumstance is to be understood yet all Expositors are agreed concerning these very Prophesies that they are fulfilled For instance it is certain that the Scepter is departed from Judah whether that Prophecy be to be understood of the Tribe of Judah or the Jewish Nation denominated from that Tribe it is certain that the City and Sanctuary are destroyed and the Sacrifice and Oblation taken away tho Interpreters do not agree about the precise time and manner of the accomplishment of every particular Plain matter of Fact shews that the Prophecy is fulfilled and there is no difficulty but about a Circumstance and to doubt of the fulfilling of Prophesies because we do not certainly know the exact time when every particular was fulfilled tho we certainly know that they must have been all long since fulfilled is as unreasonable as if a man should question the Truth of History upon the account of Uncertainties in Chronology What man doubts whether there were such a man as Homer because it is uncertain when he lived or whether there ever were a Trojan War because the time of the taking of Troy has been variously determined And yet is there not as much reason to reject this or any other History which has occasioned disputes in point of time as there can be to doubt of the truth of Daniel's Predictions concerning the destruction of Jerusalem because there may be matter of controversy in explaining his seventy Weeks The Prophecy it self is plain and the Accomplishments certain however men may differ in assigning the Epocha of time History relates what has come to pass and Prophecy foretells what shall come and our uncertainty in point of Time no more affects the Credibility of the one than of the other We may be uncertain of the time foretold by the Prophet and as uncertain of the time mentioned by the Historian but when all other Circumstances agree there is no reason why our uncertainty as to the single Circumstance of Time should be alledged against the Credibility of either of them But the Obscurity arising from the difficulties in Chronology is spoken of in the former Chapter 2. Some Prophecies were purposely obscure because they did not so nearly concern the Age in which they were delivered but were designed not so much for the information of preceeding Ages as for the confirmation of Posterity in the Truth of Religion when they see them fulfilled God doth not send Revelations to gratify the curiosity of men in acquainting them with what shall befal their Posterity but rather conceals the knowledge of future events from men because the knowledge of them might have an ill effect in making them proud or careless and negligent or else too sollicitous and concerned about what was to befall their Posterity The Judgments and Afflictions of Parents would be so much abated if they had a clear prospect of the happiness of their Posterity that they would lose that effect which God designs by sending his Judgments And a perfect view of the miseries which were to befal the Posterity of the most happy Parents would render the Blessings of God the less Blessings to them So that both the Rewards and Punishments of this life would very much lose their force and effect if Prophecies were less obscure than they are It is a sufficient Reason for the obscure and mysterious delivering of some Prophecies that they thereby serve to prove the Faith and Patience and excite the Care and Watchfulness of men for which reason the day of Judgment and the day of every man's Death is concealed from us because the particular and distinct Revelation of these things would cause security in some and despair in others and the case is the same as to the destruction of Churches and Nations We are commanded to watch and pray watch ye therefore lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping and what I say unto you I say unto all watch Mark xiii 35. Which in the direct sense of the words concerns Jerusalem but the reason of them will extend to the destruction of any other City or to any other judgment which God has foretold but has concealed the time or other circumstances either by silence or by uncertain and mysterious forms of Speech A full prospect of Prosperity to come oftentimes has proved fatal to men Jeroboam Hazael and Jehu were the worse probably for the Declarations made to them as Achithophel if it had been foretold plainly what would befal him would in all likelihoed sooner have hastened his own death Whether therefore the event be good or bad and whether it concern our selves or our Posterity it is fit most times that it should not be clearly revealed to us because this would in great measure exclude the exercise of the Graces of Faith and Hope and Patience in men under their present condition And at the time of fulfilling the Prophesies which are now most obscure such a continued Train and Series of Aftairs with all their Circumstances and Particularities may appear in so full and undeniable evidence as may convince Infidels and confirm Believers in the truth of the Predictions and of the Religion taught by the Prophets by whom the events were foretold 3. Obscurity was necessary in some Prophesies at the * Euseb Demonst Evan. â—ib vi 〈…〉 Châ—â—â—â—n c. 〈◊〉 Isai 〈◊〉 Theodoret in Ezech Praef. Fathers observe because without a constant Miracle to preserve them they would otherwise have been lost and would never have been delivered down to Posterity Of this Nature are some of those Prophesies which relates to our Saviour's state of Humiliation his Poverty and Crucifixion and Death to the destruction of Jerusalem and the rejection of the Jews which by the Circumstances are manifest to us in the Accomplishment but were written with some obscurity to conceal them from the obstinate and malicious Jews that seeing they might see and not perceive for if they had fully understood the scope and importance of them they would have endeavoured rather to have suppressed and destroyed them than they would have suffered them to remain to be urged against themselves A People who were so wholly possessed with the Notion and Expectation of a Temporal Messias would have rejected those Prophesies which set forth his Humiliation and Crucifixion if they had been expressed in plainer terms They would have spared Christ no more in the
well as themselves * Apocalypâ—is Joannis tot habeat sacramenta quot verba Parum dixi pramerito volumiâ—â—s laus omnis inferiour est in verbis â—â—â—gulis Multiplicis tatent intellgentâ—e Hieton ad Paulin. Epâ—st And this seems not only to have been the temper of those Ages in which the Scriptures were written when Learning consisted in Types and Parables and in dark and intricate discourses but it has been the study and delight of learned men in most Ages since and of many men in all Ages to search into hidden and difficult truths St Jerom extols the Revelation of St John for the obscurity and hidden sense of it In that Age it seems it was no objection but the highest character that could be given of the Revelation to say that it was difficult to be understood The wisdom of God therefore in condescention to all sorts of men and to fit the Scriptures for the use and benefit of all capacities and disâ—ositions has caused some of the Prophecies to be plain and obvious to all Readers and others to be delivered as to employ the pious and humble labours of the most Learned and Inquisitive to keep them in perpetual dependance upon God for his Grace and Assistance in the explication of the Scriptures and at the same time to take down the vain curiosity and pride of such as little concern themselves about the plain things of the Law but are wholly busied in unfolding hidden things and in pretending to understand all Mysteries and all Knowledge The curse denounced against man upon his fall was that with labour and sweat he should eat the fruits of the ground as his punishment for having eaten the forbidden Fruit and it was but just with God to punish the curiosity of men after forbidden knowledge which occasioned his fall with making the attainment of knowledge more difficult If the Scriptures were all obscure they would be of little use if they were all obvious they would be despised For if obscurity be made an objection by some their plainness and simplicity is objected by others but God has so ordered and proportioned the several parts of them that no man may have just cause to complain that he doth not understand enough for his Salvation nor any man cast them aside or read them with little Care and Diligence since there are so many things in them which may require the utmost Study and Pains of the most judicious and Learned men 7. There is no Prophet so obscure but some Prophecies are very plainly delivered by him which we know to have been fulfilled and this is a Warrant and Assurance to us of his Mission and that we ought to rely upon it that whatever he has delivered concerning other things will as certainly come to pass and in the mean time before they come to pass or are throughly understood they are exceeding useful in the Church The Revelation of St John is hard to be applyed to particularevents because it comprehends so vast a series of time in which long course of years many events may be exactly alike at different times and in different places and there may be a gradual and repeated Accomplishment of some of his Prophecies But the time was at hand for the fulfilling of other of these Prophecies Rev. i. 3. xxii 6 7 10 12. and we know they have been fulfilled in the seven Churches Rev. ii 5 16 22 23. iii. 3 16. which are proposed for examples to all others He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches Rev. ii 7. The seven Churches are spoken to by Name and what is said to them having been fulfilled is a certain argument that the rest which concerns all other Churches shall be fulfilled in its due time tho it be not perhaps yet understood But the obscurest Prophefies even before their Accomplishment are of perpetual and inestimable use to us It is acknowledged by all that Parables are very proper and fit for Instruction and therefore in ancient times their Doctrines were wont to be delivered in that way because it is a more familiar and easie method of teaching than by Rules and Precepts and Rational Discourse without that Illustration which is given to them by supposing a particular case For then every one is apt to make the case his own when he sees the Precepts reduced to Example and cloathed with Circumstances and brought home as it were to his very senses which before lay more out of sight in abstract Notions and Speculative Discourse And if feigned cases be so much more effectual than bare precepts or exhortations an infallible account of the state of the Church in all Ages tho we cannot point out the particular times and places when and where every thing shall come to pass must needs be of inestimable value and benefit To hear what the spirit saith unto the Churches to observe what errors and faults are reproved and what vertues and graces are commended and encouraged in the seven Churches of Asia the Praises and Adorations ch iv and the Bliss of the Righteous the joys of Heaven and the rewards of Martyrs ch vii the Terrors of the Great and Dreadful day ch vi the great Apostacy that was to be upon the Earth ch xiii the Patience and Faith of the Saints and the Resurrection surrection of the Dead ch.xx. the description of the new Jerusalem and the glory and happiness of the City of God ch xxi xxii these are the subject of St John's Revelation and are things of the greatest use and importance We have the state and condition of the Church in all Ages presented to our view tho we are not able to mark out the particular times and seasons meant in the several parts of the Prophecy And this is at least of the same use to us that all History is and besides may be of as much more benefit as it more nearly concerns us for we do not know but that we may be faln into the worst times there prophesy'd of Here is the patience and the faith of the Saints We see the care and providence of God over his Church the wonderful deliverances which he is pleased to work for it the supports which he affords his faithful Servants under persecutions and the rewards prepared for them and the final destruction of the Enemies of God and Religion these things are visible in the Revelation and it cannot be denied but these are of excellent use to yield us comfort in the worst of troubles and to excite Faith and Hope and Patience and all Christian Graces in the minds of men The Revelation of St John may be look'd upon as an History of the Church without any Chronology annext to it but will any man say that the exactest and truest History that can be penned of the most important Affairs and such as concern all Mankind is of little value or consequence to the Conduct and Management of our Lives
be more easily observ'd than this so it was most proper for the place in which they were and for their manner of Life and State of Innocence The common Rules and Laws of Morality could then scarce have any place but it was requisite that this or some such other Instance of Obedience should be imposed Theft and Murder and Adultery and other Sins against Moral Duties were then either impossible to be committed or so unnatural that it can hardly be imagined how any of them should be committed when there were yet but two Persons in the World in a State of perfect Innocence and therefore in Moral Duties there could be no Tryal of the Obedience of our First parent besides these were so well known to them that there could be no need of any Command concerning them But God gives them a Command in a Thing of an indifferent Nature that so he might have a plainer proof of their Obedience in a thing which was both indifferent of it self and so easy to them that nothing but a careless and perverse Neglect could betray them into Disobedience To suppose Good and Evil to be in the Nature of Things only and not in the Commandments and Prohibitions of God is in effect a renouncing of God's Authority but this Tree was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil For it made them sensible of the Divine Authority upon which Moral Good and Evil formally depend tho' matterially they be in the Nature of Things Whatever God is pleased to command or forbid however indifferent it be in it self is for that very Reason so far as it is commanded or forbidden by him as truly Good or Evil as if it were absolutely and morally so being enacted by the same Divine Authority whereby all Moral Precepts become obligatory as Laws to us for all Moral Truths or Precepts or Rules of Life however certain and necessary in themselves yet receive the Obligation of Laws from the Divine Authority this being the most certain Truth in Morality and in order of Nature antecedent to all others that God is to be obeyed in all that he commands or forbids But the Divine Authority was solely and purely concern'd in this Commandment which had no foundation in the Nature of Things but depended meerly upon the Will and Pleasure of God and by the Transgression of this Law it became notorious to our First parents and their unhappy Posterity that both Good and Evil whatever they may be in Speculation and abstracted Notions yet as they concern us in the Practice of our Lives are to be resolv'd ultimately into the Divine Authority God is our Lawgiver and nothing can be a Law to us but by His enacting and what he enacts must be a Law to us and of the same necessary indspensable Obligation so far as he is pleased to enjoyn it whether it be a Moral Precept or only an indifferent Thing in its own Nature It seems then that God was pleased to manifest his Soveraign Authority in this Commandment and to shew that it is absolute and independant upon Moral Good or Evil and that tho' his infinite Holiness and Goodness would not permit him to Command any thing contrary to Moral Duties nor suffer him not to command Moral Good and forbid Moral Evil yet his Authority is arbitrary over us extending as far beyond all the Duties of Morality as he pleases which indeed are only Truths and Precepts but not Duties to us but by Vertue of his Authority This Commandment therefore was given in Assertion of God's Authority whom it is always and in every thing good to obey and evil to disobey as our First parents found by sad Experience (n) Maim More New voeh Par◠〈◊〉 c. 2. Maimonides observes that they had the Knowledge of Truth and Falshood before but Good and Evil became known to them by their Fall whereby they understood the Value of that Good which they had lost and were made sensible of the Misery of that Condition into which they had brought themselves They perceived how good it was to obey God and how evil to be disobedient to Him in any thing whatsoever (o) Lib. 1. Disc xxvi◠Mr. Mede has observed that their Sin was Sacrilege God had reserved that Tree as holy to himself in Token of his Dominion and Soveraignty and appointed it to such uses as he had designed it for and therefore it was a Sacrilegious Prophanation to eat of it it was a Theft or Robbery no less than the Robbing of God as the Prophet stiles Sacrilege and an Invasion of his Right And the Lord God said Behold the Man is become as one of us to know Good and Evil. Gen. iii. 22. which words are generally supposed to have been spoken by a severe Sarcasm or with an upbraiding Anger and Indignation but they seem to admit of an easier Sense if they be thus interpreted The man is become as one of us he has made himself as one of us he has assumed to himself an equality with us Christ thought it not robbery to be equal with God Phil. ii 6. to be equal is there to claim an Equality and so to become as one of us is to challenge or pretend to become as one of us according to the Devil's Suggestion Christ knew it to be no Injury or Presumption in Himself who was in the Form of God and was God as well as Man to assume to Himself an Equality with the Father But our First Parents who were made in the Image of God and after his Likeness were not contented with this but affected something higher than the Perfections of a Creature and aim'd at an independant State of Wisdom and Immortality being seduced by the Serpent who said unto the Woman Ye shall not surely die ye shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evil. Gen. iii. 4 5. This was a most heinous Crime to believe the Serpent rather than God Himself and to be seduced by him and hope by his Advice to procure to themselves Divine Wisdom and Immortal Happiness II. The Consequences of the Fall of our First Parents were answerable to their Crime and were either upon themselves or upon their Posterity or upon the Serpent and other Creatures I. The Curse upon the Serpent was by a visible Object and Representation to denote that Curse and Punishment which was denounced against the Tempter himself who assumed the Body of a Serpent The Serpent before had a freer and stronger Motion and could lift up himself and reach the Fruits of the Trees but is since confined to the Ground and is forced to seek his Food in the Dust And there being Relations of Serpents which carry Part of their Body erect this before the Curse might belong to the whole Kind of them in another manner than it doth since to any one Sort. The Basilisk is said to go with his Head and Breast erect and a Serpent call'd (p) Knexe's Hist of Ceyl Part 1.
that hearest Prayer unto thee shall all Flesh come Ps lxv 2. And all Flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer the mighty one of Jacob Isa xlix 26. All Flesh shall come to worship before me saith the Lord Isa lxvi 23. And all Flesh shall see the Salvation of God Luke iii. 6. I will pour out of my Spirit upon all Flesh Acts ii 17. Joel ii 28. By the works of the Law shall no Flesh be justified Galat. ii 16. And we say in our own Language any Body thinks or any Body understands tho' we all know it is the Soul and not the Body which thinks and understands It is very usual in other Books and very agreeable to the stile of Scripture and to the common speech and sense of Men for those Actions of a Person to be attributed to one of the united Natures which could be perform'd only in the other And the Union between the Godhead and the Manhood being like that which is between the Soul and the Body the Son of God is said to have Suffered and the Son of Man to have come down from Heaven not that the Godhead Suffered or that the Humane Nature of Christ was in Heaven before his Incarnation but according to the usual stile of Scripture the Union between the Divine and Humane Natures entitles the Person consisting of them both under the denomination of either Nature to that which was done in the other tho' as the Humane Nature did not partake of the perfections of the Divine so neither did the Divine Nature partake of the sufferings of the Humane But both Natures being personally united the person is sometimes denoted by one and sometimes by the other Nature All the Objections against the Incarnation of the Son of God proceed upon the like mistake with theirs who are apt to imagine that it is unworthy of God to be every where and in all places to behold and be present at the worst of Actions as if the Sun's brightness would not be the more resplendent and glorious if it could penetrate into the obscurest corners and recesses of the Earth or as if his Rays could be sullied and defiled by the foulness of any Object which they shine upon And if it be no diminution to God's Infinite Glory and Majesty to be Omnipresent it can be none to be more nearly and even Personally united to some part of the Creation and therefore it cannot be unworthy of God to be so united to the Humane Nature to manifest his love and favour and extend his goodness to Mankind As God is every where present so he is in a more especial manner present in some places than in others by the acts of his Power or of his Grace and Favour and he has vouchsafed a more especial presence to some Persons than to others and thus he was present with his Prophets who were sent to prepare for and foretell Christ's coming But he was personally united to the Humane Nature of Christ And this is the highest Honour and Advancement to our Nature for God thus to assume it but it can be no diminution to the Divine Majesty because God continues as he was from all Eternity without any alteration only by his personal Presence and Union with our Humane Nature he causes all the performances and sufferings of it to be meritorious for the Salvation of Mankind The Son of God did not so come down from Heaven as to be no longer there but to forsake his Father's Kingdom He still continued in Heaven in the same Bliss and Glory that he enjoy'd with his Father from all Eternity tho' he so manifested himself to the World as to come and abide in it by assuming our Humane Nature Our Saviour tells Nicodemus Joh. iii. 13. No Man hath ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of Man which is in Heaven He who fills Heaven and Earth with his presence was still in Heaven as much as ever with respect to his Godhead tho' he made a more peculiar residence than he had before done on Earth by dwelling in our Nature here The Son of God who is at all times every where present is yet in a peculiar manner present where ever he is pleas'd to manifest himself by peculiar acts of his goodness and power as he was pleas'd to do in a most stupendous manner in that Flesh which he took upon him of the Blessed Virgin And it cannot be thought inconsistent with the Majesty of God to actuate the Humane Nature and to be joyned in the most strict and vital union with it supposing God only to act upon it and not to be acted upon by it nor to suffer the miseries and feel the pains which the Humane Nature endures which would be Blasphemy to assert of the Divine Nature of Christ but to be in Heaven still in his sull Power and Majesty But some Man will say how is this Union between the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ made or wherein doth it consist To whom we may reply as our Saviour sometimes did to the Scribes and Pharisees by asking another Question and enquiring how the Body and Soul in Man are united or how God is present in all places and how in him we live and move and have our Being And if no Man can tell how these things are tho' no Man can deny the truth and reality of them then it is not to be expected that we should be able to tell how the union between the Divine and the Humane Nature in Christ is made or in what it consists We must acknowledge it a Mystery which it is above any Man's capacity to explain but that there is such an union we learn from the Scriptures and thither we appeal for the truth of it And the putting such Questions argues either a great mind to cavil or great inconsideration and shortness of thought For what Man is there pretending to Reason and Argument of so little observation as not to take notice that of all the things which we daily see and perceive to be in the World the nature and manner of existence of very few or rather of none of them is fully understood by us It is sufficient for us to know that great Reasons may be given for this dispensation of the Son of God Incarnate and that no Material Objection can be framed against it Secondly No other way as far as we can apprehend could have been so proper and expedient as the Incarnation of the Son of God to procure the Salvation of Mankind and therefore none could so well become the Divine Wisdom and Goodness The proof of this must depend upon the Reasons for Christ's coming into the World and they are all comprehended in this one thing the abolishing or taking away of Sin And ye know that he was manifested to take away our Sins and in him is no Sin 1 Joh. iii. 5. We are
Mediation and Intercession of Christ for us is of greater power and efficacy than any could have been if the Son of God had not become Man to die for our sakes There is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. ii 5. he was to be Man as well as God that coming with Divine Power and Authority and yet with the Affability and Accessibleness of a Man he might in all respects be fully qualified to perform the Office of a Mediator between God and Man If he had not been God he could not have come with absolute Authority to offer us Terms of Reconciliation and unless he had been Men he could not have treated with Men in so familiar and condescending a way upon these terms And the Right and Authority of Christ's Mediation and Intercession in behalf of Sinners is founded upon his merits and satisfaction for the Sins of Men and this supposes him to be both God and Man Man that he might Suffer and Die for us and God that his Divine Nature might give an infinite value to his Death and Sufferings and render them satisfactory for the Sins of the World Tho' it should be supposed which can never be proved that God in his Mercy might have pardoned Sinners without the satisfaction of Christ yet if in mercy he might have forgiven he might in justice have punish'd them unless satisfaction had been made and nothing could have made satisfaction to his Justice but the Sufferings of his Son The Obedience and Sufferings of no Created Being could have been of that value as to make satisfaction for the Sins of Mankind and therefore no Creature could have Redeemed Man or have become Mediator for him upon the terms of his own merits in Man's behalf so as to plead the price of Redemption laid down for him God may grant the Requests of Angels and Men out of his free Mercy and Bounty but there can be no necessary force and efficacy in Intercessions where there is no precedent merit and satisfaction on the part of the Intercessor But Christ pleads his merits on our account and mediates our Cause with his Father upon the terms of strict Justice and by vertue of the Ransom of his own Blood and is so powerful an Intercessor for us that not only the Mercy and Goodness but even the Justice of God cannot deny his Intercession It was the free grace of God to send his Son to Suffer in our stead but since he was pleas'd to admit of this Commutation of the Punishment which we had deserv'd and to tranferr it upon his own Son his Death was a full perfect and sufficient Sacrifice Oblation and Satisfaction for the Sins of the whole World which the death of no Creature could have been and therefore no Created Being could have become our Mediator by vertue of his own Merit and have satisfy'd the utmost Justice of God much less could any Creature have merited the assistance of Grace and the Rewards of Glory for us IV. The Incarnation of the Son of God is the most effectual means to excite in us Faith and Hope and Charity and unfeigned Love of God and of our Neighbour the love of Vertue and the hatred of Sin and to dispose and engage us to all Vertue and Piety The Son of God assuming our Nature gives us the greatest assurance of his compassion for our Infirmities and his desire of our Happiness God is infinitely merciful in his own Divine Nature but he never could give such an instance of his mercy and love towards ours as by taking it upon himself God is essential Truth and Holiness and yet willing more abundantly to shew to the Heirs of Promise the immutability of his Counsel he confirm'd it with an Oath and in like manner in the present Case God being willing to give us all the grounds for Faith and Confidence in him that can be imagined took our Nature upon him that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to deceive we might have a strong Consolation both from the goodness of the Divine Nature and from the tenderness and compassions of our own For we have not an High-Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our Infirmities and therefore are exhorted in this confidence to come boldly unto the Throne of Grace Heb. iv 15 16. vi 17 18. We are assured that he has the greatest concern for that Nature which he has taken into a personal Union with himself and continually presents before his Father in Heaven for us And we are likewise assured of the Father's love towards us For now we know that he loves us seeing he has not withheld his Son his only Son from us but sent him into the World to die for our Salvation He that spared not his own Son but deliver'd him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh Intercession for us Rom. viii 32 33 34. And as the manifestation of Christ in the Flesh is peculiarly adapted and design'd to raise our Faith and Hope and Trust and Confidence and Dependance upon God so it is above all the most prevailing motive to engage our Love The infinite Love of Christ in dying for us must needs require and even extort from us all possible returns of Love and Praise and Adoration (y) Chrysost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tom. 7. St. Chrysostome gives this as one Reason why the Son of God was Incarnate to become the Saviour and Redeemer of Mankind because if it had been possible for a Creature to undertake and effect our Redemption Men would never have thought they could have had esteem enough for him or have made due expressions of their gratitude unless they had Deified him and committed Idolatry in Worshipping him and paying him all Divine Honours and to prevent this in Moses who was but a Temporal Deliverer and but a Type of Christ his Sepulchre was conceal'd from the Israelites So dear is the memory of great and generous Benefactors wont to be that Men are apt to think they never can be sufficiently grateful to them unless they even adore and worship them which was one chief occasion of Idolatry among the Heathens therefore the Redemption of the whole World was a thing that could belong only to the Son of God to whom all Love and Reverence all Worship and Adoration is due And this being the great Aim and Design of the Christian Religion to bring us to obey God upon Principles of Love the Foundation of it is laid in the Love of God towards us Nothing can be conceiv'd which could have so powerfully prevail'd upon Men to love God as the Incarnation of his Son
Life have been the Soul must be United to the self same Body so disposed and qualified to affect the Soul as it was in this Life only with Infinitely greater more exquisite and more lasting Degree of Pain or of Joy and Satisfaction yet without any mixture of gross and sensual Pleasures in the Righteous but only such as are suitable to Spiritual Bodies And this Disposition of Body depends upon the Vertuous or Vicious Actions and Habits of Men here for a Body by Vicious Practices and Customs prone to raging and furious Passions insatiable Appetites and tormenting Inclinations and Desires without any thing to gratifie or asswage them must have quite another effect upon a Soul than a Body subdued to the mild and calm and obedient Temper of Religion and Vertue And tho' God could by his Almighty power form another Body to that Frame and Disposition which the Body of any particular Man was in when his Soul departed out of it yet it doth not seem agreeable to the Divine Goodness and purity by his immediate power to frame a New Body to the depraved Temper and Inclinations of a Vicious Man And we are so little acquainted with the Union of the Soul and Body that for ought we know a Soul can be United only to its proper Body The Truth is we know nothing of these Matters but from the Scriptures all besides is only Conjecture But the Doctrine of the Scriptures is probable even to our Reason tho' indeed it ought to over-rule Reason especially in things which are so obscure and so little understood by us God has declared that he will raise these Bodies to Life again at the Day of Judgment and whatever we may think of it to him all things are alike easie it is as easie for him to do as to say it CHAP. XXVI Of the Reasons why Christ did not shew himself to all the People of the Jews after his Resurrection ST Peter speaking of Christ's Resurrection says him God raised up the third Day and shewed him openly not to all the People but unto Witnesses chosen before of God even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the Dead Acts x. 40 41. After his Resurrection he was shewn openly but not to all the People he was seen in a plain and open manner yet not so publickly as to make all the People Witnesses of his Resurrection The Will and good Pleasure of God is a sufficient Reason to us of all his Actions especially in Acts of Mercy For it would be a strange Return made but to a Man for any Favour received to be captious and quarrelsome about the manner of his bestowing it instead of being grateful to him for it But besides this General Reason which ought to be of Force with us in all Cases there are Reasons peculiar to the present Case whereby we may be able to give an Account of it even according to our own Apprehensions of things I. There are Reasons peculiar to this Dispensation of Christ's Resurrection why Christ should not shew himself to all the People after he was risen from the dead II. It had not been suitable to the other Dispensations of God towards Mankind for him to do it III. Great Numbers of the Jews were given over to hardness of heart and would not have believed tho' they had seen Christ after his Resurrection IV. If they had Believed their Conversion had not been a greater proof of the Truth of his Resurrection than their Unbelief has been V. The Power of his Resurrection manifested in the Miraculous Gifts bestowed upon the Apostles was as great a Proof of his Resurrection as the Personal Appearance of our Saviour himself could have been 1. There are Reasons peculiar to this Dispensation of his Resurrection why Christ should not shew himself to all the People after he was risen from the Dead Christ after his Resurrection was to act according to the Majesty of the Divine Nature not according to the Infirmities and Condescension of the Humane the time of his Conversing with Men was at an end at his Death and then another method and manner of Dispensation was to begin he was then to Converse only with his particular Friends and Favourites to satisfie them of his Resurrection and to instruct and enable them both by their Doctrine and Miracles to satisfie others It could not be suitable to the Dignity of his Majesty which he had assumed after his Resurrection to submit himself to the Censures of his Enemies he had suffered enough from them already in the State of his Humiliation and must he never be above the Suspicion and Scrutiny of their Malice Shall not his Resurrection free him from it When they saw him hanging upon the Cross they cried out with upbraiding and insolent Scorn that they would believe in him if he would come down from thence but neither did they deserve such a Miracle to be wrought at their Pleasure who thus called for it nor was it suitable to the Divine Dispensation that it should be wrought It was neither fitting that he should save himself from Death nor that he should appear to them after he was risen from the Dead He was to Die for our Redemption and as we had wanted the Argument from his Resurrection for the Truth of our Religion if he had come down from the Cross so if he had appeared to all the Jews we had wanted other Evidence which as I shall shew at least amounts to all the Proof which that could have given In the State of his Humiliation our Saviour was pleased to suffer himself to be exposed to the contradiction of Sinners and to all their Affronts and Injuries but when this their Hour and the Power of Darkness was once past they were to see him no more but with confusion of Face and terrour of Mind yet his Mercy was still the same towards them one of the greatest Persecutors was converted by a Voice from Heaven the Son of Man speaking to him from thence that he might be the happy Instrument in the Conversion of others and a Pattern to them of the long suffering of Christ 1 Tim. i. 16. But his manifestation of himself to St. Paul at his Conversion was with dreadful Awe and Majesty not in that mild and gracious Glory in which he was seen by St. Stephen and it is reserved for those who persecuted and pierced him to look upon him with Consternation and Anguish at the Last Day Rev. i. 7. 2. It had not been suitable to the other Dispensations of God towards Mankind for Christ to be shown openly to all the People God might work such astonishing Miracles and strike such Terrors into the Minds of Men as to make it impossible for any one to doubt of his Existence or of the Truth of his Word but he doth not all which he can do but what he in his Wisdom sees fit to be done he doth not use all the
Means which some Men may conceit he might use but leaves Men without excuse and then requires their Faith and Obedience at their peril To imagine that Christ should have appeared promiscuously unto all is as unreasonable as to suppose that God should communicate himself to all alike or that he should have spoken from Heaven to Men without the Message and Ministry of his Prophets For when Christ was risen from the Dead he was no longer to act like a Mortal Man but as in his Glorified State as our Lord and King and as God in our Humane Nature now no longer subject to any of its Imperfections and therefore he was no more to come himself to the People as he had done in the State of his Humiliation but to send his Apostles and Disciples among them as he had before his Incarnation sent the Prophets 3. Great Numbers of the Jews were given up to hardness of heart and would not have believed tho' they had seen Christ after his Resurrection Those who when they had seen our Saviour's Miracles had vilified them and blasphemed the Holy Ghost by whom they were wrought had their hearts hardned that seeing they might see and not perceive and be converted And of this Number the Chief Priests and Elders must be supposed to be who hired the Soliders to Contradict and Stifle the Belief of his Resurrection with a false Story of their own Invention The Chief Priests before had Consulted to put Lazarus to Death when he was undeniably known to have been raised from the Grave John xii 10. So far were they from being brought to a Belief in Christ by the sight of Lazarus that they fully verified that Saying that there are some who will not believe tho one rose from the Dead Lazarus was shewn openly to all the People and lived among them for many years after he had been restored to Life again when he had been Dead four Days and they would not believe tho' they saw and conversed with him but were the more enraged at it Christ himself therefore after his Resurrection did not vouchsafe them his presence but used other means which were more proper 4. If the Jews had believed in Christ their Conversion had not been a greater Proof of the Truth of his Resurrection than their Unbelief has been Their stubbornness and hardness of heart was foretold by the Prophets with their Dispersion and the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Propagation of the Gospel according to the Prediction likewise of the Prophets in so Miraculous a manner not only at a distance but in Judea and in Jerusalem itself notwithstanding all the Opposition which the Jews could make gave as great a Testimony to it as their Favour and Protection could have done And therefore it was just with God rather to leave them to the hardness of their own hearts than to use such further Methods with them as were unsuitable to the Divine Dispensation in the Mystery of our Redemption and would either have only hardned them to a greater Degree or at least would not have proved more effectual towards the Manifestation of the Truth of the Gospel 5. The Power of Christ's Resurrection manifested in the Miraculous Gifts bestowed upon the Apostles was as great a proof of his Resurrection as the Personal Appearance of our Saviour himself could have been Our Saviour shewed himself to Witnesses chosen before of God to be Witnesses of all things which he did both in the Land of the Jews and in Jerusalem Acts x. 39 41. these Men knew his Life and Doctrine they had been Instructed by him and had forsaken all for him and according to his Promise were endued with Power from on high to enable them to testifie to the whole World that they had not only seen him but had often Conversed with him after he rose from the Dead And one of their Chief Qualifications was that they were but a few poor and ignorant Men without Force or Policy without any Art or Contrivance they could tell a plain Truth but could neither feign nor dissemble if they had been more in Number the Conversion of the World had been so much the less Miraculous and they were not chosen out of the Scribes and Elders who had been used to Artifices and Falshood but had them all along their Enemies and opposed to their Craft and Power an honest simplicity of Mind that neither knew what belonged to Deceit nor feared any in so good a Cause nor were they in the least discouraged to see their own and all other Nations against them God had chosen the Foolish things of the World to confound the Wise and God had chosen the weak things of the World to confound the things which are mighty 1 Cor. i. 27. These Men under all Necessities and Persecutions and Dangers and Torments both Living and Dying Witnessed that they had seen Christ alive after he had been Crucified and tho' they were but very few in Comparison of their Enemies yet considered as Witnesses they were many for he was seen by above five hundred at once which is a vast number in any matter of Evidence and if so many Men be not a sufficient Testimony no number of Men could have been That which is demonstrated but in one way is as certain as if it were demonstrable in never so many Methods and he who sees a thing plainly with his two Eyes may be as sure of it as if he had never so many Eyes to see it withal It is written in the Law of Moses that the Testimony of two Men is true or Credible and to be relied upon for Truth John viii 17. and it is the Law and Practice of all Nations to content themselves with a small number of sufficient Witnesses in proof of the most important Affairs And if these Witnesses chosen before of God spoke and acted and suffered as no Men would or could have done if they had not been well assured of what they testified and assisted from above in preaching the Gospel the Truth of the Resurrection of Christ is as infallibly delivered to us by their Testimony as it could have been by the Testimony of never so many more for all that never so many others could have done would have been but the same thing over again which these Men certified by many infallible Proofs and what is once infallibly proved is as certain as if all the World should agree in declaring it It is not the number of Witnesses but the Character and Qualifications of the Persons and the Evidence it self in its full force and circumstances which are chiefly to be regarded in Matters of this Nature If but a few Men can make it sufficiently appear as the Apostles did by undeniable Miracles that what they say is true and that God himself confirms the Truth of it they then appeal to every Man 's own Senses before whom they work their Miracles and make every one that sees them a
of them must cease and the Reason why they should be bestowed ceasing these miraculous Gifts must of consequence cease with it And thus it was likewise under the Law It is observable that we read of no miraculous Power bestowed upon any Man before Moses The Creation of the World was dilivered down with undeniable Certainty and the miraculous Judgments of God in Drowning the Old World in the Confusion of Tongues and in the Punishment inflicted upon Sodom and Gomorrah were sufficient to keep up a Sense of the True Religion But when a new Institution of Religion was to be introduced by Moses miraculous Gifts were necessary to give Authority to it and to oppose those false and lying Wonders which were in use among the Magicians in Egypt and other Places In the former Ages Predictions were very frequent and they were delivered by the Patriarchs who were Men of unquestionable Credit and Authority and could have no need of Miracles to confirm the Truth of their Prophecies which were so usual in those Times and when the Lives of Men were so long divers Prophecies of the same Persons had been verified by the Event But Moses had a New Law to deliver and both He and the Prophets had a a stubborn People to deal with to whom the Message they were charged withal was commonly very unwelcome so that till this Institution was fully settled Miracles became necessary But when the Old Testament had been sufficiently authorized and established by Prophecies and Miracles and when by the Captivities and Dispersions of the Jews the Divine Mission of their Prophets became known among so many other Nations when the Jews were reduced from Idolatry which they never practised after their Return from their Captivity in Babylon and when they had made numerous Conversions amongst the Heathens then these miraculous Gifts were no longer continued as they had been before in the Jewish Church insomuch that it became a (a) Lightf Glean out of Exod. §. vi Harm of the Evang Luke i. 18. Joh. ii 18. Maxim among them that after the Death of Zechariah and Malachi and the rest of the Prophets who returned from Babylon the Spirit of God departed from Israel and ascended and for above Four hundred Years together the Gifts both of Prophecy and Miracles had been with-held from them before the Manifestation of Christ For though there were gross Errours and dangerous Corruptions among the Pharisees and Sadducees and other Sects of the Jews yet since the Truth and Certainty of that Revelation from whence these Errours might have been confuted had been so throughly confirmed all their Corruptions and Errors were not a sufficient cause for the continuance of miraculous Gifts and the Pharisees and other Sects who were most fond and zealous of their several Tenets and Traditions yet never durst pretend to a Power of Miracles or Prophecy but endeavoured to support themselves upon the Authority of Moses and the Prophets What they sometimes spake of (b) id Fall of Jerus §. IX Harm of the N. T. §. LXXIII the Bath Col or Voice from Heaven deserves but little Credit and amounts but to a Confession that the Spirit of Prophecy had failed under the Second Temple as the Jews themselves expressly acknowledge it to have done (c) More Nevock Part. 2. c. 36 41. Maimonides declares that the Bath Col did not denominate Men Prophets and therefore it is not reckoned by him among the Degrees of Prophecy I have already Proved at large Book 1. that the Evidence of those Miracles which were wrought in the Primitive Times affords as much certainty to our Faith as if we our selves had seen them wrought And our Saviour plainly says notwithstanding his Works which bore Witness of him that it was not to be expected that his own Words should be rather believed than the VVritings of Moses For had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me for he wrote of me But if ye believe not his VVritings how shall ye believe my VVords Joh. v. 46 47. And when once the Gospel had been attested by Miracles as the Law had been and rendred as certain to all succeeding Ages as a constant Power of Miracles could have made it there could be no Reason why such a Power should be any longer bestowed Miracles were wrought in Evidence of the Truth of Revelations made to Mankind in the Old and New Testament not to decide any Controversies arising amongst those by whom the Scriptures are received For to whom the Scriptures are the Rule by which all Disputes ought to be determined and therefore the Gifts of Miracles were sometimes manifested among (d) Ad Orthodox inter Justin Martyr Oper. Respons v. Hereticks for the Conviction of Infidels which is the true end and design of Miracles and not to be any Note of Distinction between the Orthodox and Hereticks The learned (e) In Irenae Dissert 11. §. 28. c. Mr. Dodwell by an historical Account of Miracles from the Times of the Apostles through the Ages next succeeding has shewn that they were always adapted to the Necessities of the Church being more or less frequent as the State of the Church required till they at last wholly ceased when there was no longer any need of them For the only end and use of miraculous Gifts is the Confirmation and Establishment of Religion and therefore when this is once fully confirmed and established they can be no longer needful But it seems rather necessary that they should afterwards cease than that they should be continued I mean as to any constant Power of working Miracles residing in the Church For tho' there may possibly be some extraordinary Cases in which it may please God to manifest a miraculous Power yet there is no Reason to conclude that a constant Power of working Miracles should be continued to the Church but rather that those Gifts should cease when Religion has been confirmed by a perpetual Course of Miracles for some Hundreds of Years together Because I. Miracles when they became common would lose the design and end and the very Nature of Miracles For the Nature of Miracles consists in this that they are an extraordinary VVork of God not that they are more difficult than the ordinary works of Nature All things are alike easy to God and Miracles are as easy as any thing in the constant course of Nature can be the only difference is that Miracles are his wonderful Work they are more apt to raise our Wonder and Admiration and to put us in mind of a Divine Presence For we wonder at strange and unusual things and suppose a more than ordinary Reason for them But if Miracles had continued in all Ages this Effect of Miracles would have ceased and they would no longer have been Miracles but a kind of different Course of Nature For according to the best and most accurate Philosophy nothing in the settled Course of Nature can be performed without an
and who should betray him and he said Therefore said I unto you that no Man can come unto me except it be given unto him of my Father John vi 64 65. So that the Belief of the Gospel is stiled a Divine Faith not only in respect of its Object but of its efficient Cause In attaining to the Knowledge of the Truth of Religion we must proceed upon the same Principles of Reason by which we proceed in attaining to the Knowledge of any other Truth But Reason when it comes up to the Evidence even of Demonstration though it satisfies the Understanding yet doth not necessarily gain that firm and lasting Assent of the Will which is required in Faith but when the thing proved to be true is unacceptable against the Inclinations of the Will and against the former Opinions and Persuasions of the Understanding the present Convictions of the Understanding are soon stifled and overpowered by the prevailing Force of the Will and Affections which carry the Mind off to other and contrary Objects which it has been wont to think of and believe Thus it was in the Academicks and Scepticks they could not but have the same sense of Mathematical Demonstrations and other clear Truths which the rest of Mankind have whilst they thought of them and attended strictly to them But by a constant Practice to amuse themselves with Subtilties they had wrought themselves to a Persuasion that nothing could be certainly known to be true and this general and habitual Opinion soon stifled the Evidence of any particular Truth which could be represented never so clearly to their Minds To as many therefore as lay under long and violent Prejudices by reason of their former Opinions and of their Pride and Vanity in contending for them or by reason of any of those Lusts which are so contrary to the Purity of the Gospel to such an extraordinary and miraculous Power of Grace was necessary to establish them in the Faith or else though they believed for the present at the sight of some Miracle yet this was no lasting or well-grounded Faith John ii 23 24. And that Grace which was necessary to their Faith was denied to some for their Sins that they should not see with their Eyes nor understand with their Heart and be converted John xii 40. So that Men of great Learning and worldly Wisdom might still continue Unbelievers and not submit to all the Evidence of the Gospel because the Doctrin of the Gospel being so contrary to their Habitual Thoughts and Inclinations there was something necessary to convert the Will and Affections and to subdue the former Habits which had been rooted in their Minds by frequent Acts and length of Time and which were too strong for any Convictions of the Understanding that consisted but in transient Acts and were soon lost and vanished through the prevailing contrary Habits both of the Understanding and Will and Affections And therefore Faith must necessarily be an effect of Grace as well as of Reason and where because of former Sins and Provocations this Grace was not vouchsafed there could be no Faith though there might be some transient Convictions of Mind some faint Glimmerings which were soon damped and extinguished being overpowered by former contrary Persuasions And for the same Reason those who had less Wisdom and Knowledge but were not under the Power of Habitual Lusts and Passions and therefore were more easily persuaded to any thing of the Truth whereof they were once convinced were likewise the more easily converted The Causes why the Word became unfruitful and so little prevailed with many Men are in the Parable of the Sower declared to be either inconsiderate Negligence and Ignorance and the Advantage taken from thence by Satan or want of Constancy in Times of Tribulations and Persecutions or the Cares of this World and the Deceitfulness of Riches and the Lusts of other things Matth. xiii 18. Mark iv 9. It was next to an impossibility for a rich Man to enter into the Kingdom of God or to become a Christian They were not Natural so much as Moral Accomplishments not so much Parts and Learning as an honest and humble Mind which were the requisite Qualifications for Men to become Christians Because as God the more freely bestowed his Grace upon Men thus qualified so they were the better disposed to be wrought upon by it whereas others though they wanted a greater measure of Grace yet had less vouchsafed to them For God resisteth the Proud but giveth Grace to the Humble Thus much in the General I now proceed to give a particular Account of the Causes of the Unbelief both of the Jews and Gentiles I. Since there is so great Evidence that our Saviour is the true Christ it may seem a wonderful and almost an incredible thing that the Jews should so generally reject him notwithstanding all the Means and Opportunities which they had above other Nations of being converted But 1. The Jews and Proselytes were converted in vast Numbers Besides the Shepherds Simon and Anna the Prophetess acknowledged and adored our Saviour in his Infancy as the true Messias Luke ii 25 36. and it is probably (k) Buxtorf de Abbrev. Hebr. supposed that this was Rabban Simeon the Son of Hillel and Father of Gamaliel The Title of Rabban was the highest of all Titles signifying a Prince rather than a Doctor or Teacher as Rabbi doth and there were but Seven of the Posterity of Hillel who were dignified with it Nicodemus Joseph of Arimathea and many others of Note and Eminency received the Christian Faith About Three Thousand were converted at one time Acts ii 41. Great Numbers were converted not only of the People but of the Priests also Acts vi 7. All that dwelt at Lydda and Saron Acts ix 35. Many of the Jews and Religious Proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas Acts xiii 43. At Iconium a great multitude of the Jews believed Acts xiv 1. Crispus Chief Ruler of the Synagogue believed on the Lord with all his House Acts xviii 8. And Sosâ—henes another Chief Ruler of the Synagogue Acts xviii 19. 1 Cor. i. 1. Apollos an eloquent Man and mighty in the Scriptures was a Christian Acts xviii 24. Many Thousands or Myriads in the Greek Acts xxi 20. And the number of them which were sealed was an Hundred and forty and four thousand of all the Tribes of the Children of Israel Rev. vii 4. The People were generally well-disposed to receive the Gospel and when the Chief Priests and Rulers would have Persecuted our Saviour and his Apostles they were often forced to desist for fear of the People And if the Apostles did not depart (l) Euseb Hist lib. V. c. 18. from Jerusalem in the space of Twelve Years as there is Reason to believe the number of Converts in all that time must needs be extreamly great The Church of Jerusalem flourished exceedingly from the Beginning and the Bishops of that City were of
well assured of that in which they agree that is of the Truth of Religion in General and of the Christian Religion in Particular as to the Fundamental Points of it The Differences among Christians may serve to prove to us Divine Authority of our Religion and of the Scriptures which contain it since Christians agree in asserting their Divine Authority and have never been so much at unity among themselves as to be able to agree to corrupt them but have certainly delivered them down entire to us 2. It is not Religion only which Men Dispute about but there is nothing besides in which they have not disagreed It is observed that want of Experience and Knowledge of the World leads Men into more inconveniencies than want of Parts and Abilities And it is as certain that a thorough Knowledge of the Debates and Contentions in Philosophy would sooner cure most Men of their Infidelity than any Arguments could do Those who raise Objections against Religion if they would but consider that almost every thing else has as great Difficulties would be ashamed to reject Religion upon Pretences which if they hold must force them to reject all other things with it and to believe just nothing at all There have been Disputes in all Ages concerning Light and Motion the Wind and Seas and other Wonders of Nature but it would be absurd for this Reason to question whether there be any such thing as Light and Motion and whatever besides Men have disputed And yet it is more absurd if it be possible to allow that is a good Argument against Religion but against nothing else If the Sun yield his Light and Nature go on in her constant Course tho' Men differ never so much in their Philosophy about it what can Religion be the worse for their Disputes no body thinks that he sees ever the less for any Difficulties which have been urged concernning Vision and why should we be ever the less inclined to believe the Truth of Religion by reason of any Controversies in it Men may dispute any thing and there is hardly any thing but it has been disputed but nothing is the less credible for being disputed unless it can be disproved but is rather confirmed and advanced by it Truth is nevertheless Truth for meeting with opposition but is the more tried and the more approved as Strength and Courage is by the sharpest Conflicts Since then there will be Vices as long as there are Men in this World and Differences and Dissentions in Religion as long as there are Vices since they cannot be hindered but by the Omnipotent Power of God and there are great Reasons why he should not interpose to prevent them since Differences in Religion are so far from implying any uncertainty in Religion that they rather prove a Confirmation of it and are in divers respects made useful and expedient to the Edification of Christians it must be great inconsideration and weakness to produce them as an Objection against Religion There must be Heresies and the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter Times some shall depart from the Faith giving heed to Seducing Spirits and Doctrins of Devils speaking Lies in Hypocrisy having their Conscience seared with an hot Iron 1 Tim. iv 12. The Scripture could not be true unless these things should happen which are foretold in several Places of Scripture Behold says our Saviour I have told you before Matt. xxiv 25. it ought to be no new nor surprising thing to Christians to see Heresies arise tho' they be never so wicked and abominable because we are forewarned to expect them and they serve to give a kind of Testimony to the True Religion in fulfilling the Predictions of it They help to prove the Religion which they would destroy For if there had been no Heresies that Religion could not be True which has foretold them but since there are Heresies our Religion is at least so far true as to contain express Prophecies concerning them which we see daily fulfilled and as they evidently prove our Religion true in this particular so they invalidate it in no other Which is the (b) Just Mart. Dial. Answer that the Christians anciently returned to the Enemies of Religion when they made this Objection against it Let us follow the plain the known and and confessed Duties of Religion Humility Temperance Righteousness and Charity and when once we have no Temptations to wish Religion untrue upon the account of the plain Precepts and Directions of it we shall never suspect it to be so by reason of any Controversies in it For if Men will impartially consider things that Religion which has now For so many Ages stood out all the Assaults and Attempts with Enemies from without and Parties within could make against it and has approved it much better and more gloriously than it could have done if there never had been either Heresies or Schisms Let us therefore hold fast the Profession of our Faith without Wavering being assured that the Gates of Hell that is all the Power and Stratagems of Satan shall never be able to prevail against the Church of Christ but shall only serve to add to its Victories and adorn its Triumphs The Malice O Lord and fierceness of Man shall turn to thy Praise And the fierceness of them shalt thou refrain Ps Lxxvi 10. CHAP. XXXIII Though all Objections could not be answerred yet this would be no just Cause to reject the Authority of the Scriptures ALL Objections which can with any Colour or Pretence be alleged have been considered and answered by divers Men of Great Learning and Judgment and several Objections which have made most noise in the World as that about the Capacity of the Ark and others have been Demonstrated to be groundless and frivolous But tho' all Difficulties could not be accounted for yet this would be no just or sufficient cause why we should reject the Scriptures because Objections for the most part are impertinent to the Purpose for which they were designed and do not at all effect the Evidence which is brought in proof of the Scriptures and if they were pertinent yet unless they could confute that Evidence they ought not to determine us against them He that with an honest and sincere Desire to find out the Truth or Falshood of a Revelation enquires into it should first consider impartially what can be alleged for it and afterwards consider the Objections raised against it that so he may compare the Arguments in proof of it and the Objections together and determine himself on that side which appears to have most Reason for it But to insist upon particular Objections collected out of Difficult Places of Scripture tho' they would likewise observe the Answers that have been given which few of our Objectors have patience to do but run away with the Objection without staying for an Answer I say to allege particular Objections without attending to the main Grounds and Motives
which induce a belief of the Truth of the Scriptures is a very deceitful way of Arguing Because it is not in the least improbable that there may be a true Revelation which may have great Difficulties in it But if sufficient Evidence be produced to convince us that the Scriptures are indeed God's Word and there be no proof on the contrary to invalidate that Evidence then all the Objections besides that can be raised are but Objections and no more For if those Arguments by which our Religion appears to be True remain still in their full Force notwithstanding the Objections and no positive and direct Proof be brought that they are insufficient we ought not to reject those Arguments and the Conclusions deduced from them upon the Account of the Objections but to reject the Objections for the sake of those Arguments because if those cannot be disproved all the which can be thought of must proceed from some Mistake For when I am once assured of the Truth of a thing by direct and positive Proof I have the same assurance that all Objections against it must be vain and false which I have that that thing is true because every thing must be false which is opposite to Truth and nothing but that which takes off the Arguments by which any thing is proved to be True can ever prove it false But all Objections must be false themselves or insignificant to the Purpose for which they are alleged if the Evidence for the Truth of that against which they are brought cannot be disproved that is if the Thing against which they are brought be True To shew this in Particulars If a Man muster up never so many Inconsistencies as he thinks in the Scriptures yet unless he be as well assured at least that these which he calls Inconsistencies cannot be in any Book of Divine Revelation as he may be that the Scriptures are of Divine Revelation he cannot in Reason reject their Authority And to be assured of this it must be considered what is inconsistent with the Evidence whereby the Authority of the Scriptures is proved to us For whatever is not inconsistent with this Evidence cannot be inconsistent with their Authority In like manner as if a Man should frame never so many Objections against the Opinion commonly received that Caesar himself wrote the Commentaries which go under his Name and not Julius Celsus or any other Author unless he can overthrow the Evidence by which Caesar appears to be the Author of them all his Objections will never amount to a Proof that he was not the Author It is very possible for God to reveal things which we may not be able to comprehend and to enact Laws especially concerning the Rights and Ceremonies enjoined a People so many Ages past the Reasons whereof we may not be fully to understand and it is very possible likewise that there may be great Difficulties in Chronology and that the Text may in divers places have a different Reading And though all these things have been cleared to the satisfaction of reasonable Men by several Expositors yet let us suppose at present to gratifie these Objectors and this will gratifie them if any thing can do it that the Laws are utterly unaccountable that the Difficulties in Chronology are no way adjusted that the divers Readings are by no means to be reconciled yet what doth all this prove That Moses wrought no Miracles That the Children of Israel and the Aegyptians were not Witnesses to them That what the Prophets foretold did not come to pass That our Saviour never rose from the Dead and that the Holy Ghost did not descend upon the Apostles Or that any thing is contained in the Scriptures repugnant to the Divine Attributes or to the natural Notion of Good and Evil Doth it prove any thing of all this or can it be pretended to prove it If it cannot and nothing is more plain than that it cannot then all the Evidence produced in Proof of the Authority of the Scriptures stands firm notwithstanding all this mighty noise of the Obscurity and the Inconsistency and the Uncertainty of the Text of the Scriptures And the next enquiry naturally will be not how the Scriptures can be from God if these things be to be found in them for it is already proved that they are from God and therefore this must from henceforth be taken for granted till it can be disproved but the only Enquiry will be how these Passages are to be explained or reconciled with other Places For let us consider this way of Reasoning which is made use of to disprove the Truth and Authority of the Scriptures in other things and try whether we are wont to reason thus in any case but that of Religion and whether we should not be ashamed of this way of arguing in any other Case How little is it that we throughly unstand in natural Things and yet how seldom do we doubt of the Truth and Reality of them because we may puzzle and perplex our selves in the Explication of them For instance we discern the Light and feel the Warmth and Heat of the Sun and have the Experience of the constant returns of Day and Night and of the several Seasons of the Year and no Man doubts but that all this is effected by the approach or withdrawing of the Sun's influence But whoever will go about to explain all this and to give a particular Account of it will find it a very hard Task and such Objections have been urged against every Hypothesis in some Point or other as perhaps no Man is able fully to answer But doth any Man doubt whether there be such a thing as Light and Heat as Day and Night though he cannot be satisfied whether the Sun or the Earth move Or do Men doubt whether they can see or not till they can demonstrate how Vision is made And must none be allowed to see but Mathematicians Or do Men refuse to eat till they are satisfied how and after what manner they are nourish'd Yet if we must be swayed by Objections which do not come up to the main Point nor affect the Truth and Reality of Things but only fill our Minds with Scruples and Difficulties about them we must believe nothing which we do not fully comprehend in every part and circumstance of it For whatever we are ignorant of concerning it that may it seems be objected against the thing it self and may be a just Reason why we should doubt of it We must have a care of being too confident that we move before we can give an exact account of the Cause and Laws of Motion which the greatest Philosophers have not been able to do we must not presume to eat till we can tell how Digestion and Nourishment are made In short this would run us into all the Extravagancies of Scepticism For upon these Principles it was that some doubted whether Snow be white or Honey sweet or any
thing else be of the same Colour or Tast which it appears to be of because they could amuse themselves with Difficulties and they were too much Philosophers to assent to any thing that they did not understand tho' it were confirmed by the Sense and Experience of all Mankind They were rational Men and it was below them to believe their Senses unless their Reason were convinced and that was too acute to be convinced as long as any Difficulty that could be started remained unanswered And thus under the pretence of Reason and Philosophy they exposed themselves to the Scorn and Derision of all who had but the common Sense of Men without the Art and Subtilty of imposing upon themselves and others And it is the same thing in effect as to matters of Religion The Scriptures come confirmed down to us by all the ways of confirmation that the Authority of any Revelation at this distance of time could be expected to have if it really were what we believe the Scriptures to be Why then do some Men doubt whether they be Authentick Can they disprove the Arguments which are brought in defence of them Can they produce any other Revelation more Authentick Or is it more reasonable to believe that God should not reveal himself to Mankind than that this Revelation should be his No this is not the case but there are several things to be found in the Scriptures which they think would not be in them if they were of Divine Revelation But a wise Man will never disbelieve a thing for any Objections made against it which do not reach the Point nor touch these Arguments by which it is proved to him It is not inconsistent that that may be most true which may have many Exceptions framed against it but it is absurd to reject that as incredible which comes recommended by our Belief by such Evidence as cannot be disprov'd Till this be done all which can be said besides only shews that there are Difficulties to be met withal in the Scriptures which was never denied by those who most firmly and stedfastly believe them But Difficulties can never alter the Nature of Things and make that which is true to become false There is no Science without its Difficulties and it is not pretended that Theology is without them There are many great and inexplicable Difficulties in the Mathematicks but shall we therefore reject this as a Science of no Value nor Certainty and believe no Demonstration in Euclide to be true unless we could Square the Circle And yet this is every whit as reasonable as it is not to acknowledge the Truth of the Scriptures unless we could explain all the Visions in Ezekiel and the Revelations of St. John We must believe nothing and know nothing if we must disbelieve and reject every thing which is liable to Difficulties We must not believe we have a Soul unless we can give an account of all its Operations nor that we have a Body unless we can tell all the Parts and Motions and the whole Frame and Composition of it We must not believe our Senses till there is nothing relating to Sensation but what we perfectly understand nor that there are any Objects in the World till we know the exact manner how we perceive them and can solve all Objections that may be raised concerning them And if a Man can be incredulous to this degree it cannot be expected that he should believe the Scriptures But till he is come to this height of Folly and Stupidity if he will be consistent with himself and true to those Principles of Reason from which he argues in all other Cases he cannot reject the Authority of the Scriptures upon the account of any Difficulties that he finds in them whilst the Arguments by which they are proved to be of Divine Authority remain unanswered And all the Objections which can be invented against the Scriptures cannot seem near so absurd to a considering Man as to suppose that God should not at all reveal himself to Mankind or that the Heathen Oracles or Mahomet's Alcoran should be of Divine Revelation CHAP. XXXIV The Conclusion containing an Exhortation to a serious Consideration of these things both from the Example of the wisest and most learned Men and from the infinite Importance of the Things themselves AS Wise and as Learned Men as any that ever lived in the World have died in the Belief of the Christian Religion when they had no Interest to engage them to it and many of them have led their Lives under Pesecutions and have at last been put to Death rather than they would renounce that Faith which the Scriptures declare to us It cannot be denied but that there have been Men of as great Learning and as great Numbers of them professing the Christian Religion as have been of all other Religions in the World Indeed all manner of Arts and Sciences have been more improved by Christians than by all other sorts of Men whatsoever and all rational and solid Learning is confined as I may say within Christendom For besides the Idolotrous Worship and other Impieties notorious among them whatsoever Learning is to be found among the Chinese or other Heathen Nations their Notions of Things so far as they differ from what is contained in the Scriptures are so obscure and confused at the best and so groundless that that Christian must be very weary of his Religion who can think of changing it for such Uncertainties And no Man that profess'd and called himself a Christian ever disbelieved the Scriptures but there were visibly other Reasons for it than these which the Nature of the Christian Religion could afford It was apparent in his Life that he wished the Christian Religion were false before he endeavoured to persuade himself that it is not true Some are possess'd with that intolerable Spirit of Pride and Contradiction that meer Vanity and a Conceit of being wiser than others makes them find fault with any thing that is generally received and the greatest Fault which these Man can find with the Christian Religion is that they have been bred up in it and therefore they make heavy Complaints of the prejudices of Education and the hindrances which ingenuous Minds labour under from the influences of it in the pursuit of Truth And these Men perhaps might have talk'd as much and to as much purpose for Christianity as they now talk against it if they had not been Born among Christians and been bred up in the Christian Religion they scorn to be the better for their Education and are ashamed of nothing more than to believe and think like other Men and they might almost be persuaded to be Christians still if they could but be singular in being so For the mere Affectation of Singularity makes them dispise and dispute against any thing which others allow and esteem But it will be hard to find any learned Man of tolerable Modesty and Vertue and