I sum up the evidence from this part of the History of Christianity And that is that Moses his law most plainly and by frequently repeated means foretells that the way for the expiation of sins must be by a bloudy sacrifice and the Prophets yet more expresly that it should be the Messiah who should make his Soul an offering for sin which thing is the principal Dogma of Christianity that by the Death of Christ all who believe obtain remissions of sins In sum then we see many hundred of years before the planting of Christian Religion by Christ and his Apostles was it represented in types and figures foretold as to some of the principal points of it in express words Christ himself described the time place and manner of his Birth specified the term of his life the manner and design of his death determined and lastly the consequents no less plainly set down All which as they could never have been done without divine inspiration or revelation so could they have no other design but to prepare the world for the belief of what in time was to be further revealed as the truth and will of God For that God should predict things for truth and by real effects according to the time foretold verify those predictions to the end a Religion not framed by him might be believed as delivered from him is not consistent with his justice and veracity Sect. 4 We proceed to the History of Christian Religion in and under its plantation by Christ himself and his first emissaries or Apostles And here we say there are so many things recorded touching him and them whose transmission to posterity under those eminent notorieties by which they have ever descended placeth them beyond all shadow of uncertainty as will abundantly suffice to evince the Divine Original of Christian Religion First It cannot be denied Debentur haec plurimum autori Anonymo in libro de Autorit S. Scripturae ca. 7. by any person except such who resolve to believe nothing but what they see a temper so unreasonable as would soon destroy humane Society that such a person as Jesus Christ did live and that he pretended himself to be sent from Heaven to instruct men what was the will of Heaven and in pursuance hereof partly vindicated a mistaken doctrine then in the World that of the Jewish morality and partly taught and promulged a new one of his own which is the Christian doctrine If any person should be so extravagant as to deny any thing hereof he will presently be convinced by temples and oratories soon erected to his worship and dedicated to his name by vast multitudes of men which even in heathen story he reads presently to have embraced his doctrine and died in the most cruel sort for its witness besides many Authours attest as much as we have yet said of him It cannot secondly be denied that the Country-men of this Jesus men most stubbornly tenacious of their Customs and zealous of the traditions of their Fathers enraged against him for his pretending power to alter their Customs and introduce a new Religion accused him of sedition and blasphemy and never desisted persecuting and impugning him till for these imputed crimes they had procured his crucifixion The primitive Christians so much glorying in and reverencing the Cross the Banners Statues and other representations thereof on a sudden so frequent in the Christian World besides the testimonies of Heathen Books and of some eminent Authours of their very own Nation speak as much Nay their posterity still in being acknowledge their Forefathers to have contrived and effected this matter and their City and Temple soon after destroyed their Nation dispersed insomuch that now the being of the far greater part of it is not by themselves known And themselves as their progenitours ever since wander and sojorn in the Countryes of Aliens despised hated scarce tolerated to live All which calamities though they are willing to refer to other feigned and imaginary causes it is certain their old and as they confess and we have seen undoubted records did foretell should befall them for their rejecting and putting to death of the Messiah All these evidences are plain matter of fact and so render that for which they are alledged undeniable Thirdly It is no less certain that not only Christ himself but other persons whom in his life time he instructed as Disciples and after his death commissioned as Apostles taught and promulged the doctrine called Christian and in the end most of them died for the testimony thereof both he and they having before in their life time wrought many strange things deservedly accounted miracles and exertions of a divine power to attest a divine truth Besides that we have the names of all the Apostles frequent in our sacred records which no one in this point will suspect of falsity we find the names of some of them even in Heathen Monuments the Sepulchres of some of them are to be seen at this day at least every where throughout the Christian World goodly fabricks and Temples dedicated to their memory Then as to their and their Lords miracles some of them are recorded by Heathen Writers others by Jewish both profest enemies to Christianity and they are generally confest in the writings of the most early adversaries of Christianity who by the way had best means by examining particular circumstances as of places where they were done c. to find out their truth or convict their falsity Those adversaries going about to assign other causes of them as it is a kind of confession of the matter of fact so if lookt into ingenders stronger belief that they were wrought by divine power Who can think all done by the power of Magick which the Religion by these miracles asserted destroyed And what more ridiculous than that the Cabalistical interpretation of a name should prove a charm able to effect miracles in so great number and variety These things then being thus certain to proceed we say Fourthly None will deny that the Apostles of Christ preached unto the World that their Lord after his ignominious and most direful death rose again and conversed with them several times Our records expresly tell us that they did thus preach and make the being a witness of the resurrection an essential part of being an Apostle nor is there any reason why we should doubt but they did assert what we are there told they did Now it cannot be thought they should have persisted even to death publishing and witnessing thus much except it had been really true that they had seen and conversed with him according as they affirmed The very talking of a resurrection as we read made them ridiculous even in the judgment of Philosophers It incensed against them both Jew and Heathen who for this reason amongst others imprisoned buffeted scourged and by all means tormented and persecuted them to death This their experience told them to be the great
which he had been told Christian Religion was asserted he most acutely answers Se il mondo si rivuolse al Christianesmo Diss'io senza miracoli questo uno E'tal chegli alteri non sonoil centesmo Che tu entrasti pouero digiuno In campo a seminar la buona pianta Che fu gia vite hora è fatta pruno Which if we will transpose the Stanza's as will be more consonant to the order of our last argument we may not unfitly thus render Thou now blest saint then fisher poor forlorn Into the World as a large field didst go An Heavenly plant to sow A plant of old a Vine now turnd a Thorn And had the World prov'd convert and submiss Without miraculous proof to what was taught All miracles are wrought Would not have been the hundredth part of this In sum then if no person considering the progress and state of Christianity since the departure of Christ the great founder thereof can see how 't is possible it should have taken root so deeply and so wide spread its branches as we are by so much of the story of it as is undoubted convinc't it has except a divine power had as well supported and nourished as at first planted it and it be together granted as is supposed to be inconsistent with the goodness or divinity of that giver to uphold foster and propagate the greatest abuse of mankind as Christianity is except it be true that ever was we must then conclude Christian Religion is from God that is is the true Religion Sect. 6 To conclude then the whole Upon the view of the History of Christian Religion before under and since Christ it is plain that within each of these three periods there is so much of it certain and beyond all scruple and question to men who will believe any thing besides their own eyes as enforceth us to conclude Jesus Christ was sent from Heaven and did deliver unto the World the true Religion that is such a worship of the true God as that God blessed for ever approveth of and will accept A thing of this nature I mean matter of fact at so great a distance as it is that Christian doctrine was revealed from Heaven can be proved by no other means but either by visible Monuments of it or by the testimony of others to whom it was first imparted with a satisfactory or sufficient evidence of its being divine handed and delivered down to us This evidence to them must be either that it was delivered by one who they were sure came from Heaven or was confirmed by miracles wrought by Heaven to attest its own doctrine To which we may add as an eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or distinctive mark of any doctrine so pretending the consonancy of such doctrine to the supreme principles of reason sanctity and Justice Each of these evidences have we seen of the truth of Christian Religion There are still extant in the World Monuments of the truth of several points of the History Sepulchres Temples c. which prove there were such persons or Doctors as we pretend Then the testimony is not of one or a few but of many hundreds in the primitive Age of Nations and Ages and in a manner of the whole World since by a constant and invariant tradition The first witnesses had evidences more then can be uttered that the Authour of the Christian doctrine came from Heaven and they saw him return to Heaven and enter into that glory which he promised them and take possession of that power which he told them he was to receive things which befel not the founder of any other Religion no not Moses himself who only was buried no one knew where They saw great and various miracles wrought by him They wrought such themselves as was promised to them they should and all this confest even in the primitive Age by the very Enemies of this Religion The success of this Religion in the World was the greatest miracle of all Then as to those points which the precepts of this Religion impose they are either duties natural or positive The natural by being so are most consonant to reason and though the precepts which enjoin them are rules of higher sanctity and justice than meer reason would or could have given yet being given they are such as it must needs approve And as to all positive offices their reasonableness and conduciveness to virtue we have seen particularly There hath therefore as great evidence been given of the truth of Christian Religion as any matter of this nature can at such distance from its first entrance into the World receive and far greater than of any other past matter of fact whatsoever which we believe Wherefore if we will be just to our reason we must conclude it true And if it be true as above made out Holy Scripture is true also And if that be true then we are obliged as much as by divine Authority we can be to Prayer Sacraments Hearing reading or meditating holy Scripture the particular offices of Christian positive worship And then that opinion which pretendeth it sufficient men live honestly nor need they concern or trouble themselves about going to prayers frequenting Sacraments and Sermons and such devotions is not as it would be thought a more free and generous strain of Christianity but a plain principle of impiety directly injurious to God in breeding men to the neglect of paying him what is his due that is what he requires and subversive of Christian Religion the positive precepts of which of no less divine Authority then the natural it flatly contrariates and lays a Foundation for the neglect or not performance of natural duties while it destroys or lifts out those means and helps which divine wisdom prescribed to further and secure such performance I mean positive offices of worship the great mean to virtue And so we have proved what we undertook the Necessity and Reasonableness of a Positive Worship and particularly of the Christian The End ERRATA NOte the discourses are transposed and the second was intended first Therefore p. 27. l. 12. read discourse following p. 29. l. 7. read primitive p. 33. l. 12. r. two p. 51. l. last r. created p. 53. 19. r. thee p. 65. l. 4. r. maddest p. 77. l. 17. r. run on one p. 105. l. 14. r. game p. 112. l. 2. r. in other p. 118. l. 12. r. plainest p. 121. l. 3. r. mean p. 141. l. 9. r. of emploiment p. 144. l. 12. r. affects p. 148. l. 4. r. act p. 163. l. 7. r. vein p. 167. l. 9. r. persist p. 172. l. 12. r. in six p. 212. ult r. pretendedly
person of whatever perswasion ever denied but that supposing the ordinary aid and influence of providence by which we live and move and are the loco-motive faculty is under the command of reason I can chuse God by common concourse sustaining my powers whether I will sit still or walk whether I will go this way or that that is on an idle errand in quest of my pleasures or to my Closet to study or pray or perform some other-like Duty or to the Church to any more publickly sacred Office or lastly to the place of my ordinary imployment if any such I have my Shop my Fields or the like for the dispatch of more common business If I will but please to exert my power and be so true to my self as not to ly still and dissemble I cannot rise nor stir I can as well imploy my self as be idle True indeed 't is possible a man cannot on a sudden overcome the love he hath of an idle life contracted by long disuse of labours and devotedness to ease but certain it is he may when he please by that common assistance of God which ordinarily fails none of his Creatures disturb his own idleness by imployment and by this disturbing it as to art which is in a mans own power he shall by little and little destroy or mortifie the habit which men are apt to think so far out of their power to effect Wherein the only difficulty lies in the attempt Who hath manfully given the first onset is not far from Victory For when the Christian World shall return at length from enthusiastick phrensies to sober truth it will then no more be doubted by all than it is now by the discreet part of it that as habits in general are acquired by frequency of practice customs and expertness by exercise so also Christian Virtues or Graces are by the same method wrought in the Soul Gods grace excites and assists to the act and mans free will as before said prevented complies with the excitation and assistance of Grace and so a virtuous or gracious act is produced And divine grace not failing afterward upon due season to excite and assist and man complying frequently therewith frequent good actions are performed and by such frequency of action the person becomes habituated to such and such good acts that is to say endued with this or that virtue or in this or that point gracious In particular as to this case God excites to diligence by evincing by the light of reason and Revelation the brutishness and sinfulness of idleness and awakening thereby the Conscience to such judgments and suggestions his assistance to work is ready So that if we will comply and be up and doing for that time idleness is overcome And if we will accustom our selves to such compliance in employing as we ought our selves and time the habit of idleness or the idle life will be mastered and imployment as the way and means to all other virtue being apt to beget in us a love of it self at length diligence and the love of our Christian and common business will succeed in the dominion and power of its vanquish't adversary Thus then certainly the way to shake of this weight and clog of idleness is plain To wit First to give a little disturbance to our beloved sloth by attent imploying our selves sometime upon some sacred Office sometime on more common business so far at least as to awaken and rowse our selves and try whether we have not the faculties and powers which others have and it is pretended we have Cannot we if we please think and speak and move That is in other words pray and read and work in such cases as becomes us or concerns us Which having done Secondly Let us imploy our awakened thoughts upon the consideration of the life we have lead and what we can find therein worthy of our Souls and noble powers worthy of man or our selves What is there in sloth and dullness and sensuality to enamour us thus upon it and engross both our affections and our whole life and selves to perpetual ignobleness and to say no worse obscurity Would we or any Epicures living even those who are most apt to admire their own felicity in the ease and sensuality they enjoy above others be content expiring in those puddles of sensuality to go out of the World and wear on a goodly Grave-stone or Monument this Epitaph Here lies such a person of excellent intellectuals an ancient and honourable Family an ample Estate who eat and drunk and slept If this be the true humane life what becomes of the difference betwixt man and beast Or is not the beast of the two the nobler and happier as enjoying all the pleasure of sense with greater freedom without restraint of Laws or those checks which reason and Conscience disturb the sensualist with and finally because able to foresee nothing of change therefore fully acquiescing without fear or shyness in every present enjoyment If this be blessedness is it not evident a fat Hog in dirt is more blessed than the most accomplisht sensualist living in the height of his pleasures as being more fully satisfied and to his apprehension more secure And let us either think or make our selves as much beasts as we can yet can we possibly enforce this opinion upon our most abused reason that nature which hath made us seemingly nobler than bruits intended us only for a parity or inferiority of happiness to them that is to say to be vile with a greater reproach If therefore in sum the principle which leads to this life viz. that the gratifying sensual appetite is the most enhappying act of life be so prodigiously unreasonable and the life which flows from it as already said such of which the meer memory and reflexion thereupon affects with shame and abhorrence Shall we any longer be lead by the one or contentedly wallow in the other to the most infamous prostituting our reason and nature On the other side if pleasure be estimated by the due standard who will not determine the diligent and virtuous persons to have the sweater lives To my own apprehension I confess there is no such thing as pleasure except a man have some daily business to imploy the greater part of his time There is nothing more certain than that flesh and blood is not able with delight long to endure an uninterrupted process of high sensual pleasures it cannot drink deep of such puddles but nauseate them and tire Take the most gentle and necessary of them Doth not too long sleep induce pain or ungrateful dullness Freequent feeding an unpleasant satiety And after all is it not variety makes the pleasure Which if it be true it is certain the idle persons share is far less than that of the diligent For neither need he always deny himself his pleasure in its season he is allow'd it when it will be truly pleasure and without a Farewel Sting Nor will
Souls with the beauty of holiness and replenish our Consciences with serenity and glorious joy We shall be able to see Heaven though not with St. Stephen opened yet with St. Paul prepared for us and bless God not so much for making it as making the way thither piety and virtue We shall so transform our lives as well as our selves that to live will be but to Conquer and we only seem to pass as it were from one Heaven to another The End THE REASONABLENESS AND NECESSITY OF A POSITIVE WORSHIP And particularly of the Christian Worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierocl LONDON Printed for John Martyn at the Bell in St. Paul's Church-Yard M DC LXXI A DISCOVRSE OF THE Necessity and reasonableness of a Positive Worship and particularly of the Christian Worship The Introduction propounding the general heads of the discourse REmembring that all conclusions beget so much the fainter perswasion by how much in their deduction we have proceeded to a greater distance from first and necessary principles I shall endeavour in the cause undertaken to keep as near to indubitable or allowed foundations as I can And if I shall make it evident upon the admitting the justice of providence that we are enforced to believe some such revelations as Christians pretend to must have been and by them the institution of a positive worship and further upon view of the supposed positive worship if it appear in all its parts to be such as that the supreme God proceeded not arbitrarily and by a meer Sovereign power or humour in its institution but therefore appointed this or that rather than another Office because aptest to secure the good of man that is to plant and radicate virtue in him between which and humane happiness there is according to the order of nature which himself before such institution had framed a necessary connexion I conceive I have done enough to perswade any rational person that he ought in all reason to pay such positive worship which by such institution and its own natural conducency to his happiness he perceives to oblige him that is I have evidenced the necessity and reasonableness of a positive worship and of such an one as we pretend to And more particularly as to the Christian doctrine and worship if it shall appear that the very frame of its History lies so that we cannot with any tolerable sobriety disbelieve either the History or the doctrine which it implicates the very tradition it self carrying in it self so convictive evidence of its truth I may then conclude that we have the greatest reason to receive and practice particularly every such particular office of worship as that Christian doctrine prescribes and none other And though I shall not adventure to call these demonstrations yet I hope by such time as I shall have done they will be found for the most part to come as little short of such as the nature of my subject will admit Briefly and distinctly I suppose it will be allowed that positive worship is to be paid if there be any such by the supreme God instituted and commanded Now I pretend that first the institution of some positive worship follows admitting the justice of Providence That Secondly in that positive worship supposed by Christians obligatory there is such conducency to virtue on all hands acknowledged the principal necessary as renders that worship most fit to oblige us and every way most just and reasonable That Lastly besides this the Divine institution of this particular Worship de facto is irrefragably evident from the certainty and undeniableness of the History of Christianity and of the Scriptures Chap. I. § 1. A fuller proposal of the first point viz. That some positive worship there must be and three propositions to evince it § 2. The first proposition proved § 3. An objection answered § 4. A second answered § 5. An illustration of the insufficiency of reason to bring men generally to virtue out of History § 6. A third objection answered § 7. The second proposition proved § 8. The third proposition proved § 9. Objections in common against revelation and divine records answered IT is not unusual for stubborn dogmatists when forced from some beloved principles by their detected absurdity to seem liberally to grant what they are no longer able to deny and notwithstanding all their concessions in common appearance to the prejudice of their cause to pretend their cause no whit enfeebled and their perswasions as unshaken as ever Thus to omit the tracing this practice in men of other interests than those we have to deal with many pretended Masters of reason who a long time would fain have perswaded themselves and the World that the Being of a God or provident Creatour and Governour of all things the Difference of good and evil the Immortality of the Soul and different Estates in that immortal life were but the frauds of Priests or stratagems of some deeper Politicians seeing now that they can no longer maintain their doctrines against that convictive evidence which enforceth their contraries are content at last to admit a Creed consisting of these Articles named and generously allow what against their wills they see demonstrated But in the mean time they stifly contend that the only worship of this God and sole condition of such immortal happiness is virtue Nor do men need Prayers or Sacraments or Priests or what they would be content to have named appendant Cheats And then as to the name of virtue that they will be sure so to explain as to leave a Latitude for their own vices So that in fine though some of the outworks of this Troy be yielded upon constraint yet the body of the City is kept strongly the Helena still held in fast embraces they may be as pretended by the Warranty of Reason as profane and scornful of Religion at least of the Christian Worship and so in the end of all virtues purely Christian such as mortification Self-denial c. as ever they were Against these we say that if they will be reasonable and impartial and admit the same evidences in this case as they do in others of like nature besides that Natural Worship of God which consists in virtue and purely natural acknowledgments of him both they and all men must confess Offices of Divine Worship by Positive right such as in Christianity are Prayer and the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments Which thing we trust to make out by these following propositions 1. That it is but Reasonable to believe that God hath revealed his will to man touching such things which he requires of him in Order to his happiness 2. That it is but Reasonable to believe such revelation should determine the Offices of Divine Worship 3. That holy Scripture or that revelation which acquaints us what God requires of us in order to our happiness pretends to prescribe to us by what acts God will be worshiped and it is but reasonable to