Miracles The two things which he urged to the Jews or Heathens wheresoever he preached as things which he was sure they could no more contradict then demonstrations themselves there being so many then alive that could witness the truth of them In which respect he after tells them of Gods having confirmed them into Christ and anointed and sealed them all in the same sense to signifie Gods having afforded them these convincing testimonies of the truth of Christianity preached to them by those on whom the Holy Ghost had descended and who wrought Miracles among them Sect. 14 That this was a very competent confirmation of the Doctrine of Christ may yet farther appear by considering first the persons to whom this was to be done the then Church of God the people of the Jews which were acquainted with his voices and his Prophets and his Oeconomies formerly among them Secondly the matter that was thus to be confirmed no greater change then to which this way of attestation may in reason be deemed abundantly proportionable For the things to be beleived onely the real completion of some things which had been before foretold and the revealing some truths which had been more obscurely represented in the Old Testament and then those how high and mysterious soever yet being clearly revealed by Christ and the Apostles in the New and the explicit belief of them no further required of any then in proportion to the degree of the revelation of them the revealing of them must be looked on as the satisfying of an appetite a desire of more knowledg which is naturally in all men and is sharpened by the having received some imperfect rayes of it and consequently should not in reason be expected to be attested with such a pomp of signes and prodigies as impositions of tasks and exactings of obediences are wont to be Then for the things to be done in Christianity the duties and observances It is again considerable that the change in that respect was not such as would denominate it a new Religion but onely the reforming and perfecting that which was before received among the Jews and the making it more tolerable and easie to be received by other parts of the Gentile World The worship of the one true God Creator of Heaven and Earth contrary to the false worships of the many gods and idols of the Heathens and to all the unnatural lusts attending them had been sufficiently testified to the Nation of the Jews by many voices from Heaven and undeniable attestations of God himself and indeed to other Nations by the fearful miraculous judgments shewn in Egypt and on the Canaanites under the conduct of Moses and Joshuah c. and by Gods continual residing among that people and his attesting that by the Vrim and Thummim by the several Prophets sent by him and the other ways of revelations And to those that granted all this it was foretold so often that no Jew doubted of it that there should come days of Reformation that there should come a Messias This was long ago promised through all passages of their story to Adam under the title of the Seed of the woman to Sem that God should dwell or pitch his tabernacle in the Tents of Sem take flesh upon him in his family to Abraham to Judah to David and all along through the writings of their Prophets Concerning this Messias their carnal hearts had pre-conceived some mistakes as that he should be a glorious King here and make them again after their being subdued by the Romans a most victorious glorious people on Earth and this howsoever they demean'd themselves onely by the priviledg of having Abraham to whom great promises were made to their father At last this Messias otherwise described by their Prophets as one that should come in a mean and lowly manner no way desireable to the eye of the world Isa. 53. comes just as he had been fore-told a forerunner being sent before him on purpose to prepare his way to dispossess them of their fond perswasions of their absolute election by having Abraham to their father and pointing him out particularly as the Son of God the Messias that was now to be received as he had been so greedily and so long expected by them This forerunner that thus foretold and after pointed him out was as they that crucified Christ confess by all the * Jews taken for a Prophet And moreover to this testimony of this acknowledged Prophet comes in the addition of the miraculous descent of the holy Spirit and the voice from Heaven and all that hath been mentioned consequent to that And to those among whom this had always been acknowledged an authentick way of attesting Gods will nothing could be more required but this Christ then or God himself in humane nature assumed of a virgin and born after a supernatural manner when he came to thirty yeers old the age of a Doctor among that people sets to this business which it was foretold he should perform tells them how the former law was to be reformed and especially their former lives from external observances to internall purities and how to be filled up and perfected in some particulars and then lightly changes some ceremonies customary among them and accommodates them to present use removes the wall of division which had been between them and all the rest of the world shews them that that was meant onely to keep them from imitating the Heathens sins and now that there was more need that Heathens and they should love one another and joyn to reform both their lives and practice Christian virtues then keep that supercilious distance from one another and in a word he brings the whole matter to such a model as all other men but the Jews like extremely better then that which was before among them and consequently come in in sholes at the preaching of it And the Jews that doe not so acknowledg the onely reason why they do not to be their zeal to their law of outward performances and the perswasion of their absolute election that is in effect that they had no other quarrel to him but onely that he did not teach the doctrines that they liked and were before imbued with which if he had he had by that very means done contrary to the prophecies by them allowed of which foretold he should work a reformation Upon these unreasonable terms they crucifie him And by their doing so more wonderful attestations yet are given to all this In his very death the Sun is miraculously eclipsed at a time of the Moon when by nature it was absolutely impossible and so far against all rules of Astronomy that learned men in other places took notice of it to be a violence done to nature which must signifie some great matter Then a prodigy befalls the Temple and that a very significant one Then the bodies of many dead men arise and go to Jerusalem and are seen by many But above all
OF THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION By H. H. D. D. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} 1 Pet. 3. 15. The third Edition LONDON Printed by J. G. for R. ROYSTON at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1650. OF THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION The Introduction Sect. 1 IT hath always been accounted more Reasonable to doubt of Principles first and then to throw off the Deductions that naturally arise from them then to contest the Conclusions when the Principles or Premisses are granted This occasioned that saying of Picus Mirandula That the Speculative Atheist was the greatest prodigy but one and that was the Practical Atheist To acknowledg Christian Religion to be true and consequently that without sincere obedience to all Christs Precepts not onely the infinite rewards of the Gospel are forfeited but the infinite torments become our portion and yet to live lives of profaneness and luxury and indulgence to every liberty that suites with our humors without fear or discomfeiture of minde is a shortness of discourse that no man that hath consideration enough to examine or judgement to compare can choose but discern and condemne in himself As therefore the * Epicurean that was resolved not to be represt or live in the awe of Religion and Priests counted it but necessary to disbelieve the perpetuity of torments beyond this life so hath it been Satans method and the advantage which he hath taken of these times from the commonness of casting down mounds and hedges of disputing and questioning the most establisht Truths to offer it to the Reason and Judgment of his Clients Whether it be not more easie and hopeful to break up the foundation it self then while that remains in its firmness to demolish that which is erected upon it and by entangling men in those practices which render them uncapable of receiving benefit by Christianity to oblige them to endeavour to cast off the doctrines and to rid themselves from the ill consequences of it Thus have some men taught themselves the skill and dexterity of unravelling principles and by giving themselves liberty to disobey Christ in some pleasant or gainful particulars have at last in their own defence that they may salve their phaenomena and appear congruou to themselves arrived calmly to the scorners chair the casting off Christianity it self Sect. 2 In stead of gainless complaints I shall therefore hasten to give some check to this growing evil and reduce the whole matter of debate to these two heads Sect. 3 First I shall consider the Grounds of Christianity in the gross or bulk all of it together and in some measure justifie the reasonableness of them and then secondly I shall descend in the retail to the survey and vindication of those particular branches of Christianity which appear to men at this time to be least supported with Reason CHAP. I. The Grounds of Christianity or the Reasons upon which men embrace Christian Religion in the gross all of it together Sect. 1 IN lieu of the many grounds or several branches and improvements of the same one complicated ground which * other men have very rationally enlarged on This present discourse which desires not to expatiate nor to suppose the Reader to have renounced his Christianity wholly shal confine it self to these two heads First the Testimony on which Christianity is built Secondly The advantages that those which embrace it shall reap by it The first will render the belief rationall and conclude it impious to doubt of it The second will render the belief gainful and conclude it most uncharitable to our selves yea and unsafe and treacherous not to adhere to it The first will pronounce it with the Apostle a faithful saying the second worthy of all acceptation The first will reconcile it to our brains the second to our hearts The first will give it possession of our understandings the second will ravish our wills with the beauty and luster of it Sect. 2 The Testimony on which we beleive Christianity i. e. on which we beleive that Christ was sent from God to reveal his Fathers will unto us and to be beleived in all that he delivered to the World which when it is beleived it necessarily follows that all and every part of Christian Religion is infallibly true and capable of no farther doubting is the most important and convincing of beleif or faith which can be imagined Sect. 3 For if the Apostle had not said it it is yet in it self most evident to common sense That Faith commeth by hearing i. e. that I cannot believe any thing to be true on any better nay on any other ground but onely that I hear it thus affirmed And as the affirmation is such is the belief If the affirmation be from a fallible person from a meer man the belief must be a fallible belief but if the person affirming be infallible then is the beliefe infallible also Sect. 4 That infallible affirmer is but one viz. God of whose nature it is to be veracious to be able to do any thing but to lie which was also affirmed by Christ out of the Principles of common nature Let God be true and every man a lier i. e. though no infallibility of testimony can be attributed to any meer man yet whatsoever is testified by God doth certainly deserve to be fully credited Sect. 5 And therefore if God shall testifie the truth of any thing there can be no farther scruple or possibility of doubting or suspecting the truth of what is so testified then there is actuall doubt whether the God of Heaven be God or whether the God of truth be the father of lies which as it is a degree above the denying of Christ and above the infidelity either of the Jew or Mahemetane or even of Heathenism it self in that notion wherein it signifies the a acknowledgment of more gods then one for all that have adoted any deity have acknowledged that God or gods to b speak nothing but truth so is the pretending to it peculiar to very few since the beginning of the World There being not many that appear in story to have affirmed that there is no God at all and those not able to perswade others that they did believe themselves when they so affirmed Sect. 6 Now this affirmation or testisication of God that Christ was sent from him to declare his will to us c. upon which being once supposed the truth of all Christian Religion truly so called is immediately and infallibly founded hath more then one way been authentically interposed Such are the many repeated testimonies of the Prophets in the Old Testament which finding a perfect completion in Christ and none but Christ do amount to a divine testimony Such was the coming of the Angel to Mary the Mother of Christ and to Elizabeth the Mother of Iohn Baptist in the New Testament as also the Star which lighted the wise men of the East unto him and of which
taught but also by the like consent of the whole Church i. e. whole multitudes of that age wherein this is pretended to be written and taught who being convinced with the truth of what we now enquire after readily gave up their names to the belief of it and to the consequent confession of Christ though the doing it did in like manner cost them very dear the parting with their espoused customs of livings whether among the Jewish or Gentile world their pleasures their worldly wealth and oft-times their lives also Sect. 26 Beyond all this the success which attended it had so much of strangeness in it viz. that from such mean and simple beginnings and instruments without any kind of power or earthly authority to back it without one sword ever drawn in defence of it Christianity should soon obtain such a victory over the heart of men in so great a part of the world that nothing but truth which hath that over-ruling force in it can be deemed to have been its Champion Sect. 27 Lastly that these are the writings those the tradition of those eye-witnesses whose they pretend to be and that they were by such sholes such multitudes of men of all Nations believed then and that belief signed by the blood of many by the hazards and adventures of most by the profest non-resistance of all this is as fully testified to us as any matter of fact can be supposed to be by the concurrent testimonies of all of that age which say any thing of it and by a generall successive attestation of all intervening ages since that time the authority of * those writings being never contested by any i. e. by the same means of probation upon which we believe those things which we least doubt of and against which men cannot feigne any sound or shew of proof save onely that testimonies are not demonstrations which exception will in like manner be in a like or far greater force against all other things which we believe most confidently Sect. 28 I am not willing to leave any possible scruple unsatisfied in this matter and therefore I shall proceed to that other bolder objection still behind That that which is pretended to be the voice of God may not have been such but some delusion of the hearers or at least the voice of some other and not of God as the devil in the oracle delivered himself by voice and therefore though it be confest that if this voice were Gods it is infallibly creditable yet there will need some certain way of discrimination to assure it was his To this I answer That the person whose objection this may be supposed to be is either a bare Theist that acknowledges a God but not the God of Israel or else he that acknowledges what the Jew did the truth of the Old Testament I shall reply somewhat to each of these Sect. 29 To the former That if this way of objecting would be of force there could be no way for God to reveal himself to man Veracity would be an empty attribute of God of no signification to us For it is not imaginable that there should any greater assurance of Gods speaking to men then by the Heavens opening and from thence the Spirit of God descending visibly and lighting on one and out of the clouds a voice delivered whatsoever else can be imagined or named will not be above this And if all the ways that God can use be not able to give assurance that it is God that speaks what are we the neer for knowing that God cannot lie as long as there is supposed for us no way to know what at any time he saith nay to what use as to this particular is his omnipotence if he cannot reveal himself to us in such a way that may be reasonable for us to believe to be his and not some deceivers voice Nay in this God shall not be able to doe so much as any ordinary man for he can so reveal himself or speak as no man that is present and doth not stop his ears shall be able to doubt of his speaking Sect. 30 To the second sort of objecters I answer That the objection will lose all its seeming force if it be remembred that although now among us voices from Heaven are not heard and therefore we are not at this distance so competent judges of the clearness or certainty that such when they were were not delusions and accordingly the assent required of us of this age is but proportionable to the grounds of belief which we enjoy yet among that people of the Jewes this was very ordinary Gods Law was given to Moses in that manner and God lead that people by a pillar of cloud and fire which was answerable to this And in after times under the second Temple they confess this the onely way of Gods revealing himself to them And therefore in this very matter it was allowed and pleaded by some prime men of that people that if the Spirit or an Angel had spoken to Paul the resisting him would be a fighting against God And thereupon Acts 23. 9. they confessed that they found no harm in him that God had thus spoken to him those men then thought probable but did not avow the knowing it certainly having no present evidence of the fact save onely the affirmation of Paul himself at that time But had they had evidence of the fact by being present at it as they that testifie the voice to Christ were eye and ear-witnesses of it they would not then have thought reasonable to make any farther question whether that which they call the voice of the Spirit or an Angel were such or no and being such whether the resisting what was spoken by it were the fighting against God For the testifying therefore of the truth of such pretended facts and indeed to leave no place for rational doubt in this matter there is yet a farther answer That the power of miracles and the gifts of tongues that attended these voices and descents of the Holy Ghost from Heaven were irrefragable testimonies and evidences of the reality of them and could not be the immediate effects of delusions being such as could not be wrought by the power of the devil nor ever were pretended the effects of his oracular responses Sect. 31 Many other ways of discrimination there are by which the voices of the devil or delusions magical might be distinguished from Divine as that of concordance with predictions acknowledged to have come from God and such was the voice that was delivered at the descent of the Spirit upon Christ the same that was foretold by the Prophet and by him joyned with the mention of the descent of Gods Spirit upon him And to the same belongs also the completion of the so many other things in him which had certainly been foretold of the Messias which Concordance with Divine truth is most diametrically contrary to delusion And besides of the
ability in God yet is not this so communicated as his Justice or Goodnesse was said to be For Goodnesse in the creature is a kinde of image truly resembling the goodnesse in God and that a kinde of natural image as is the face in the Glasse not a voluntary one which hath its Being from the variable Will of the Artificer But power or ability in the Creature is not thus a natural image of Gods power but as a reflection of a thing which voluntarily and variously casts its beams Voluntarily I say because the dispensing of his Power either in manner or measure is a free act of his Will and variously because he doth it first unequally and secondly not so to any but that he can and sometimes doth withdraw or suspend it when it is bestowed so that I cannot say that as that which is just in God to be done is just to be done by the Creature so what is possible to be done by God is possible to be done by the Creature Sect. 10 The reason of the not communicating of Gods Power to the Creature as well as his Justice may be this because it conduced not to the end of the Creatures Creation as the other did For though God intended to make a Creature truly good and just yet he did not truly powerful Power indeed being in it self not a vertue as justice is nor in it self morally good or evil and therefore not so agreeable to the condition of a Creature but rather indeed peculiar to the Majesty of a Creator Sect. 11 From all this it follows by the said second rule that man is not able to fathom Potentiall truths because Power is not the same in substance in God and in the Creature and therefore by what is in the Creature he is no way enabled to conceive what is in God and so consequently to define of any Potentiall truth because though it may not be wrought by any thing that is in the Creature or within his sphere of knowledge yet it may be by God Sect. 12 All the natural impression or light that in this behalf a rational Creature hath is that two contradictories cannot be true at once and therefore I think all Principles that are not thought fit to be proved in any naturall science if they be truly so may easily be resolved into this one A thing cannot at once be and not be And this natural impression rises not from any observation of the power communicated to the creature for then still it would hold that though man cannot do contradictories at once yet God may but from a sight that this would be an effect of extreme impotency more then is conceiveable in any Creature and therefore cannot be imputed to God who is conceived Omnipotent nor consequently to man unlesse God should take away all degrees of power quite from him and then he should be annihilated Sect. 13 Now for actual truths already in Being which are works either mediately or immediately of Gods Will our Reason is no farther judg of them then as Gods Will is communicated to us by some Images or Pictures of it either substantiall and reall as when a thing done is presented to the faculty to which it is objicible there a real image of Gods Wil is imprest in me by that I may judg distinctly or when it is revealed to me either from God or from any other witnesse of which in this matter I am convinced that he partakes of Gods veracity i. e. would not lie to me and this may be called an intentionall Image of Gods Will imprest in me Sect. 14 Thus may Right Reason judg of things in Being either because it is so really represented to the senses and that is evidence or because is either revealed or else attested by God which Reason knows can neither erre nor deceive and this is adherence or because such a concurrence of testimonies agrees to tell me so as I have no Motive or Reason to disbeleive and this is humane Faith which may reasonably take place untill I either see somewhat or receive somewhat by an higher testimony revealed to the contrary which also is weaker or stronger according to the importance of the matter authority of the testifiers my particular danger if I be deceived in it c. Hence the Conclusion is That Sect. 15 Right Reason is able to judge of all meerly Moral objects whether any thing be good or bad morally of Naturall objects in matter of fact whether such a thing be done or no by the help of the means specified and by discourse and analogy from things that we see are done to judg that such another thing is possible But of supernatural truths such things as it never discerned in Nature either in the kinde or the like it cannot judg any farther then thus Either first that though we cannot do it yet for ought we know it is possible nay it hath a Being with God or secondly that God hath affirmed it so therefore I am sure it is or thirdly that comes to me from authority that I have no reason to suspect but on the contrary concurrence of all Reasons to be perswaded by it nay there are some inward Characters in the thing it self that makes me cast off all jealousie or doubt of such affirmations and therefore I believe it is so But generally and in thesi it is no way Judge of these last kind of Controversies Sect. 16 And therefore though God in moral actions even in himself submits and appeals to mans reason Isa. 5. 3. Ezek. 18. 25. yet in these latter he derides all those that goe about to judge of them by reason 1 Cor. 1. 20. And agreeably Saint Paul in his Preaching the Gospel for the proving the truth of Christianity was fain saith a Origen to use a peculiar way of demonstration First by comparing of Prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Christ Secondly by Miracles but in practical matters he appeals to that which was written in every ones heart Rom. 2. 15. Sect. 17 To this purpose hath Eulogius an Oration against those who think to be able to comprehend the true Theology of Christians i. e. Christians discourses concerning the Persons of the Deity b by the Wit or Reason of Man and Photius hath approved of that discourse of his that he doth c talk of God Piously and devoutly and set Christian divinity a pitch beyond humane wisdom d superior to all other e artificial method or rules of Art Sect. 18 In sum it is observable in the writing of the Scripture that generally in defining these last sorts of Truths Gods authority is set down as the onely proof of what is said without using any other way of arguing or secular demonstration All that is indulged to mens Reason being onely this First to consider whether it be not very equal and reasonable to believe God without any other motive or topick of proof even