to say That the greatest part of the World have been all along so many stark Fools a Character which we think more peculiarly belongs to those who say in their hearts There is no God Considering what a difficult and hazardous Office the first Preachers of Christianity had to discharge How think ye was it possible for them to undertake it with such readiness to perform it with such vigour and to go through it with such constancy and chearfulness notwithstanding so much opposition had they not been abundantly convinced of the truth of their Religion by Miracles which they saw with their own eyes And considering what vast importance the Christian Religion is declared to be of and how directly opposite it is to the natural Inclinations of corrupt Mankind and how it was discountenanc'd and hated by Jews and Heathens in the beginning How can we think it possible for it to have been received so generally and unexpectedly in the World had not inquisitive Men who had the fairest advantages of knowing matters of Fact been fully satisfied That the mighty Miracles reported to have been done by Jesus were true Men cannot think these things possible but either they must believe that people in those days had lost all their Senses or make us now believe that they themselves have utterly lost their own The design of all this is to shew That there is as convincing and strong Evidence that True Divine Miracles have been wrought as can rationally be expected of any thing which hath been done in former times because no matter of Fact whatsoever can possibly be capable of stronger proof In cases of this nature the utmost that can be expected is Moral Certainty when the Evidence is so fair that no reasonable man can have just cause to doubt of the truth of the matter and that Evidence must be from Testimony because it is impossible for us to know any thing which is gone and past but by information from others and when that Information is so full that to unprejudiced Understandings the thing seems unquestionable it is as much as any reasonable man can desire Since therefore it appears by indubitable Testimony that those persons who are said to have done Miracles were once actually living in the World since it appears that the History of those Miracles is sufficiently credible and is confirmed by the collateral Testimony of those who were both capable of knowing and deeply concern'd to know the Truth of that Account And lastly since such publick Settlements and Constitutions followed upon the Credit of those Miracles as plainly argued a firm and general Belief or rather Knowledge of them and could never have been brought about without them Since I say all these grounds of Credibility do appear to give evidence to the truth of Miracles formerly done it seems unconceivable how stronger or clearer evidence can be given of any matter of Fact or of any History that is now in the World 2. Let us consider next the second Evasion That supposing some wonderful things to have been done in former Ages yet this is no more an Argument of the truth of a God's Existence than it is of the truth of Idolatry because Idolaters themselves have pretended to Miracles to vouch for their Religion And considering how inconsistent and impossible it would be for a Deity to act for and against it self too therefore Men of Atheistical minds conclude That those wonderful Works which have gone under the name of Divine Miracles have been really nothing but Art and Imposture Now for the solving of this seeming difficulty I shall consider two Things 1. First Matter of Fact 2. Secondly The Weakness of these Mens reasoning from it 1. First then that I may carry a fair and impartial Hand it is granted that many strange and extraordinary things are said to have been done by Men of a false Religion For Moses himself tells us what the Magicians did in Egypt beâ—ore his own face Jesus Christ told his Disciples that many false Teachers would come in a little time with Signs and Wonders to deceive if it had been possible the very Elect. To verify that Prediction divers Ecclesiastical Writers tell us of the Wonders done by Simon Magus and his Followers soon after the Lord ' s Ascension into Heaven Others tell us of the Blind and the Lame being cured by the Heathen Emperor Vespasian and of a Whetstone being divided into two by a Razor at the Command of Accius Navius and of several Prodigious things done by Apollmius Tyanaeus whom the Pagans matched with Jesus Christ for doing Miracles And every body knows what Accounts of Miracles have been given by the Church of Rome in deâ—ence of that part of their Religion wherein they have most scandalously departed from True Primitive Christianity Considering therefore what an heap of Stories there is whereof some are related by Sacred Writers and some others by Men of Probity and Temper though abundance of Fictions hath been vended among them it must be allowed that many Wonderful Works have been done by Idolaters But then Secondly This can be no Plea for the truth of Idolatry because how wonderful soever those Works have seemed they were not in themselves Divine Miracles We must distinguish between Miracles in Appearance and Miracles in Reality By Miracles in Appearance which should rather be called Wonders and Signs I understand not mere Impostures or Delusions of mens outwards Senses but such Real Effects as may seem to be done by the extraordinary and immediate Power of God when indeed they are not That such things are possible to be done is clear from Deut. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. where God himself gave the Jews this Caution If there arise among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereeof he spake to thee saving Let us go after other gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul Ye shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and you shall serve him and cleave unto him and that prophet or dreamer of dreams shall be put to death We cannot conceive that when God hath any where established his true Worship he will lift up his own hand to draw People away from it to Idolatry and therefore when Signs or Wonders are shewed to that end we may be sure they are not Divine Miracles or Effects that are altogether Supernatural And yet 't is manifest that such things may be done as are counterfeitings of God's hand and seem to carry the signatures of his Power for otherwise there would have been no reason for that charge given to the Jews that
Truth of God's Existence because then it would prove too the truth of Idolatry forasmuch as all Nations were once Idolaters and consented in the worship of a great many Deities To this two things may be easily returned First That there was no such universal Consent as to that no not among the Pagans themselves For though they worshipped a plurality of Objects and the vulgar People paid their Devotions to them as to so many real and distinct Deities yet as I shew'd before they own'd One Supreme God and look'd upon the rest as Inferior Beings Deities that had been generated or made by the great Cause of all things and them they adored for his sake and upon his account as Deputies and Administrators under him and as Mediators for Men to him so that they referred their Worship to him by them and did terminate all of it in him And yet the wiser sort of Men among them did not esteem that multitude of Deities as so many real Persons Substances and Beings distinct from the Supreme but rather as so many several Virtues and Powers of One Sovereign Numen personated fictitiously according to the See Dr. Cudworth's Intel. System l. 1. c. 4. p. 502. various Works and Manifestations of that One God that did Pervade all things did Exist in all things did Act in all things and was conceived by them to be in a manner all things and consequently was as they thought most honoured and best serv'd by the Religious Honours which were given him by and through his Works every where as he manifested every where his Virtue and display'd his Power So that the great Error among the old Heathens seems not to have been about the Existence of One God as to which they were well agreed but about the way and manner of Worshipping him as to that they were divided in their Opinions some believing the Supreme God to be worshipped joyntly with other Deities and the rest conceiving him to be worshipped alone under several Names Titles and Appellations Now though the Being of God was a thing so evident obvious and bright that it flash'd in all their faces yet in their Notions of God's Worship a thing which required greater use of Reason and Philosophy they were puzled and distracted and therefore universal Consent cannot be pleaded to prove the truth of their Religion and the real Existence of all their Deities because they were not generally agreed as to that as they were in this Common Principle That there is One God over all things 2. Secondly How gross soever the Conceits of the Heathens were the whole account of the matter shews That they were inclined and willing to Worship the True God if they could but have certainly known where or how to have found him In places of the thickest Darkness and in times of the greatest Ignorance there was in all Men a Propensity to some Religion or other so that rather than People would have no God at all they would adore many which still serves to confirm the Point in hand That the belief of a Deity is radicated in Humane Nature how hard soever some few odd Men have labour'd and strain'd to tear it out Seeing a belief so universal cannot be founded on meer Tradition or Fear or Policy or any advised Agreement and Institution amongst Mankind if we will enquire soberly into the Reasons of it no other rational Account can be given but that the Faculties of our Nature are so framed by the Excellent Wisdom and Power of God that upon the due exercise of our Understanding and Reason an Idea of God ariseth in every one's mind which is therefore rightly called a Natural Idea because it may be formed by the use of our Natural Faculties without the assistance of special Revelation and because our Nature is so ordered by the Father of Spirits Divines rightly say That the Idea of God is imprinted on all Mens minds by the Finger of God and is a mark of himself and of his own setting to let us know that we are all his and to draw from us all possible returns of Praises and Reverence of Admiration and Love of Imitation and Obedience and Universal Submission to his Divine Will and Pleasure CHAP. IV. HAVING fully consider'd this Argument of God's Existence taken from the Universal Consent of Mankind and the Common Principle which is in Humane Nature I proceed now to that which was proposed as the Third Head viz. The Consideration of some Extraordinary Occurrences in the World which further argue the Being of a God And here many things might be taken notice of were I minded to let this Discourse swell into a great bulk as The Strange Discoveries which have been made of many the most Secret Villanies the Wonderful Events whereby the Designs of Wicked Men have been prevented and over-rul'd the Various Providences whereby Opprest Innocence hath been vindicated and deliver'd the Several Revelations of the Divine Will which have been given since the beginning of the Creation the constant supporting of Government and Order in the World the remarkable Translation of Empires for Peoples Provocations the Astonishing Examples which have been made of many Bold Incorrigible Wretches and the like All which do in their kind shew that there is a Divine Disposer and Governor of the Universe an Observing and Righteous God that judgeth all the Earth But because these may chance to be looked upon rather as Popular Suggestions than Convincing Solid Arguments I shall for brevity sake wave them and insist only upon Two things which the most Judicious Men are commonly wont to urge and which indeed are past all contradiction if matter of Fact can be made appear And they are 1. First Such Miraculous Works as could never have been done but by an Almighty Power And 2. Secondly Such Predictions and Prophesies as could never have been delivered without the foreknowledge of an Omniscient Being 1. First For those Miraculous Works which could never have been done without an Almighty Power By Miracles I mean such as are True Miracles or such Effects as no Second Subordinate Cause can possibly work of it self no Finite Natural Agent can do by any Causality or Virtue of its own And of such Miracles there seem to be these Three sorts which most of all relate to the matter in hand 1. First Such as have been done without any Concurrence or Instrumentality of Second Causes nay such as could never have been done by any Limited Power As the giving sight to those who were born without Eyes the making the Sun to go back or to stand still the Raising of the Dead to life again and the multiplying a few Loaves and Fishes to satisfy Five thousand People 2. Such Effects as perhaps might have been done in time by the help of Natural means but yet never were nor could be wrought on a sudden by their use and application as the healing of the Leprosy in a moment the instantaneous removing
People from whom alone those advantages were to be expected if any advantage at all had been sought for Nay when he let those advantages go which he had already in his hands Whereas Men in Power endeavour to keep their Authority up and to transmit it to their Posterity Moses was content to let all that Power dye with him wherewith he was vested when he govern'd the whole Jewish Nation He appointed Joshua to succeed him in his Civil Authority The great Dignity and Advantages of the Priesthood he disposed of to his Brother Aaron and his Sons As for his own Children he left them in Subjection to the Priests to officiate under them in the ordinary and mean Ministrations of the Tabernacle not alloting them one foot of Land amongst all their Kindred All which shews that from the beginning to the end Moses designed nothing but the Honour of God and the Common good of his People And that no Honour or Interest of his own could possibly sway or tempt him to violate his Integrity And what could the four Evangelists propose to themselves that should move them to deceive the world and make their Relations incredible or suspected Honours they could not aim at unless men think it an Honour to be Dishonest Nor could Interest tempt them to impose fictions on mens Belief when they were sure beforehand to receive nothing in this world but Hardship Persecutions and Death for their Reward Very poor encouragements for men to invent and spread abroad idle Stories Or if it be said that 't was for the Credit and Propagation of their Religion they must be thought the oddest men in Nature that would coin Fictions for the sake of a Religion they believed to be false and yet they could not have believed otherwise of it if they had not known it to have been confirmed by Miracles for they were the only things that could give Evidence of its Truth beyond all Contradiction 3. This I have said to shew that however some Irreligious Men have the confidence to despise the Scripture-account of Divine Miracles to common human Reason it appears sufficiently credible from the certain Knowledge and manifest Probity of the Writers and consequently that we have as fair Evidence of the Reality of Miracles in that respect as can be had of any other matter of Fact that has been done in former Ages To which let us add in the next place this third ground of Credibility viz. that others who had reason to know and were able to know the truth of the matter were sufficiently satisfied of the certainty of it Here again we must return to Moses and First it is observable that the account he gives of Miracles done by him has continually past through a long succession of Ages uncontradicted which is an Argument that the Inquisitive and Knowing men in most Nations were well satisfied of the Reality of the matter For as the Mosaick Writings contain the most Ancient Records that are extant in the world so they seem to have been perused by the most Ancient Philosophers and Historians because the things related in them were spoken of and own'd generally by the whole Heathen world though sometimes not without a mixture of Poetical Fables as the Creation of the Universe the Sanctity of the Sabbaths the Story of the Deluge and of the Ark the Right of circumcision and the like as the Learned Grotius hath particularly shew'd in his First Book of the Truth of Christianity It is very probable that the general belief of these things sprang from the general persuasion which prevailed in the world of those Signs and Wonders that Moses had shew'd that made him so great a Person in the Esteem of Mankind There were thousands ready to have disproved the Relation if the Works had not been done nor is it in the least likely that of so many Neighbouring Nations round about the Jews which mortally hated the Jews and their Religion none would have discovered the Imposture had they not been satisfied that what Moses had written was true The Honour of having such great things done for them in the eyes of the world would have been thought too much for a despised hated People to have gone away with 2. But Secondly instead of Contradicting Moses's History the most Ancient Writers among the Egyptians and Greeks did own his Greatness Insomuch that the old Egyptians would have appropriated him to themselves pretending that he was of Egyptian Parentage and a Priest of Heliopolis by name Ozarsiph changing his name afterwards to Moses Some indeed of the other Heathens as Apuleius and Numenius the Pythagorean reckon him among the old Magicians and in particular among Jannes and Jambres the famous Magicians of Pharaoh but all lookt upon him as a very wonderful Person by reason of the Plagues he brought upon Egypt 3. And then Thirdly as for the Jews nothing can be more clear than that their whole Nation have all along acknowledg'd the truth of the Miracles done by Moses For their whole Constitution was founded upon the Credit of his Divine Authority and that depended upon the Credit of his Miracles And had any of them been unsatisfied in that point those Rebels who rose up against Moses and Aaron alledging that they took too much upon them would have alledged that they pretended too much also a great deal more than what was true Nor could those People who time after time Revolted from Moses's Law have had such another Plea for their Apostacies as this would have been that the Authority of the Law giver was not confirmed by Miracles as 't was believed I have said thus much of Moses to confront some in our days who have taken the confidence to deride the Writings which go under Moses's Name and the Miracles said to have been wrought by him that thereby they may with the greater boldness deny the Existence of God though if Men will take the evidence given of any matters of Fact done at a great distance of time from them it is impossible to find better evidence of any matters than there is of these of the certainty whereof those who had Reason to know and were able to know were fully satisfied I go on now in the next place from the same Consideration to prove the Reality of those Miracles which the Evangelists ascribe to Jesus Christ And who could think themselves more concern'd to enquire into the truth of them than those great Men who made it their business to oppose his Religion And yet that many notable Miracles had been done by him and by his Apostles after him was manifest to all that dwelt at Jerusalem and they could not deny it All that they had to say for their Infidelity was that Christ did those wonderful Works by the help of the Devil but matter of Fact they own'd Hence it was that soon after the Lord went out of the World divers pretended to a power of Miracles such as Simon Magus