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
as the Greeks first borrowed their Letters of the Jews so the best Laws at Athens and afterwards at Rome took their Original from the Laws of Moses And that Jesus Christ formerly lived in the Land of Judea is acknowledg'd even by those who were no Friends to his Religion Josephus the Jew who seems to have been our Saviour's Cotemporary saith That in the Regency of Pontius Pilate there lived one Jesus a wise Man saith he if yet it Antiq. l. 18. c. 4. be sit to call him a Man because he did many Miracles and appeared alive again the third Day after his Crucifixion That Roman Historian Tacitus Cornel. Tac. l. 15. speaking of the Christians tells us That the Author of that Name was one Christ who in the Reign of Tiberius the Emperor was put to Death by Pontius Pilate About fifty Years after our Saviour's Time Pliny the Proconsul of Bithynia sent the Emperor Trajan Plin. l. 10. Ep. 97. this Account of the Christians That their Custom was to sing Hymus to Christ as to a God Suetonius In Vit. Claud. makes mention of him too meaning not so much his Person as his Doctrine The Acts of Pilate to which the Primitive Christians were wont to appeal shew that there was such a Man once in being Those Learned Heathens who wrote against his Faith Celsus Porphyry and Julian never questioned the Truth of the History touching his Life and Death The most hardned Jews themselves that hate and reproach his Memory cannot deny but that there was such a Man and that their Ancestors killed him Nay they are sensible to this day that for that very reason they are despised and abhorred by the Christian World So that no account whatsoever of matter of fact can possibly be more attested more clear and certain than this is That Jesus Christ once lived in the World 2. The next thing is That the History of those Miracles which are said to have been done by Moses and our Blessed Saviour is also as sufficiently credible as any Historical Account can be Two Qualifications are necessary in an Historian to make his Relations sufficiently Credible Knowledge and Integrity and where both these Qualifications meet that is where a Man cannot be ignorant of the Truth of what he writes nor can be justly suspected of an intention to deceive in that case there can be no fair or tolerable reason for our disbelief 1. Now as to Moses's Knowledge 't is impossible to conceive That he knew not what he did himself or that he was not conscious of his own Actions And 't is as impossible to think that the Evangelists knew not what Jesus Christ did For Matthew and John were contiually about him attending personally upon him Eye-witnesses of all his Actions especially the latter who was admitted into his Privacies so that no Miracle is said to have been done at any time out of the common View but what John was a constant Eye-witness of And if Luke and Mark were not such Attendants upon Christ himself as the others were yet the least that is said of them is that the one was conversant with Paul who had as certain Information of all things as the rest of the Apostles had and that the other was conversant with Peter who was allowed the same Priviledge which John enjoyed and was continually one of those three special Favourites who were privy to the Lord Jesus his more secret Actions 2. This short account being given of all these Writers Knowledge the next thing to be shewed to make their Testimony sufficiently credible is their great Intergity which will soon appear to any reasonable Man that will but consider 1. First The Impartiality 2. And then the Simplicity that is observable in their Writings 1. The Evangelists have given us an Impartial Account of the Obscurity of Christ's outward Condition of the Meanness of his Disciples Quality and Fortunes of their Natural Inabilities of the Dulness of their Understandings of the slowness of their Hearts to believe of their Insirmities and Faults and particularly of the Treachery of one Apostle and of the shameful Lapse of another There are none of those things concealed which Men of Art and Partiality would hardly have made known Nay it is observable of Mark that though he was Peter's great Attondant in the Execution of his Ministry yet in relating the Story of Peter's denying his Master he tells it as plainly as Matthew doth with this little difference that he doth not take such affecting notice of his Repentance as the other doth For whereas St. Matthew saith That he wept bitterly St. Mark saith only He wept as if he lessened his Sorrow after an humble modest manner in respect to Peter whose Amanuensis he then was An instance that shews That if there was any Partiality in these Writers it was in this That they did not say enough of one anothers Virtues Such Impartiality is seen throughout the History written by Moses For therein he sets down not only the Poverty of his beginnings but even the Faults and Miscarriages he had been guilty of and how angry God was for them He relates as well the Crimes as the Infirmities of his Ancestors all along from Noah down to the Twelve Patriarchs and among them he particularly notes the Persidiousness and Cruelty of his great Grandfather Levi when he and Simeon trick'd the Sechemites out of their Lives and Fortunes for which Inhumanity their Father Jacob set a Curse upon them which Moses has very faithfully recorded in Gen. 43. In short Whereas Partial Historians are wont to seek themselves a Name by favouring and many times by slattering the Parties they belong to Moses spared not his own Nation But hath left the World a long and lasting Account of the Follies the Insidelity the Murmurings the Ingratitude the Apostacies together with the perverse and incorrigible Temper of that People the Jews neither concealing nor excusing nor extenuating their Provocations his great Design being to set forth the Glory of God's Truth and Goodness who set his love upon them and chose them not because they were better or more in number than any People for they were the fewest of all People and a Rebellious People but because the Lord loved them and because he would keep the Oath which he had sworn unto their Fathers 2. To demonstrate yet further the Integrity of Moses and the Evangelists who speak of such Miracles done let us consider Secondly their great Simplicity of Mind without any mixture of Sinister or Self-designs Men are not wont to tell Tales for nothing 'T is either Vanity or some private Interest which is the end and drift of Impostors And what could Moses propose to himself by telling stories which the Egyptians and Jews were so easily able to contradict if those Miracles had not been done among them Or what advantage can Men think he aimed at when at the same time he spake so hardly of those
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
may with infinite Satifaction find how exactly these Predictions were fulfilled 1. By Cyrus's getting the Power out of the hands of the Babylonians then by Alexander's getting it out of the hands of the Persians and then by the Romans wresting it out of the hands of Alexander's Successors and yet between the delivering and the fulfilling of Daniel's Prophecy there passed a Flux of about Five hundred years which doth manifestly argue the Existence of God who alone could at such a distance of time so infallibly and particularly foresee and predict Events that were in themselves so contingent and uncertan That it looks like an History rather than a Prediction To which purpose St. Jerome tells us of that great Blasphemer of Christ and his Religion Porphyry that reading the Proem in Dan. Book of Daniel and finding how exactly consonant the Events were to the Prophecy he could not but acknowledge the truth of the account but to evade the force of those Arguments which the Christians drew thence he betook himself to this senseless and absurd Pretence that the Book was not a Prediction written by Daniel but rather a Narrative of things that were done long after Daniel's time and written by some body else in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes 2. There is another sort of Predictions which relate peculiarly to Jesus Christ whom Daniel called before-hand Messiah the Prince Dan. 9. 25. Whereupon a very Mr. Mead B. 3. p. 861. Learned Writer observes That there is no other place of Scripture whence the Church of Israel did or could ascribe the Name of Christ and Messiah unto him they looked for but only this of Daniel For there is no other Prophecy in all the Old Testament besides this where that Name is directly given him but only by way of Type which makes it unquestionable that the Jews understood this Prophecy of that Great and Eminent Person whose coming into the World together with all the remarkable Circumstances which attended his Life and Death were long before so particularly foretold by several Prophets that those Predictions are not capable of being fairly applied to any other Person what arts soever some Jews and other misguided Men have used to wrest them another way That he was to be of the Seed of a Woman or that he was to appear in the Nature not of Angels but Men. That of all Mankind he was to spring from the Loins of Abraham That of Abraham's Posterity he was to descend only from Isaac That of all Isaac's Generation he was to be of the Tribe of Judah That of all that Tribe he was to be of the House and Lineage of David That a Virgin of David's Lineage was to conceive and bear him That Bethlehem was to be the place of his Nativity That he was to be a Prophet like unto Moses yet much above him That he was to do Miracles That he was to Preach good Tidings to the meek and to bind up the broken-hearted That he was to be a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with Grief That he was to be despised and rejected of Men. That one of his own Familiars who should eat of his Bread would lift up his Heel against him That he should be sold for thirty pieces of Silver That he should be led to the Slaughter like a Lamb. That he should be numbred with the Transgressors That his Garments should be divided and Lots cast upon his Vesture That Vinegar should be given him to drink That in the midst of his Sufferings he should be scoffed at and reviled That he should make Intercession for Trangressors That for the Sins of People he should be smitten That he should make his Grave with the Rich. That not one of his Bones should be broken And that his Soul should not be left in Hell nor his Body suffer'd to see Corruption These things were foretold of Jesus Christ and taking them altogether in a sum it is impossible for an Insidel with any colour of Reason to apply them to any other but Jesus Christ only But one of the most remarkable things is That the time of Christ's appearing in the World was so plainly foretold by some of the Prophets that the Learned Jews found by their Calculations that about the time when Jesus Christ was born the promised Messiah was to come And hence it was that at that Juncture they were all full of Expectations of him Nor is it at all questionable but the time so agreeing with the Predictions they would joyfully and unanimously have received Jesus Christ as the Messiah had not his coming been in that mean and obscure Condition which was so great a surprize to those People who expected the Messiah would have been like a David or Solomon to have gone in and out before them with all possible Pomp Splendor and Magnificence The Prophet Haggai mentioned the time of his Appearance more largely Hag. 2. 7 9. The Substance of which Prediction was That the desire of all Nations that is the Messiah or Shiloh should come while the Temple which was then a building continued and was standing and that the Glory of that latter House should be greater than the Glory of the former which had been at so vast an Expence erected and finished by King Solomon Now this was fulfilled meerly by Christ's constant presence at that Temple some years before the Destruction of it by the Romans For in respect of the Structure and external Glory of it it fell so very short of the first that when the ancient Men who had seen the first House saw the Foundations of the second They wept with a loud voice as Ezra tells us Ezra 3. 12. And besides the Jewish Rabbins confess that five things were wanting to this Temple which the former was honoured with as so many Signs of the peculiar Presence of God's Majesty at it 1. The Urim and Thummim or those Stones upon the Breast-plate of the High Priest whereby God was wont to reveal his mind 2. The Ark of the Covenant from which the King and the High Priest did sometimes receive answers from God by a clear and audible Voice 3. The Fire that was wont to fall from Heaven to devour the Sacrifice upon the Altar 4. The Shekinah or Divine Power that was signified sometimes by the Pillar of a Cloud and by the Holy Oyl wherewith the King and High Priest were wont to be anointed And 5. the Spirit of Prophecy These glorious things being wanting at the second Temple whence could that great Glory predicted by Haggai proceed but from the Presence of Jesus Christ One that was the Brightness of his Father's Glory and the Glory of his People Israel One that was the true Urim and Thummim that revealed his Father's Will plainly to the World One that was the typified Ark of the Covenant the Propitiatory by his own Blood One that Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire the true Fire from Heaven where of the other was