the advancement of the flourishing condition of the Church is not meerly by outward pomp and grandeur and that the purity of the Church is not inconsistent with a state of outward difficulties which the experience oâ— the Primitive Church gives an irrefragable demonstration of Thus much may serve to shew the necessity of a power of miracles conjoyned with the Christian Doctrine to manifest the truth of it by overthrowing the Kingdom of that great Antichrist the Devil who had usurped so much Tyranny over the world The last reason why a power of miracles was so necessary for confirming the truth of the Gospel is because the Gospel was to be propagated over the world without any other rational evidence then was contained in the miracles wrought for the confirmation of it Now the admirable success which this doctrine found in the world considering all the circumstances of it doth make it clear what certainty there was that the miracles which were wrought were true and they were certain evidences that the doctrine attested by them was from God Now this will appear from these two things That no rational account can be given why the Apostles should undertake to publish such a doctrine unless they had been undoubtedly certain that the Doctrine was true and they had sufficient evidence to perswade others to beleeve it That no satisfactory account can be given considering the nature of the doctrine of Christ and the manner of its propagation why it should meet with so great acceptance in the world had there not been such convincing evidence as might fully perswade men of the truth of it I begin with the first from the publishers of this doctrine in the world All that I here require by way of a Postulatum or supposition are onlythese two things which no man right in his wits I suppose will deny 1. That men are so far rational agents that they will not set upon any work of moment and difficulty without sufficient grounds inducing them to it and by so much the greater the work is the more sure and stedfast had the grounds need to be which they proceed upon 2. That the Apostles or first Publishers of the Christian doctrine were not men distracted or bereft of their wits but acted by principles of common sense reason and understanding as other men in the world do Which if any one should be so far beside his wits as to question if he have but patience and understanding enough to read and consider those admirable writings of theirs which are conveyed to us by as certain uninterrupted a Tradition as any thing in the world hath been and by that time he will see cause to alter his judgement and to say that they are not mad but speak the words of the greatest truth and soberness These things supposed I now proceed to the proving of the thing in hand which will be done by these three things First That the Apostles could not but know how hâ—zardous an employment the preaching of the Gospel would be to them Secondly that no motive can be conceived sufficient for them to undertake such an employment but the infallible truth of the doctrine which they preached Thirdly that the greatest assurance they had themselves of the truth of their Doctrine was by being eye-witnesses of the miracles of Christ. First That the Apostles could not but understand the hazard of their employment notwithstanding which they cheerfully undertook it That men armed with no external power nor cried up for their wit and learning and carrying a doctrine with them so contraâ—y to the general inclinations of the world having nothing in it to recommend it to mankind but the Truth of it should go about to perswade the world to part with the Religion they owned and was setled by their laws and to embrace such a religion as called them off from all the things they loved in this world and to prepare themselves by mortification self-denial for another world is a thing to humane reason incredible unless we suppose them acted by a higher spirit then mankind is ordinarily acted by For what is there so desirable in continual reproaches contumelies what delight is there in racks and prisons what agreeableness in flames and martyrdoms to make men undergo some nay all of these rather then disown that doctrine which they came to publish Yet these did the Apostles cheerfully undergo in order to the conversion of the world to the truth of that doctrine which they delivered to it And not only so but though they did foresee them they were not discouraged from this undertaking by it I confess when men are upon hopes of profit and interest in the world engaged upon a design which they promise themselves impunity in having power on their side though afterwards things should fall out contrary to their expectation such persons may die in such a cause because they must and some may carry it out with more resolution partly through an innate fortitude of spirit heightened with the advantages of Religion or an Enthusiastick temper But it is hard to conceive that such persons would have undertaken so hazardous an employment if beforehand they had foreseen what they must have undergone for it But now the Apostles did foreknow that bonds and imprisonment nay death its self must be undergone in a violent manner for the sake of the doctrine which they preached yet not withstanding all this they go boldly and with resolution on with their work and give not over because of any hardships and persecutions they met withall One of the chiesest of them S. Peter and as forward as any in Preaching the Gospel had the very manner of his death foretold him by Christ himself before his Ascension yet soon after we find him preaching Christ in the midst of those who had crucified him and telling them to their faces the greatness of their sin in it and appealing to the miracles which Christ had done among them and bidding them repent and believe in him whom they had crucified if ever they would be saved And this he did not only among the people who gave their consent to the crucifying of Christ but soon after being conventedâ—ogether â—ogether with Iohn before the Court of Sanbedrin probably the very same which not long before had sentenced Christ to death for a miracle wrought by them with what incredible boldness doth he to their faces tell them of their murdering Christ and withall that there was no other way to salvation but by him whom they had crucified Be it known unto you all saith Peter to the Sanhedrin and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Iesus Christ whom ye have crucified whom God raised from the dead even by him doth this man stand here before you whole Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved What
truths but contrary to their pre-conceptions or interests have been forbidden entrance Prejudice is the wrong bias of the soul that effectually keeps it from coming near the mark of truth nay sets it at the greatest distance from it There are few in the world that look after truth with their own eyes most make use of spectacles of others making which makes them so seldom behold the proper lineaments in the face of Truth which the several tinctures from education authority custom and predisposition do exceedingly hinder men from discerning of Another reason why there are so few who find truth when so many pretend to seek it is that near resemblance which Error often bears to Truth It hath been well observed that Error seldom walks abroad the world in her own raiments she always borrows something of truth to make her more acceptable to the world It hath been always the subtilty of grand deceivers to graft their greatest errors on some material truths to make them pass more undiscernable to all such who look more at the root on which they stand then on the fruits which they bring forth It will hereafter appear how most of the grossest of the heathen errors have as Plutarch saith of the Egyptian Fables 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some faint and obscure resemblances of truth nay more then so as most pernicious weeds are bred in the fattest soyls their most destructive principles have been founded on some necessary and important truths Thus Idolatry doth suppose the belief of the existence of a Deity and superstition the Immortality of the souls of men The Devil could never have built his Chappels but on the same ground whereon Gods Temples stood which makes me far less wonder then many do at the meeting with many expressions concerning these two grand truths in the writings of ancient Heathens knowing how willing the devil might be to have such principles still owned in the world which by his depraving of them might be the nourishers of Idolatry and Superstition For the general knowledge of a Divine nature supposing men Ignorant of the true God did only lay a foundation to erect his Idolatrous Temples upon and the belief of the souls surviving the body after death without knowledge of the true way of attaining happiness did make men more eager of imbracing those Rites and Ceremonies which canie with a pretence of shewing the way to a blessed immortality Which may be a most probable reason why Philosophy and Idolatry did increase so much together as they did for though right reason fully improved would have overthrown all those cursed and Idolatrous practises among the Heathens yet reason only discerning some general notions without their particular application and improvement did only dispose the most ordinary sort of people to a more ready entertainment of the most gross Idolatry For hereby they discerned the necessity of some kind of worship but could not find out the right way of it and therefore they greedily followed that which was commended to them by such who did withall agree with them in the common sentiments of humane nature Nay and those persons themselves who were the great maintainers of these sublimer notions concerning God and the soul of man were either the great instruments of advancing that horrid superstition among them as Orpheus Apollonius or very forward Complyers with it as many of the Philosophers were Although withall it cannot be denied to have been a wonderful discovery of Divine providence by these general notions to keep waking the inward senses of mens souls that thereby it might appear when Divine Revelation should be manifested to them that it brought nothing contrary to the common principles of humane nature but did only rectifie the depravations of it and clearly shew men that way which they had long been ignorantly seeking after Which was the excellent advantage the Apostle made of the Inscription on the Altar at Athens to the unknown God Whom saith he ye ignorantly serve him I declare unto you And which was the happy use the Primitive learned Christians made of all those passages concerning the divine nature and the Immortality of the souls of men which they found in the Heathen Writers thereby to evidence to the world that the main postulata or suppositions of Christian Religion were granted by their own most admired men and that Christianity did not race out but only build upon those common foundations which were entertained by all who had any name for reason Though this I say were the happy effect of this building errors on common truths to all that had the advantage of Divine revelation to discern the one from the other yet as to others who were destitute of it they were lyable to this twofold great inconvenience by it First for the sake of the apparent rottenness of the Superstructures to question the soundness of the foundations on which they stood And this I doubt not was the case of many considerative heathens who observing that monstrous and unreasonable way of worship obtaining among the heathen and not being able by the strength of their own reason through the want of divine revelation to deduce any certain instituted worship they were shrewdly tempted to renounce those principles when they could not but abhor the conclusions drawn from them for there is nothing more usual then for men who exceedingly detest some absurd consequence they see may be drawn from a principle supposed to reject the principle its self for the sake of that consequence which it may be doth not necessarily follow from it but through the shortness of their own reason doth appear to them to do so Thus when the Intelligent heathen did apparently see that from the principles of the Being of God and the Immortality of souls did flow all those unnatural and inhumane Sacrifices all those absurd and ridiculous Rites all those execrable and profane mysteries out of a loathing the Immoralities and impieties which attended these they were brought to question the very truth and certainty of those principles which were capable of being thus abused And therefore I am very prone to suspect the Apology usually made for Protagoras Diagoras and such others of them who were accounted Atheists to be more favourable then true viz. that they only rejected those heathen Deities and not the belief of the Divine nature I should think this account of their reputed Atheism rational were it any wayes evident that they did build their belief of a Divine nature upon any other grounds then such as were common to them with those whose worship they so much derided And therefore when the Heathens accused the Christians of Atheism I have full and clear evidence that no more could be meant thereby then the rejection of their way of worship because I have sufficient Assurance from them that they did believe in a Divine nature and an instituted Religion most suitable to the most common received notions
and what was not suitable was rejected as monstrous and Anomalous so it was in their history wherein they had some fabulous hypotheses they took for granted without enquiring into the truth and certainty of them and to these they suit whatever light they gained in after times of the state of forreign Nations which hath made Truth and Antiquity wrestle so much with the corruptions which eat into them through the pride and ignorance of the Greeks Hence they have alwayes suited the History of other Nations with the account they give of their own and where nothing could serve out of their own History to give an account of the original of other Nations they who were never backward at fictions have made a founder of them suitable to their own language The truth is there is nothing in the world useful or beneficial to mankind but they have made shift to finde the Author of it among themselves If we enquire after the original of agriculture we are told of Ceres and Triptolemus if of pasturage we are told of an Arcadian Pan if of wine we presently hear of a Liber Pater if of Iron instruments then who but Vulcan if of Musick none like to Apollo If we press them then with the History of other Nations they are as well provided here if we enquire an account of Europe Asia or Lybia for the first we are told a fine story of Cadmus his sister for the second of Promethâ—us his Mother of that name and for the third of a daughter of Epaphus If we are yet so curious as to know the original of particular Countries then Italia must finde its name from a Calfe of Hercules because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek will signifie some such thing Sardinia and Africa must be from Sardos and Afer two sons of Hercules but yet if these will not serve Hercules shall not want for children to people the world for we hear of Scythes Galatas Lydus some other sons of his that gave names to Scythia Lydia Galatia with the same probability that Media had its name from Medea and Spain and Lusitania from Pan and Lusus two companione of Bacchus If Persia want a founder they have one Perseus an Argive ready for it if Syria Babylonia and Arabia want reasons of their names the prodigal Greeks will give Apollo three sons Syrus Babylon and Arabs rather then they shall be heretical Acephalists This vanity of theirs was universal not confined to any place or age but as any Nation or people came into their knowledge their Gods were not so decrepit but they might Father one son more upon them rather then any Nation should be filia populi and want a Father Only the grave Athenians thought scorn to have any Father assigned them their only ambition was to be accounted Aborigines genuini terrae to be the eldest sons of their Teeming mother the earth and to have been born by the same aequivocal generation that mice and frogs are from the impregnated slime of the earth Are we not like to have a wonderfull account of antient times from those who could arrogate to themselves so much knowledge from such slender and thin accounts of the originals of people which they gave and would have the world to entertain with the greatest veneration upon their naked words Have we not indeed great reason to hearken to those who did so frequently discover their affection to Fables and manifest their ignorance when ever they venture upon the History of other Nations The truth is Herodotus himself whom Tully calls the Father of History which title he deserves at least in regard of antiquity being the eldest of the extant Greek Historians hath stood in need of his Compurgators who yet have not been able to acquit him of fabulousness but have sought to make good his credit by recrimination or by making it appear that Herodotus did not fully believe the stories he tells but took them upon trust himself and so delivers them to the world Some impute it to the ingenuity of Herodotus that he calls his books of History by the name of the Muses on purpose to tell his readers they must not look for meer History in him but a mixture of such relations which though not true might yet please and entertain his readers Though others think they were not so inscribed by himself but the names were given to them by the Greeks from the admiration his History had among them However this were this we are certain that Herodotus was not first suspected of falshood in these latter ages of the world but even among the Greeks themselves there have been found some that would undertake to make good that charge against him For so Suidas tells us of one Harpocration Aelius who writ a book on purpose to discover the falshood of Herodotus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch his books are well known of the spight or malignity of Herodotus but the occasion of that is sufficiently known likewise because Herodotus had given no very favourable character of Plutarchs Country Strabo likewise seems to accuse Herodotus much of nugacity and mixing prodigious fables with his History but I confess observing the grounds on which Plutarch insists against Herodotus I am very prone to think that the ground of the great pique in some of the Greek writers against Herodotus was that he told too many tales out of School and had discovered too much of the Infancy of Greece and how much the Grecians borrowed of the Aegyptian superstitions which Plutarch expresly speaks of that Herodotus was too much led aside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Although therefore Herodotus may not be much too blame in the things which the Graecians most charge him with yet those who favour him most cannot excuse his palpable mistakes in some things and ignorance in others Iosephus thinks he was deceived by the Aegyptian Priests in things relating to the state of their affairs of which Ios. Scaliger gives many accounts either saith he the persons who gave him his intelligence were ignorant themselves or else like true Egyptians they were cunning enough but imposed upon Herodotus being a stranger and unacquainted with their artifices or else he did not understand his Interpreter or was deceived by him or lastly Herodotus might have so much of a Grecian in him as to adulterate the true History with some fables of his own wherefore he rather adheres to Manetho then Herodotus as to the Aegyptian History who yet elsewhere I will not say with what constancy to himself vouchsafes him this high elogium that he is Scrinium originum Graecarum Barbararum auctor à doctis nunquam deponendus It cannot be denyed but a great deal of very useful history may be fetched out of him yet who can excuse his Ignorance when he not only denyes there is an Ocean compassing the Land but condemns the Geographers for asserting it Unless this might be
so great uncertainty and confusion so much partiality and inconsistency with each other It remains now that I proceed to demonstrate the credibility of that account of ancient times which is reported in the Sacred Scriptures which will be the second part of our Task BOOK II. CHAP. I. The certainty of the Writings of Moses In order to the proving the truth of Scripture-history several Hypotheses laid down The first concerns the reasonableness of preserving the ancient History of the world in some certain Records from the importance of the things and the inconveniences of meer tradition or constant Revelation The second concerns the certainty that the Records under Moses his name were undoubtedly his The certainty of a matter of fact enquired into in general and proved as to this particular by universal consent and settling a Common-wealth upon his Laws The impossibility of an Imposture as to the writings of Moses demonstrated The plea's to the contrary largely answered HAving sufficiently demonstrated the want of credibility in the account of ancient times given by those Nations who have made the greatest pretence to Learning and Antiquity in the world we now proceed to evince the credibility and certainty of that account which is given us in sacred Screptures In order to which I shall premise these following Hypotheses It stands to the greatest reason that an account of things so concerning and remarkable should not be always left to the uncertainty of an oral tradition but should be timely entred into certain Records to be preserved to the memory of posterity For it being of concernment to the world in order to the establishment of belief as to future things to be fully setled in the belief that all things past were managed by Divine providence there must be some certain Records of former ages or else the mind of man will be perpetually hovering in the greatest uncertainties Especially where there is such a mutual dependence and concatenation of one thing with another as there is in all the Scripture-history For take away but any one of the main foundations of the Mosaical history all the superstructure will be exceedingly weakened if it doth not fall quite to the ground For mans obligation to obedience unto God doth necessarily suppose his original to be from him his hearkening to any proposals of favour from God doth suppose his Apostacy and fall Gods designing to shew mercy and favour to fallen man doth suppose that there must be some way whereby the Great Creator must reveal himself as to the conditions on which fallen man may expect a recovery the revealing of these conditions in such a way whereon a suspicious because guilty creature may firmly rely doth suppose so certain a recording of them as may be least liable to any suspicion of imposture or deceit For although nothing else be in its self necessary from God to man in order to his salvation but the bare revealing in a certain way the terms on which he must expect it yet considering the unbounded nature of Divine goodness respecting not only the good of some particular persons but of the whole society of mankind it stands to the greatest reason that such a revelation should be so propounded as might be with equal certainty conveyed to the community of mankind Which could not with any such evidence of credibility be done by private and particular revelations which give satisfaction only to the inward senses of the partakers of them as by a publick recording of the matters of Divine revelation by such a person who is enabled to give the world all reasonable satisfaction that what he did was not of any private design of his own head but that he was deputed to it by no less then Divine authority And therefore it stands to the highest reason that where Divine revelation is necessary for the certain requiring of assent the matter to be believed should have a certain uniform conveyance to mens minds rather then that perpetually New revelations should be required for the making known of those things which being once recorded are not lyable to so many impostures as the other way might have been under pretended Revelations For then men are not put to a continual tryal of every person pretending Divine revelation as to the evidences which he brings of Divine authority but the great matters of concernment being already recorded and attested by all rational evidence as to the truth of the things their minds therein rest satisfied without being under a continual hesitancy lest the Revelation of one should contradict another For supposing that God had left the matters of Divine revelation unrecorded at all but left them to be discovered in every age by a spirit of prophecy by such a multitude as might be sufficient to inform the world of the truth of the things We cannot but conceive that an innumerable company of croaking Enthusiasts would be continually pretending commissions from heaven by which the minds of men would be left in continual distraction because they would have no certain infallible rules given them whereby to difference the good and evil spirit from each other But now supposing God to inspire some particular persons not only to reveal but to record Divine truths then what ever evidences can be brought attesting a Divine revelation in them will likewise prove the undoubted certainty and infallibility of those writings it being impossible that persons employed by a God of truth should make it their design to impose upon the world which gives us a rational account why the wise God did not suffer the History of the world to lye still unrecorded but made choice of such a person to record it who gave abundant evidence to the world that he acted no private design but was peculiarly employed by God himself for the doing of it as will appear afterwards Besides we finde by our former discourse how lyable the most certain tradition is to be corrupted in progress of time where there are no standing records though it were at first delivered by persons of undoubted credit For we have no reason to doubt but that the tradition of the old world the flood and the consequences of it with the nature and worship of the true God were at first spread over the greatest part of the world in its first plantations yet we see how soon for want of certain conveyance all the antient tradition was corrupted and abused into the greatest Idolatry Which might be less wondered at had it been only in those parts which were furthest remote from the seat of those grand transactions but thus we finde it was even among those families who had the nearest residence to the place of them and among those persons who were not far off in a lineal descent from the persons mainly concerned in them as is most evident in the family out of which Abraham came who was himself the tenth from Noah yet of them it is said that they
whom it was very frequent who worshipped the devils instead of Gods 2. Because of the general dispersion of Copies in the world upon the first publishing of them We cannot otherwise coâ—ceive but that records containing so weighty and important things would be transcribed by all those Churches which believed the truth of the things contained in them We see how far curiosity will carry men as to the care of transcribing antient MSS. of old Authors which contain only some history of things past that are of no great concernment to us Can we then imagine those who ventured estates and lives upon the truth of the things revealed in Scripture would not be very careful to preserve the authentick instrument whereby they are revealed in a certain way to the whole world And besides this for a long time the originals themselves of the Apostolical writings were preserved in the Church which makes Tertullian in his time appeal to them Age jam qui voles curiositatem melius exercere in negotio salutis tuae percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud quasipsae adhuc cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesidentur apud quas ipsae authenticae corum literae recitantur sonantes vocem representantes faciem uniuscujusque Now how was it possible that in that time the Scriptures could be corrupted when in some of the Churches the original writings of the Apostles were preserved in a continual succession of persons from the Apostles themselves and from these originals so many Copies were transcribed as were conveyed almost all the world over through the large spread of the Christian Churches at that time and therefore it is impossible to conceive that a Copy should be corrupted in one Church when it would so speedily be discovered by another especially considering these three circumstances 1. The innumerable multitude of Copies wh ch would speedily be taken both considering the moment of the thing and the easiness of doing it God probably for that very end not loading the world with Pandâ—cts and Codes of his Laws but contriving the whole instrument of mans salvation in so narrow a compass that it might be easily preserved and transcribed by such who were passionate admirers of the Scriptures 2. The great number of learned and inquisitive men who soon sprung up in the Christian Church whose great care was to explain and vindicate the sacred Scriptures can we then think that all these Watch-men should be asleep together when the â—vil one came to sow his Tares which it is most unreasonable to imagine when in the writings of all these learned men which were very many and voluminous so much of the Scripture was inserted that had there been corruption in the Copies themselves yet comparing them with those writings the corruptions would be soon discovered 3. The great venâ—ration which all Christians had of the Scripture that they placed the hopes of their eternal happiness upon the truth of the things contained in the Scriptures Can we then think these would suffer any material alteration to creep into these records without their observing and discovering it Can we now think when all persons are so exceeding careful of their Deeds and the Records whereon their estates depend that the Christians who valued not this world in comparison of that to come should suffer the Magna Charta of that to be lost corrupted or imbezzeled away Especially considering what care and industry was used by many primitive Christians to compare Copies together as is evident in Pantaenus who brought the Hebrew Copy of Matthew out of the Indies to Alexandria as Eusebius tells us in Pamphilus and the Library he errected at Caesarâ—a but especially in Origens admirable Hexapla which were mainly intended for this end 3. It is impossible to conceive a corruption of the copy of the Scriptures because of the great differences which were all along the several ages of the Church between those who acknowledged the Scriptures to be Divine So that if one party of them had foisted in or taken out any thing another party was ready to take notice of it and would be sure to tell the world of it And this might be one great reason why God in his wise providence might permit such an increase of heresies in the Infancy of the Church viz. that thereby Christians might be forced to stand upon their guard and to have a special eye to the Scriptures which were alwayes the great eye-sores of hereticks And from this great wariness of the Church it was that some of the Epistles were so long abroad before they found general entertainment in all the Churches of Christ because in those Epistles which were doubted for some tâ—me there were some passages which seemed to favour some of the heresies then abroad but when upon severe enquiry they are found to be what they pretended they were received in all the Christian Churches 4. Because of the agreement between the Old Tâ—stament and the New the Prophesies of the Old Testament appear with their full accomplishment in the New which we have so that it is impossible to think the New should be corrupted unless the old were too which is most unreasonable to imagine when the Iews who have been the great conservators of the Old Testament have been all along the most inveterate enemies of the Christians So that we cannot at all conceive it possible that any material corruptions or alterations should creep into the Scriptures much less that the true copy should be lost and a new one forged Supposing then that we have the same authentick records preserved and handed down to us by the care of all Christian Churches which were written in the first ages of the Church of Christ what necessity can we imagine that God should work new miracles to confirm that dâ—ctrine which is conveyed down in a certain uninterrupted way to us as being seâ—led by miracles undoubtedly Divine in the first promulgation and penning of it And this is the first reason why the truth of the Scriptures need not now be sealed by new miracles 2. Another may be because God in the Scripture hath appointed other things to continue in his Church to be as seals to his people of the truth of the things contained in Scriptures Such are outwardly the Sacraments of the Gospel baptism and the Lords Supper which are set apart to be as seals to confirm the truth of the Covenant on Gods part towards us in reference to the great promises contained in it in reference to pardon of sin and the ground of our acceptance with God by Iesus Christ and inwardly God hath promised his Spirit to be as a witness within them that by its working and strengthning grace in the hearts of believers it may confirm to them the truth of the records of Scripture when they finde the counter part of them written in their hearts by the singer of the Spirit of God It cannot then be with any reason at all supposed
an opinion doth and is sufficiently derided and refuted by Pomponatius himself Now then it being an acknowledged principle in nature that every thing continues in the course it is in till something more powerful put it out if then such things have been in the world which have been real alterations of the course of nature as the Suns standing still in the time of Joshua then there must be something above matter and motion and consequently that there is a God CHAP. II. Of the Origine of the Universe The necessity of the belief of the creation of the world in order to the truth of Religion Of the several Hypotheses of the Philosophers who contradict Moses with a particular examination of them The ancient tradition of the world consonant to Moses proved from the Ionick Philosophy of Thales and the Italick of Pythagoras The Pythagorick Cabbala rather Aegyptian then Mosaick Of the fluid matter which was the material principle of the universe Of the Hypothesis of the eternity of the world asserted by Ocellus Lucanus and Aristotle The weakness of the foundations on which that opinion is built Of the manner of forming principles of Philosophy The possibility of creation proved No arguing from the present state of the world against its beginning shewed from Maimonides The Platonists arguments from the goodness of God for the eternity of the world answered Of the Stoical Hypothesis of the eternity of matter whether reconcilable with the text of Moses Of the opinions of Plato and Pythagoras concerning the praeexistence of matter to the formation of the world The contradiction of the eternity of matter to the nature and attributes of God Of the Atomical Hypothesis of the Origine of the Universe The World could not be produced by a casual concourse of Atoms proved from the nature and motion of Epicurus his Atoms and the Phaenomena of the Universe especially the production and nature of Animals Of the Cartesian Hypothesis that it cannot salve the Origine of the Universe without a Deity giving motion to matter THE foundations of religion being thus established in the Being of God and the immortality of the soul we now come to erect our super structure upon them by asserting the undoubted truth and certainty of that account of the world which is given us in the writings of Moses Which beginning with the world its self leads us to a particular consideration of the Origine of the Universe the right understanding of which hath very great influence upon our belief of all that follows in the Word of God For although we should assert with Epicurus the Being of a Deity if yet with him we add that the world was made by a casual concourse of Atoms all that part of Religion which lies in obedience to the Will of God is unavoidably destroyed All that is left is only a kind of Veneration of a Bâ—ing more excellent then our own which reacheth not to the government of mens lives and so will have no force at all upon the generality of the world who are only allured by hopes or awed by fears to that which of their choice they would be glad to be freed from Besides what expressions of gratitude can be left to God for his goodness if he interpose not in the affairs of the world what dependence can there be on divine goodness if it be not at all manifested in the world what apprehensions can we have of Gods infinite Wisdom and Power if neither of them are discernable in the Being of the world And as the opinion of Epicurus destroys Religion so doth that of Aristotle which attributes eternity to the Universe and a necessary emanation of it from the first cause as light comes from the Sun for if so as Maimonides well observes the whole Religion of Moses is overthrown all his miracles are but impostures all the hopes which are grounded on the Promises of God are vain and fruitless For if the world did of necessity exist then God is no free agent and if so then all instituted Religion is to no purpose nor can there be any expectation of reward or fear of punishment from him who hath nothing else to do in the world but to set the great wheele of the Heavens going So much is it our concernment to enquire into the true Original of the world and on what evidence of reason those opinions are built which are so contrary to that account given of it in the very entrance of the Bâ—oks of Moses Wherein we read the true Origine of the world to have been by a production of it by the omnipotent Will and Word of God This being then the plain assertion of Moses we come to compare it in point of reason with all those several Hypotheses which are repugnant to it which have been embraced in several ages by the Philosophers of greatest esteem in the world Which may be reduced to these four 1. Such as suppose the world to have existed as it is from all eternity 2. Such as attribute the formation of the world as it is to God but withall assert the praeexistence and eternity of matter 3. Such as deny any eternity to the world but assert the Origine of it to have been by a casual concourse of Atoms 4. Such as endeavâ—ur to explain the Origine of the Universe and all appearances of nature meerly by the Mechanical Laws of the motion of matter I begin with those who asserted the eternity of the world as it is among whom Aristotle hath born the greatest name who seems to have arrogated this opinion to himself for when he enquires into the judgment of the Philosophers who had writ-before him he sayes of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Philosophers asserted that the world was made though some one way some another And were this true which Aristotle-saith it would be the strongest prejudice against his opinion for if the world had been eternal how should it come to pass that the eldest Philosophers should so readily and unanimously embrace that opinion which asserted the production of the world Was it not a strong presumption of the Novity of the Universe that all Nations to whom the Philosophers resorted had memorials left among them of the first Origine of things And from hence it is observable that when the humour of Philosophizing began to take the Greeks about the XL. Olympiad when we may suppose Thales to flourish the beginning of the world was no matter of dispute but taking that for granted the enquiry was out of what material principle the Universe was formed of which Thales thus delivers his opinion in Tully aquam dixit esse initium rerum Deum autem eam mentem quae ex aqua cuncta fingeret wherein he plainly distinguisheth the efficient from the material cause of the world The prime efficient was God the material principle water It is a matter of some enquiry whether the first
condition of our souls 3. The Scripture discovers to us the only way of pleasing God and enjoying his favour That clearly reveals the way which man might have sought for to all eternity without particular revelation whereby sins may be pardond and whatever we do may be acceptable unto God It shews us that the ground of our acceptance with God is through Christ whom he hath made a propitiation for the sins of the world and who alone is the true and living way whereby we may draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience Through Christ we understand the terms on which God will shew favour and grace to the world and by him we have ground of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 access with freedome and boldness unto God On his account we may hope not only for grace so subdue our sins resist temptations conquer the devil and the world but having fought this good fight and finished our course by patient continuance in well doing we may justly look for glory honour and immortality and that crown of righteousness which is laid up for those who wait in faith holiness and humility for the appearance of Christ from heaven Now what things can there be of greater moment and importance for men to know or God to reveal then the nature of God and our selves the state and condition of our souls the only way to avoid eternal misery and enjoy everlasting Bliss The Scriptures discover not only matters of importance but of the greatest depth and mysteriousness There are many wonderful things in the Law of God things we may admire but are never able to comprehend Such are the eternal purposes and decrees of God the doctrine of the Trinity the Incarnation of the Son of God and the manner of the operation of the Spirit of God on the souls of men which are all things of great weight and moment for us to understand and believe that they are and yet may be unsearchable to our reason as to the particular manner of them What certain ground our faith stands on as to these things hath been already shewed and therefore I forbear insisting on them The Scripture comprehends matters of the most universal satisfaction to the minds of men though many things do much exceed our apprehensions yet others are most suâ—table to the dictates of our nature As Origen bid Celsus see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether it was not the agreeableness of the principles of faith with the common notions of humane nature that which prevailed most upon all candid and ingenuous auditors of them And therefore as Socrates said of Heraclitus his books What he understood was excellent and therefore he supposed that which he did not understand was so too so ought we to say of the Scriptures if those things which are within our capacity be so suitable to our natures and reasons those cannot contradict our reason which yet are above them There are many things which the minds of men were sufficiently assured that they were yet were to seek for satisfaction concerning them which they could never have had without Divine revelation As the nature of true happiness wherein it lay and how to be obtained which the Philosophers were so puzled with the Scripture gives us full satisfaction concerning it True contentment under the troubles of life which the Scripture only acquaints us with the true grounds of and all the prescriptions of Heathen Moralists fall as much short of as the directions of an Empirick doth of a wise and skilful Physitian Avoiding the fears of death which can alone be through a grounded expectation of a future state of happiness which death leads men to which cannot be had but through the right understanding of the Word of God Thus we see the excellency of the matters themselves contained in this revelation of the mind of God to the world As the matters themselves are of an excellent nature so is the manner wherein they are revealed in the Scriptures and that 1. In a clear and perspicuous manner not but there may be still some passages which are hard to be understood as being either prophetical or consisting of ambiguous phrases or containing matters above our comprehension but all those things which concern the terms of mans salvation are delivered with the greatest evidence and perspicuiry Who cannot understand what these things mean What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God that without faith it is impossible to please God that without holiness none shall see the Lord that unless we be born again we can never enter into the Kingdom of heaven these and such like things are so plain and clear that it is nothing but mens shutting their eyes against the light can keep them from understanding them God intended these things as directions to men and is not he able to speak intelligibly when he please he that made the tongue shall he not speak so as to be understood without an infallible interpreter especially when it is his design to make known to men the terms of their eternal happiness Will God judge men at the great day for not believing those things which they could not understand Strange that ever men should judge the Scriptures obscure in matters necessary when the Scripture accounts it so great a judgement for men not to understand them If our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not least the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto them Sure Lots door was visible enough if it were a judgement for the men of Sodom not to see it and the Scriptures then are plain and intelligible enough if it be so great a judgement not to understand them 2. In a powerful and authoritative manner as the things contained in Scripture do not so much beg acceptance as command it in that the expressions wherein our duty is concerned are such as awe mens consciences and pierce to their hearts and to their secret thoughts All things are open and naked before this Word of God every secret of the mind and thought of the heart lyes open to its stroke and force it is quick and powerful sharper then a two-edged sword piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joynts and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart The word is a Telescope to discover the great Luminaries of the world the truths of highest concernment to the souls of men and it is such a Microscope as discovers to us the smallest Atome of our thoughts and discerns the most secret intent of the heart And as far as this light reacheth it comes with power and authority as it comes armed with the Majesty
of that God who reveals it whose authority extends over the soul and conscience of man in its most secret and hidden recesses 3. In a pure and unmixed manner in all other writings how good soever we have a great mixture of dross and gold together here is nothing but pure gold Diamonds without flaws Suns without spots The most current coynes of the world have their alloyes of baser mettals there is no such mixture in divine Truths as they all come from the same Author so they all have the same purity There is a Urim and Thumim upon the whole Scripture light and perfection in every part of it In the Philosophers we may meet it may be with some scattered fragments of purer mettal amidst abundance of dross and impure oare here we have whole wedges of gold the same vein of purity and holiness running through the whole book of Scriptures Hence it is called the form of sound words here have been no hucksters to corrupt and mix their own inventions with Divine Truths 4 In an uniform and agreeable manner This I grant is not sufficient of its self to prove the Scriptures to be Divine because all men do not contradict themselves in their writings but yet here are some peculiar circumstances to be considered in the agreeableness of the parts of Scripture to each other which are not to be found in meer humane writings 1. That this doctrine was delivered by persons who lived in different ages and times from each other Usually one age corrects anothers faults and we are apt to pitty the ignorance of our predecessors when it may be our posterity may think us as ignorant as we do them But in the sacred Scripture we read not one age condemning another we find light still increasing in the series of times in Scripture but no reflections in any time upon the ignorance or weakness of the precedent the dimmest light was sufficient for its age and was a step to further discovery Quintilian gives it as the reason of the great uncertainty of Grammar rules quia non analogia demissa coelo formam loquendi dedit that which he wanted as to Grammar we have as to Divine Truths they are delivered from heaven and therefore are alwayes uniform and agreeable to each other 2. By persons of different interests in the world God made choice of men of all ranks to be enditers of his oracles to make it appear it was no matter of State policy or particular interest which was contained in his word which persons of such different interests could not have agreed in as they do We have Moses David Solomon persons of royal rank and quality and can it be any mean thing which these think it their glory to be penners of We have Isaiah Daniel and other persons of the highest education and accomplishments and can it be any trivial thing which these imploy themselves in We have Amos other Prophets in the old Testament and the Apostles in the New of the meaner sort of men in the world yet all these joyn in consort together when God tunes their spirits all agree in the same strain of divine truths and give light and harmony to each other 3. By persons in different places and conditions some in prosperity in their own country some under banishment and adversity yet all agreeing in the same substance of doctrine of which no alteration we see was made either for the flattery of those in power or for avoiding miseries and calamities And under all the different dispensations before under and after the Law though the management of things was different yet the doctrine and design was for substance the same in all All the different dispensations agree in the same common principles of religion the same ground of acceptance with God and obligation to duty was common to all though the peculiar instances wherein God was served might be different according to the ages of growth in the Church of God So that this great uniformity considered in these circumstances is an argument that these things came originally from the same Spirit though conveyed through different instruments to the knowledge of the world 5. In a perswasive and convincing manner and that these wayes 1. Bringing divine truths down to our capacity cloathing spiritual matter in familiar expressions and similitudes that so they might have the easier admission into our minds 2. Propounding things as our interest which are our duty thence God so frequently in Scripture recommends our dutyes to us under all those motives which are wont to have the greatest force on the minds of men and annexeth gracious promises to our performance of them and those of the most weighty and concerning things Of grace favour protection deliverance audience of prayers and eternal happiness and is these will not prevail with men what motives will 3. Courting us to obedience when he might not only command us to obey but punish presently for disobedience Hence are all those most pathetical and affectionate strains we read in Scripture O that there were such a heart within them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments alwayes that it might go well with them and with their children after them Wo unto thee O Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes for why will ye dye O hâ—use of Israel How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel how shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zâ—boim mine heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together O Jerusalem Jerusalem how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings and ye would not What Majesty and yet what sweetness and condescension is there in these expressions What obstinacy and rebellion is it in men for them to stand out against God when he thus comes down from his throne of Majesty and wooes rebellious sinners to return unto him that they may be pardoned Such a matchless and unparalleld strain of Rhâ—torick is there in the Scripture far above the art and insinuations of the most admired Orators Thus we see the peculiar excellency of the manner wherein the matters contained in Scripture are revealed to us thus we have considered the excellency of the Scripture as it is a discovery of Gods mind to the world The Scriptures may be considered as a rule of life or as a Law of God which is given for the Government of the lives of men and therein the excellency of it lies in the nature of the dutyes and the encouragements to the practice of them 1. In the nature of the dutyes required which are most becoming God to require most reasonable for us to perform 1. Most becoming God to require as they are most suitable and agreeable to the Divine nature the imitation of which in our actions is the
subjects they treated of and some fragments 3. Those that are extant either confess their Ignorance of eldest times or plainly discover it Of the first sort are Thucydides and Plutarch several evidences of the Graecians Ignorance of the true original of Nations Of Herodotus and his mistakes the Greeks ignorance in Geography discovered and thence their insufficiency as to an account of ancient history page 56 CHAP. V. The general uncertainty of Heathen Chronology The want of credibility in Heathen History further proved from the uncertainty and confusion in their accounts of ancient times that discovered by the uncertain form of their years An enquiry into the different forms of the Aegyptian years the first of thirty dayes the second of four Months of both instances given in the Aegyptian history Of the Chaldaean accounts and the first Dynastyes mentioned by Berosus how they may be reduced to probability Of the Aegyptian Dynastyes Of Manetho Reasons of accounting them fabulous because not attested by any credible authority and rejected by the best Historians The opinion of Scaliger and Vossius concerning their being cotemporary propounded and rejected with reasons against it Of the ancient division of Aegypt into Nomi or Provinces and the number of them against Vossius and Kircher Page 73 CHAP. VI. The uncertain Epocha's of Heathen Chronology An account given of the defect of Chronology in the â—ldest times Of the Solar year among the Aegyptians the original of the Epacts the antiquity of Intercalation among them Of the several Canicular years the difference between Scaliger and Petavius considered The certain Epocha's of the Aegyptian history no elder then Nabonasser Of the Graecian accounts The fabulousness of the Heroical age of Greece Of the ancient Graecian Kingdoms The beginning of the Olympiads The uncertain Origines of the Western Nations Of the Latine Dynastyes The different Palilia of Rome The uncertain reckoning Ab. V. C. Of impostures as to ancient histories Of Annius Inghiramius and others Of the characters used by Heathen Priests No sacred characters among the fews The partiality and inconsistency of Heathen bistories with each other From all which the want of credibility in them as to an account of ancient times is clearly demonstrated page 89 BOOK II. CHAP. I. The certainty of the Writings of Moses In order to the proving the truth of Scripture-history several Hypotheses laid down The first concerns the reasonableness of preserving the ancient History of the world in some certain Records from the importance of the things and the inconveniencies of meer tradition or constant Revelationâ— The second concerns the certainty that the Records under Moses his name were undoubtedly his The certainty of a matter of fact enquired into in general and proved as to this particular by universal consent and settling a Common-wealth upon his Laws The impossibility of an Imposture as to the writings of Moses demonstrated The plea's to the contrary largely answered page 107 CHAP. II. Moses his certain knowledge of what he writ The third Hypothesis concerns the certainty of the matter of Moses his history that gradually proved First Moses his knowledge cleared by his education and experience and certain information His education in the wisdom of Aegypt what that was The old Aegyptian learning enquired into the conveniences for it of the Aegyptian Priests Moses reckoned among them for his knowledge The Mathematical Natural Divine and Moral learning of Aegypt their Political wisdom most considerable The advantage of Moses above the Greek Philosophers as to wisdom and reason Moses himself an eye witness of most of his history the certain uninterrupted tradition of the other part among the fews manifested by rational evidence p. 119 CHAP. III. Moses his fidelity and integrity proved Moses considered as an Historian and as a Lawgiver his fidelity in both proved clear evidences that he had no intent to deceive in his History freedom from private interest impartiality in his relations plainness and â—erspicuity of stile As a Lawgiver be came armed with Divine authority which being the main thing is fixed on to be fully proved from his actions and writings The power of miracles the great evidence of Divine revelation Two grand questions propounded In what cases miracles may be expected and how known to be true No necessity of a constant power of miracles in a Church Two Cases alone wherein they may be expected When any thing comes as a Law from God and when a Divine Law is to be repealed The necessity of miracles in those cases as an evidence of Divine revelation asserted Objections answered No use of miracles when the doctrine is setled and owned by miracles in the first revelation No need of miracles in reformation of a Church pag. 134 CHAP. IV. The fidelity of the Prophets succeeding Moses In order of Prophets to succeed Moses by Gods own appointment in the Law of Moses The Schools of the Prophets the original and institution of them The Cities of the Levites The occasion of their first institution The places of the Schools of the Prophets and the tendency of the institution there to a Prophetical office Of the Musick used in the Schools of the Prophets The Roman Assamâ—nta and the Greek Hymns in their solemn worship The two sorts of Prophets among the jews Lieger and extraordinary Ordinary Prophets taken out of the Schools proved by Amos and Saul pag. 149 CHAP. V. The tryal of Prophetical Doctrine Rules of trying Prophets established in the Law of Moses The punishment of pretenders The several sorts of false Prophets The case of the Prophet at Bethel discussed The tryal of false Prophets belonging to the great Sanhedrin The particular rules whereby the Doctrine of Prophets was judged The proper notion of a Prophet not foretelling future contingencies but having immediate Divine revelation Several principles laid down for clearing the doctrine of the Prophets 1. That immediate dictates of natural light are not to be the measure of Divine revelation Several grounds for Divine revelation from natural light 2. What ever is directly repugnant to the dictates of nature cannot be of Divine revelation 3. No Divine revelation doth contradict a Divine positive Law without sufficient evidence of Gods intention to repeal that Law 4. Divine revelation in the Prophets was not to be measured by the words of the Law but by the intention and reason of it The Prophetical office a kind of Chancery to the Law of Moses pag. 165 CHAP. VI. The tryal of Prophetical Predictions and Miracles The great difficulty of the trying the truth of Prophetical predictions from Jerem. 18. 7 8 c. Some general Hypotheâ—es premised for the clearing of it The first concerns the grounds why predictions are accounted an evidence of divine revelation Three Consectaries drawn thence The second the manner of Gods revelation of his will to the minds of the Prophets Of the several degrees of Prophecy The third is that God did not alwayes reveal the internal purposes of his
real learning or truth at all in them For this though he be sharply censured by Strabo in his first Book who undertakes to vindicate the Geography of Homer from the exceptions of Eratosthenes yet himself cannot but confess that there is a â—very great mixture of Fables in all their Poets which is saith he partly to delight the people and partly to awe them For the minds of men being always desirous of novelties such things do hugely please the natural humours of weak people especially if there be something in them that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very strange and wonderful it increaseth the delight in hearing it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which draws them on to a desire of hearing more of it And by this means saith he are children first brought on to learning and all ignorant persons are kept in awe nay and the more learned themselves partly for want of reason and judgement and partly from the remainder of those impressions which these things made upon them when they were children cannot shake off that former credulity which they had as to these things By which discourse of Strabo though intended wholly by him in vindication of Poetick Fables it is plain and evident what great disservice hath been done to truth by them by reason they had no other Records to preserve their ancient history but these fabulous Writers and therefore supposing a mixture of truth and falshood together which Strabo contends for yet what way should be taken to distinguish the true from the false when they had no other certain Records and besides he himself acknowledgeth how hard a matter it is even for wise men to excuss those fabulous narrations out of their minds which were insinuated into them by all the advantages which prejudice custome and education could work upon them Granting then there may be some truth at the bottom of their fabulous narrations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which may be gilded over with some pleasing tales as himself compares it yet how shall those come to know that it is only gilded that never saw any pure mettal and did always believe that it was what it seemed to be Had there been any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or touchstone to have differenced between the one and the other there might have been some way for a separation of them but there being none such we must conclude that the fabulous Narrations of Poets in stead of making Truth more pleasant by their fictions have so adulterated it that we cannot find any credibility at all in their narrations of elder times where the truth of the story hath had no other way of conveyance but through their fictions But though Poets may be allowed their liberty for representing things with the greatest advantage to the palats of their Readers yet we may justly expect when men profess to be historical they should deliver us nothing but what upon strictest examination may prove undoubted truth Yet even this were the Greeks far from for Strabo himself confesseth of their eldest Historians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their first Historians both of persens and things were fabulous Diodorus particularly instanceth in their eldest Historians as Cadmus Milesius Hecataeus and Hellanicus and condemns them for fabulousness Strabo condemns Damastes Sigeensis for vanity and falshood and wonders at Eratosthenes for making use of him yet this man is of great antiquity among them and his testimony used by Authors of good credit as Dionys Halycarnassius Plutarch and others Nay Pliny professeth to follow him and so he doth Aristeus Procennesius in his Arimaspia which may render the credit of his History very suspicious with whom it was a sufficient ground of credibility to any story that he found it in some Greek Authors Strabo reckons Damastes with Euëmerus Messenius and Antiphanes Bergeus which latter was so noted a lyar that from him as Stephanus tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was used as a proverb for to speak never a word of truth Aristeus Proconnesius lived in the time of Cyrus and writ a History of the Arimaspi in three Books who seems to have been the Sir Iohn Maridevil of Greece from his Stories of the Arimaspi with one eye in their foreheads and their continual fighting with the Gryphens for gold yet the story was taken upon trust by Herodotus Pliny and many others though the experience of all who have visited those Northern Climats do sufficiently refute these follies Strabo saith of this Aristeus that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one inferiour to none for juggling which cenfure was probably occasioned by the common story of him that he could let his soul out of his body when he pleased and bring it again yet this Juggler did Celsus pitch on to confront with our blessed Saviour as Herocles did on Apollinus so much have those been to seek for reason who have fought to oppose the doctrine of faith But further what credit can we give to those Historians who have striven to confute each other and lay open one anothers falshood to the world Where was there ever any such dissonancy in the sacred History of Scripture doth the Writer of one Book discover the weakness of another do not all the parts so exactly agree that the most probable suspicion could ever fall into the heart of an Infidel is that they were all written by the same person which yet the series of times manifests to have been impossible But now if we look into the ancient Greek Historians we need no other testimony then themselves to take away their credibility The Genealogies of Hesiod are corrected by Acusiddus Acusiddus is condemned by Hellanicus Hellanicus accused of falshood by Ephorus Ephorus by Timaeus Timaeus by such who followed him as Iosephus fully shews Where must we then fix our belief upon all in common that is the ready way to believe contradictions for they condemn one another of falshood Must we believe one and reject the rest but what evidence doth that one give why he should be credited more then the rest And which is a most irrefragable argument against the Graecian history their eldest historians are ackowledged to be the most fabulous for our only recourse for deciding the controversies among the younger historians must be to the elder And here we are further to seek then ever for the first ages are confessed to be Poetical and to have no certainty of truth in them So that it is impossible to find out any undoubted certainty of ancient times among the Greek Historians which will be yet more evident when we add this that there are very few extant of those Historians who did carry the greatest name for Antiquity The highest antiquity of the Greek Historians doth not much exceed the time of Cyrus and Cambyses as Vossius hath fully demonstrated in his learned book De Historiâ—is Graecis and therefore I shall spare particular enquiries into their
served other Gods How unlikely then was it that this tradition should be afterwards preserved entire when the people God had peculiarly chosen to himself were so mixed among the Aegyptians and so prone to the Idolatries of the Nations round about them and that even after God had given them a written Law attested with the greatest miracles what would they have done then had they never been brought forth of Aegypt by such signs and wonders and had no certain records left to preserve the memory of former ages Thus we see how much it stands to the greatest reason that so memorable things should be digested into sacred records We have as great certainty that Moses was the author of the records going under his name as we can have of any matter of fact done at so great a distance of time from us We are to consider that there are two very distinct questions to be thought of concerning a Divine revelation to any person at a considerable distance of time from us and those are what evidences can be given that the matters recorded are of a true divine revelation and what evidence we have of the truth of the matter of fact that such things were recorded by such persons They who do not carefully distinguish between these two questions will soon run themselves into an inextricable labyrinth when they either seek to understand themselves or explain to others the grounds on which they believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God The first step in order to which must be the proving the undoubted certainty of the matter of fact or the truth of the History that such persons were really existent and did either do or record the things we speak of After this succeeds the other to prove not only the real existence of the things but that the persons who recorded the things were assisted by an infallible spirit then there can be no reason at all to doubt but those records are the Word of God The first of these is that which at present we enquire after the certainty of the matter of fact that the records under the name of Moses were undoubtedly his And here it will be most unreasonable for any to seek for further evidence and demonstration of it then the matter to be proved is capable of But if they should I suppose we have sufficient reason to demonstrate the folly of such a demand and that on these accounts 1. Whoever yet undertook to bring matters of fact into Mathematical demonstrations or thought he had ground to question the certainty of any thing that was not proved in a Mathematical way to him Who would ever undertake to prove that Archimedes was kild at Syracuse by any of the demonstrations he was then about or that Euclide was the undoubted Author of the Geometry under his name or do men question these things for want of such demonstrations Yet this is all we at present desire but the same liberty here which is used in any thing of a like nature 2. I demand of the person who denyes this moral certainty to be sufficient for an assent whether he doth question every thing in the world which he was not present at the doing of himself If he be peremptorily resolved to believe nothing but what he sees he is fit for nothing but a voyage to Anticyrae or to be soundly purged with Hellebore to free him from those cloudy humours that make him suspect the whole world to be an imposture But we cannot suppose any man so destitute of reason as â—o question the truth of every matter of fact which he doth not see himself if he doth then firmly believe any thing there must be supposed sufficient grounds to induce him to such a belief And then what ground can there be to question the certainty of such things which have as great evidence as any of those things have which he most firmly believes and this is all we desire from him 3. Do we not see that the most concerning and weighty actions of mens lives are built on no other foundation then this moral certainty yet men do not in the least question the truth of the thing they rely upon As is most evident in all titles to estates derived from Ancestors either by donation or purchase In all trading which goes upon the moral certainty that there are such places as the Indyes or France or Spain c. In all journyings that there is such a place as that I am going to and this is the way thither for these we have but this moral certainty for the contrary to both these are possible and the affirmatives are indemonstrable In eating and drinking there is a possibility of being poisoned by every bit of meat or drop of drink do we therefore continually doubt whether we shall be so or no Chiefly this is seen in all natural affection and piety in Children towards Parents which undoubtedly suppose the truth of that which it was impossible they could be witnesses of themselves viz. their coming out of their Mothers wombs And doth any one think this sufficient ground to question his mother because the contrary is impossible to be demonstrated to him In short then either we must destroy all Historical faith out of the world and believe nothing though never so much attested but what we see our selves or else we must acknowledge that a moral certainty is a sufficient foundation for an undoubted assent not such a one cui non potest subesse falsum but such a one cui non subest dubium i. e. an assent undoubted though not infallible By which we see what little reason the Aâ—heist on one side can have to question the truth of the Scriptures to the History of it and what little ground the Papists on the other side have to make a pretence of the necessity of infallibility as to the proposal of such things where moral certainty is sufficient that is to the matter of fâ—ct Which I now come to prove as to the subject in hand viz. that the writings of Moses are undoubtedly his which I prove by a twofold argument 1. An universal consent of persons who were best able to know the truth of the things in question 2. The setling of a Commonwealth upon the Laws delivered by Moses 1. The universal Consent of persons most capable of judging in the Case in hand I know nothing the most scrupulous and inquisitive mind can possibly desire in order to satisfaction concerning any matter of fact beyond an universal Consent of such persons who have a greater capacity of knowing the truth of it then we can have And those are all such persons who have lived nearest those times when the things were done and have best understood the affairs of the times when the things were pretended to be done Can we possibly conceive that among the people of the Iews who were so exceedingly prone to transgress the Law
though with all imaginable evidence that it was undoubtedly his especially when they were engaged to the observation of some Laws or customs already by which their Commonwealth had been established And with all these Laws of Moses seeming so much against the interest and good husbandry of a Nation as all the neighbour Nations thought who for that accused them to be an iâ—le and slothful people as they judged by their resting wholly one day in seven the great and many solemn feasts they had the repairing of all the males to Jerusalem thrice a year the Sabbatical years years of Iubilee c. These things were apparently against the interest of such a Nation whose great subsistence was upon pasturage and agriculture So that it is evident these Laws respected not the outward interest of the Nation and so could not be the contrivance of any Politicians among them but did immediately aim at the honour of the God whom they served for whom they were to part even with their civil interests The doing of which by a people generally taken notice of for a particular Love of their own concernments is an impregnable argument these Laws could not take place among them had they not been given by Moses at the time of their unsettlement and that their future settlement did depend upon their present observation of them which is an evidence too that they could be of no less then divine original Which was more then I was to prove at present 4. Were not these writings undoubtedly Moses's whence should the neighbour Nations about the Iews notwithstanding the hatred of the Iewish religion retain so venerable an opinion of the Wisdom of Moses The Aegyptians accounted him one of their Priests which notes the esteem they had of his learning as appears by the testimonies produced out of Chaeremon and Manâ—tho by Iosephus Diodorus Siculus speaks of him with great respect among the famous Legislatours and so doth Strabo who speaks in commendation of the Religion established by him The testimony of Longinus is sufficiently known that Moses was no man of any vulgar wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chalcidius calls him sapientissimus Moses although I must not dissemble that Chalcidius hath been I think undeservedly reckoned among heathen writers though he comments on Plato's Timaeus it being most probable that he was a Christian Platonist which might more probably make Vaninus call him circumforaneum blateronem but though we exempt Chalcidius out of the number of those Heathens who have born testimony to the wisdom of Moses yet there are number enough besides him produced by Iustin Martyr Cyrill and others whose evidence is clear and full to make us undoubtedly believe that there could never have been so universal and uninterrupted a tradition concerning the writings and Laws of Moses had they not been certainly his and conveyed down in a continual succession from his time to our present age Which will be yet more clear if we consider in the second place that the national Constitution and setlement of the Iews did depend on the truth of the Laws and writings of Moses Can we have more undoubted evidence that there were such persons as Solon Lyâ—urgus and Numa and that the Laws bearing their names were theirs then the History of the several Commonwealths of Athâ—ns Sparta and Rome who were governed by those Laws When writings are not of general concernment they may be more easily counterfeited but when they concern the rights priviledges and government of a Nation there will be enough whose interest will lead them to prevent impostures It is no easie matter to forge a Magna Charta and to invent Laws mens caution and prudence is never so quick sighted as in matters which concern their estates and freeholds The general interest lyes contrary to such impostures and therefore they will prevent their obtaining among them Now the Laws of Moses are incorporated into the very Republick of the Iews and their subsistence and Government depends upon them their Religion and Laws are so interwoven one with the other that one cannot be broken off from the other Their right to their temporal possessions in the land of Canaan depends on their owning the Soveraignty of God who gave them to them and on the truth of the History recorded by Moses concerning the promises made to the Patriarchs So that on that account it was impossible those Laws should be counterfeit on which the welfare of a Nation depended and according to which they were governed ever since they were a Nation So that I shall now take it to be sufficiently proved that the writings under the name of Moses were undoubtedly his for none who acknowledge the Laws to have been his can have the face to deny the History there being so necessary a connexion between them and the book of Genesis being nothing else but a general and very necessary introduction to that which sollows CHAP. II. Moses his certain knowledge of what he writ The third Hypothesis concerns the certainty of the matter of Moses his History that gradually proved First Moses his knowledge cleared by his education and experience and certain information His education in the wisdom of Aegypt what that was The old Egyptian learning enquired into the conveniences for it of the Egyptian Priests Moses reckoned among them for his knowledge The Mathematical Natural Divine and Moral learning of Egypt their Political wisdom most considerable The advantage of Moses above the Greek Philosophers as to wisdom and reason Moses himself an eye-witness of most of his history the certain uninterrupted tradition of the other part among the Iews manifested by rational evidence HAving thus far cleared our way we come to the third Hypothesis which is There are as manifest proofs of the undoubted truth and certainty of the History recorded by Moses as any can be given concerning any thing which we yeild the firmest assent unto Here it must be considered that we proceed in a way of rational evidence to prove the truth of the thing in hand as to which if in the judgement of impartial persons the arguments produced be strong enough to convince an unbiassed mind It is not material whether every rangling Atheist will sit down contented with them For usually persons of that inclination rather then judgement are more resolved against light then inquisitive after it and rather seek to stop the chinks at which any light might come in then open the windows for the free and chearfull entertainment of it It will certainly be sufficient to make it appear that no man can deny the truth of that part of Scripture which we are now speaking of without offering manifest violence to his own faculties and making it appear to the world that he is one wholly forsaken of his own reason which will be satisfactorily done if we can clear these things First that it was morally impossible Moses should be ignorant of the things he
Now if we prove that Moses had no interest to deceive in his History and had all rational evidence of Divine revelation in his Laws we shall abundantly evince the undoubted fidelity of Moses in every thing recorded by him We begin then with his fidelity as an Historian and it being contrary to the common interest of the world to deceive and be deceived we have no reason to entertain any suspitions of the veracity of any person where we cannot discern some pecâ—liar interest that might have a stronger biass upon him then the common interest of the world For it is otherwise in morals then in naturals for in naturals we see that every thing will leave its proper interest to preserve the common interest of nature but in morals there is nothing more common then deserting the common interest of mankind to set up a peculiar interest against it It being the truest description of a Politician that he is one who makes himself the centre and the whole world his circumference that he regards not how much the whole world is abused if any advantage doth accrue to himself by it Where we see it then the design of any person to advance himself or his posterity or to set up the credit of the Nation whose History he writes we may have just cause to suspect his partiality because we then finde a sufficient inducement for such a one to leave the common road of truth and to fall into the paths of deceit But we have not the least ground to suspect any such partiality in the History of Moses for nothing is more clear then that he was free from the ambitious design of advancing himself and his posterity who notwithstanding the great honour he enjoyed himself was content to leave his posterity in the meanest sort of attendance upon the Tabernacle And as little have we ground to think he intended to flatter that Nation which he so lively describes that one would think he had rather an interest to set forth the frowardness unbelief unthankfulness and disobedience of a Nation towards a Gracious God then any wayes to inhance their reputation in the world or to ingratiate himself with them by writing this History of them Nay and he sets forth so exactly the lesser failings and grosser enormities of all the Ancestours of this Nation whose acts he records that any impartial reader will soon acquit him of a design of flattery when after he hath recorded those faults he seeks not to extenuate them or bring any excuse or pretence to palliate them So that any observing reader may easily take notice that he was carried on by a higher design then the common people of Historians are and that his drift and scope was to exalt the goodness and favour of God towards a rebellious and obstinate people Of which there can be no greater nor more lively demonstration then the History of all the transactions of the Iewish Nation from their coming forth of Aegypt to their utter ruine and desolation And Moses tells them as from God himself it was neither for their number nor their goodness that God set his Love upon them but he loved them because he loved them i. e. no other account was to be given of his gracious dealing with them but the freeness of his own bonnty and the exuberancy of his goodness towards them Nay have we not cause to admire the ingenuity as well as veracity of this excellent personage who not only layes so notorious a blot upon the stock of his own family Levi recording so punctually the inhumanity and cruelty of him and Simeon in their dealings with the Shechemites but likewise inserts that curse which was left upon their memory for it by their own Father at his decease And that he might not leave the least suspition of partiality behind him he hath not done as the statuary did who engraved his own name so artificially in the statue of Iupiter that one should continue as long as the other but what the other intended for the praise of his skill Moses hath done for his ingenuity that he hath so interwoven the History of his own failings and disobedience with those of the Nation that his spots are like to continue as long as the whole web of his History is like to do Had it been the least part of his design to have his memory preserved with a superstitious veneration among the Iews how easie had it been for him to have left out any thing that might in the least entrench upon his reputation but we finde him very secure and careless in that particular nay on the other side very studious and industrious in depressing the honour and deserts of men and advancing the power and goodness of God And all this he doth not in an affected strain of Rhetorick whose proper work is impetrare fidem mendacio and as Tully somewhere confesseth to make things seem otherwise then they are but with that innate simplicity and plainness and yet withall with that Imperatoria brevit as that Majesty and authority that it is thereby evident he sought not to court acceptance but to demand belief Nor had any such pittiful design of pleasing his Readers with some affected phrases but thought that Truth it self had presence enough with it to command the submission of our understandings to it Especially when all these were delivered by such a one who came sufficiently armed with all motives of credibility and inducements to assent by that evidence which he gave that he was no pretender to divine revelation but was really imployed as a peculiar instrument of State under the God and Ruler of the whole world Which if it be made clear then all our further doubts must presently cease and all impertinent disputes be silenced when the supream Majesty appears impowring any person to dictate to the world the Laws they must be governed by For if any thing be repugnant to our rational faculties that is that God should dictate any thing but what is most certainly true or that the Governor of the world should prescribe any Laws but such as were most just and reasonable If we suppose a God we cannot question veracity to be one of his chiefest Attributes and that it is impossible the God of truth should imploy any to reveal any thing as from him but what was undoubtedly true So that it were an argument of the most gross and unreasonable incredulity to distrust the certainty of any thing which comes to us with sufficient evidence of divine revelation because thereby we shew our distrust of the veracity of God himself All that we can desire then is only reasonable satisfactisn concerning the evidence of Divine revelation in the person whose words we are to credit and this our Gracious God hath been so far from denying men that he hath given all rational evidence of the truth of it For it implying no incongruity at all to any notions of
them but Astronomers by the help of their Optick tubes and Telescopes do easily discern the just magnitude of them so the Iews ordinarily thought there was no more in those types and shadows then was visibly represented to them but such as had the help of the Divine Spirit the best Telescope to discern the day-star from on high with could easily look through those prospectives into the most glorious mysteries of the Gospel of Iesus Christ. These types being like triangâ—lar Prismes that must be set in a due light and posture before they can represent that great variety of spiritual mysteries which was contained in them Now the great office of the Prophets was to administer this light to the people and to direct them in those excellent pieces of Perspective wherein by the help of a Prophetick glass they might see the Son of God fully represented to their view Besides this the Prophetical office was a kind of Chancery to the Mosaick Law wherein the Prophets did interpret the Pandects of the Law ex aequo bono and frequently shewed in what cases God did dispence with the outward letter of it to exalt the more the inward sense and reason of it Hence the Prophets seem many times to speak contemptibly of the outward prescribed Cerâ—monies when their intent is not to condemn the observation of them but to tell the people there were greater things which God looked at then the outward observation of some Ceremonial precepts and that God would never accept of that by way of commutation for real and internal goodness Hence the Prophets by their own practice did frequently shew that the Law of Moses did not so indispensably oblige men but that God would accept of those actions which were performed without the regularity required by the Law of Moses and thus he did of sacrificing upon high places not only before the building of the Temple but sometimes after as he accepted of the sacrifice of Elijah on Mount Carmel even when high places were for bidden Which the Iews are become so sensible of that they grant that a true Prophet may sometimes command something to be done in violation of the Law of Moses so he doth not draw people to Idolatry nor destroy the obligation of Moses his Law But this they restrain to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something done in case of necessity and that it should not pass into a precedent or a perpetual Law and therefore their rule is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Prophet was to be hearkened to in every thing he commanded in a case of necessity But by this it is clear that the Prophets were not to be tryed by the letter of the Law of Moses but by the end and the reason of it Thus much I suppose will make it clear what rules the people had to try the Prophets doctrine by without miracles CHAP. VI. The tryal of Prophetical Predictions and Miracles The great difficulty of the trying the truth of Prophetical predictions from Jerem. 18. 7 8 c. Some general Hypoâ—heses premised for the clearing of it The first concerns the grounds why predictions are accounted an evidence of divine revelation Three Consectaries drawn thence The second the manner of Gods revelation of his will to the minds of the Prophets Of the several degrees of prophecy The third is that God did not alwayes reveal the internal purposes of his will unto the true Prophets The grand question propounded â—ow it may be known when predictions express Gods decrees and when only the series of causes For the first several rules laid down 1. When the prediction is confirmed by â— present miracle 2. When the things foretold exceed the probability of second causes 3. When confirmed by Gods oath 4. When the blessings fore-told are purely spiritual Three rules for interpreting the prophecyes which respect the state of things under the Gospel 5. When all circumstances are foretold 6. When many Prophets in several ages agree in the same predictions Predictions do not express Gods unalterable purposes when they only contain comminations of judgements or are predictions of temporal blessings The case of the Ninivites Hezekiah and others opened Of repentance in God what it implyes The Iewish objections about predictions of temporal blessings answered In what cases miracles were expected from the Prophets when they were to confirm the truth of their religion Instanced in the Prophet at Bethel Elijah Elishah and of Moses himself Whose divine authority that it was proved by miracles is demonstrated against the modern Iews and their pretences answered THe next thing which the rules of tryal concerned was the predictions of the Prophets Concerning which God himself hath laid down this general rule Deut. 18. 22. When a Prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously thou shalt not be afraid of him Grotius understands this place of the Prophets telling the people he would do some miracles to confirm his doctrine but saith he if those miracles were not done as he said it was an evident demonstration of a false Prophet It is certain it was so for then his own mouth told him he was a lying Prophet but these words seem to referr rather to something future then present and are therefore generally understood concerning the truth of predictions which was a matter of very difficult tryal in regard of the goodness or the justice of God so frequently interposing between the prediction and the event That place which makes it so difficult to discern the truth of a prediction by the event is Ierem. 18. 7 8 9 10. At what instant I shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and destroy it If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from evil I will repent of the evil I had thought to do unto them And at what instant I shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to build and to plant it if it do evil in my sight that it obey not my voice then will I repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them By which place it seems clear that even after the predictions of Prophets God doth reserve a liberty to himself either to repent of the evil or the good that was foretold concerning any people how then can the fidelity of a Prophet be discovered by the event when God may alter the event and yet the Prophet be a true Prophet This being a case very intricate and obscure will call for the more diligence in the unfolding of it In order to which we shall first premise some general Hypotheses and then come to the particular resolution of it The general Hypotheses will be concerning the way and method of Gods revealing future contingencies to the Prophets without which it will be impossible to
convince them of that which they believed already For we never read among all the revolts of the people of the Iews that they were lapsed so far as totally to reject the Law of Moses which had been to alter the constitution of their Commonwealth although they did enormously offend against the Precepts of it and that in those things wherein the honour of God was mainly concernd as is most plain in their frequent and gross Idolatry Which we are not so to understand as though they wholly cast off the worship of the true God but they superinduced as the Samaritans did the worship of Heathen Idols with that of the God of Israel But when the revolt grew so great and dangerous that it was ready to swallow up the true worship of God unless some apparent evidence were given of the falsity of those Heathen mixtures and further confirmation of the truth of the established religion it pleased God sometimes to send his Prophets on this peculiar message to the main instruments of this revolt As is most conspicuous in that dangerous design of Ieroboam when he out of a Politick end set up his two calves in opposition to the Temple at Ierusalem and therein it was the more dangerous in that in all probability he designed not the alteration of the worship it self but the establishment of it in Dan and Bethel For his interest lay not in drawing of the people from the worship of God but from his worship at Ierusalem which was contrary to his design of Cantonizing the Kingdom and taking the greatest share to himself Now that God might confirm his peoples faith in this dangerous juncture of time he sends a Prophet to Bethel who by the working of present miracles there viz. the renting the Altar and withering of Jeroboams hand did manifest to them that these Altars were displeasing to God and that the true place of worship was at Ierusalem So in that famous fire-Ordeal for trying the truth of religion between God and Baal upon mount Carmel by Elijah God was pleased in a miraculous way to give the most prâ—gnant testimony to the truth of his own worship by causing a fire to come down from heaven and consume the sacrifice by which the Priests of Baal were confounded and the people confirmed in the belief of the only true God for presently upon the sight of this miracle the people fall on their faces and say the Lord he is God the Lord he is God Whereby we plainly see what clear evidence is given to the truth of that religion which is attested with a power of miracles Thus the widdow of Sarepta which was in the Country of Zidon was brought to believe Elijah to be a true Prophet by his raising up her son to life And the woman said to Elijah Now by this I know that thou art a man of God and that the Word of the Lord by thy mouth is truth So we see how Naaman was convinced of the true God by his miraculous cure in Iordan by the appointment of Elisha Behold now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel by which instances it is demonstrable that either the faith of all these persons was built upon weak and insufficient grounds or that a power of miracles is an evident confirmation of the truth of that religion which is established by them For this we see was the great end for which God did improve any of his Prophets to work miracles viz. to be as an evident demonstration of the truth of what was revealed by him So that this power of miracles is not meerly a motive of credibility or a probable inducement to remove prejudice from the person as many of our Divines speak but it doth contain an evident demonstration to common sense of the truth of that religion which is confirmed by them And thus we assert it to have been in the case of Moses the truth of whose message was attested both among the Aegyptians and the Israelites by that power of miracles which he had But herein we have the great Patrons of Moses our greatest enemies viz the present Iews who by reason of their emnity to the doctrine of Christ which was attested by unparalleld miracles are grown very shy of the argument drawn from thence In so much that their great Dr. Maimonides layes down this for a confident maxime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Israelites did not believe in Moses our Master for the sake of the miracles which he wrought Did they not the more shame for them and if they did the more shame for this great Rabbi thus to bely them But the reason he gives for it is because there may remain some suspition in ones mind that all miracles may be wrought by a power of Magick or Incantation Say you so what when Moses confounded all the Magicians in Aegypt and made themselves who were the most cunning in these things confess it was the finger of God and at last give out as not able to stand before Moses might one still suspect all this to be done by a Magical power Credat Iudaeus Apella non ego This is much like what another of their Doctors sayes whom they call the Divine Philosopher that Elisha his raising the child to life and curing Naamans leprosie and Daniels escaping the Lions and Ionas out of the Whales belly might all come to pass by the influence of the stars or by Pythonisme Very probable but it is most true which Vortius there observes of the Iews nibil non nugacissimi mortalium fingunt ne cogantur agnoscere virtute ac digito quasi ipsius Dei Iesum nostrum effecisse miracula sua All their design in this is only to elevate the miracles of our blessed Saviour and to derogate all they can from the belief of them Hence they tell us that nothing is so easie to be done as miracles the meer recital of the tetragrammaton will work wonders that by this Ieremiah and our Saviour did all their miracles It is well yet that he did more then one of their own Prophets had done before him but where I wonder do we read that ever the pronouncing of four letters raised one from the dead who had lain four dayes in the grave or by what power did Christ raise himself from the dead which was the greatest miracle of all could his dead body pronounce the tetragrammaton to awaken its self with But Maimonides further tells us that the miracles which Moses wrought among the Israelites were meerly for necessity and not to prove the truth of his Divine commission for which he instanceth in dividing the red sea the raining of Manna and the destruction of Corah and his complices But setting aside that these two latter were the immediate hand of God and not miracles done by Moses yet it is evidence that the intent of them was to manifest a Divine
their genuine followers they instead of the common and rude name of impostors gave them a more civil title of Philosophers and looked upon their doctrine as a sublimer kind of Philosophy non utique divinum negotium existimant sed mag is Philosophiae genus as Tertullian tells us because the Philosophers pretended so much to moral vertues which they saw the Christians so excellent in but as Tertullian there replies nomen hoc Philosophorum Daemonia non fugat The Devil was never afraid of a Philosophers beard nor were diseases cured by the touch of a Philosophick pallium There was something more Divine in Christians then in the grave Philosophers and that not only in reference to their lives and the Divine power which was seen in them but in reference to the truth and certainty of their doctrine it being a true character given of both by that same excellent writer in behalf of the Christians of his time Veritatem Philosophi quidem affâ—ctant possident autem Christiani what the Philosophers desired only the Christians enjoy which was Truth and as he elsewhere more fully speaks mimicè Philosophi affectant veritatem affectando corrum punt ut qui gloriam captant Christianieam necessariò appetunt integri praestant ut qui saluti suae curant Truth is the Philosophers mistress which by courting he vitiates and corrupts looking at nothing but his own glory but truth is the Christians Matron whose directions he observes and follows because he regards no glory but that to come And to let them further see what a difference there was between a Christian and a Philosopher he concludes that discourse with these words Quid adeo simile Philosophus Christianus Graeciae Discipulus et coeli famae negotiator et vitae verborum et factorum operator rerum aedificator et destructor amicus et inimicus erroris veritatis interpolator et integrator furator ejus et custos As much distance saith he as there is between Greece and Heaven between applause and eternal glory between words and things between building and destroying between truth and error between a plagiary and corrupter of truth and a preserver and advancer of it so much is there between a Philosopher and a Christian. The Heathens might suspect indeed some kind of affinity between the first Preachers of the Gospel and the antient Sophists of Greece because of their frequent going from place to place and pretending a kind of Enthusiasm as they did but as much difference as there is between a Knight Errant and Hercules between a Mountebank and Hippocrates that and much greater there is between a Greek Sophist and an Apostle Socrates in Plato's Euthydemus hath excellently discovered the vanity and futility of those persons under the persons of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus and so likewise in his Protagoras their intent was only like the retiaries in the Roman Spectacles to catch their adversaries in a net to intangle them with some captious question or other but how vastly different from this was the design of the Apostles who abhord those endless contentions which then were in the Heathen world and came to shew them that Truth which was revealed with an intent of making them better men We see the Apostles were not carried forth by any mean and vulgar motives neither did they drive on any private ends of their own all that they minded was the promoting of the doctrine which they preached Nay they accounted no hazards comparable with the advantage which the world enjoyed through the propagation of the Christian Religion This shewed a truly noble and generous spirit in them which would not be hindred from doing the world good though they found so bad entertainment from it yea they rejoyced in their greatest sufferings which they underwent in so good a cause wherein those Primitive Christians who were the genuine followers of the Apostles did so far imitate them that etiam damnati gratias agunt they gave the Iudges thanks that they thought them worthy to lose their lives in a cause which they had reason to triumph in though they died for it And when any of them were apprehended they discovered so little fear of punishment ut unum solummodo quod non ante suerint paeniteret that nothing troubled them so much as that they had been Christians no sooner as one of their number speaks And when the Heathens usually scoffed at them and called them Sarmentitii and Semaxii because they were burned upon the Cross one of them in the name of the rest answers hic est habitus victoriae nostrae haec palmata vestis tali curru triumphamus the Cross was only their triumphant chariot which carried them sooner to Heaven Now this courage and resolution of spirit which was seen in the first planters of Christianity in the world made all serious and inquisitive persons look more narrowly into those things which made men slight so much the common bug-bears of humane nature sufferings and death Quis enim non contemplatione ejus concutitur adrequirendum quid intus in re sit quis non ubi requisivit accedit ubi accessit patiexoptat These sufferings made men enquire this enquiry made them believe that belief made them as willing to suffer themselves as they had seen others do it before them Thus it appeared to be true in them 〈◊〉 qâ—â—que crudelitas illecebra magis est sectae plures â—fficimur quâ—â—ties metimur a vobis semen est sanguis Christianorum The cruelty of their â—nemies did but increase their number the harvest of their pretended justice was but the seed-time of Christianity and no seed was so fruitful as that which was steeped in the blood of Martyrs Thence Iustin Martyr ingenuously saith of himself that while he was a Platonick Philosopher he derided and scoffed at the Christians but when he considered their great courage and constancy in dying for their profession he could not think those could possibly be men wicked and voluptuous who when offers of life were made them would rather choose death then deny Christ. By which he found plainly that there was a higher spirit in Christianity then could be obtained by the sublime notions and speculations of Plato and that a poor ignorant Christian would do and suffer more for the sake of Christ then any of the Academy in defence of their master Plato Now since all men naturally abhor sufferings what is it which should so powerfully alter the nature and disposition of Christians above all other persons that they alone should seem in that to have forgot humanity that not only with patience but with joy they endured torments and abode the flames What! were they all pâ—ssessed with a far more then Stoical Apathy that no sense oâ— pain could work at all upon them or were they all besotted and infatuated persons that did not know what it was they underwent â—t is true some of the
was the great Seal of our Saviours being the Son of God therefore we find the Apostles so frequently attesting the truth of the resurrection of Christ and that themselves were eye-witnesses of it This Iesus saith Peter hath God raised up whereof we all are witnesses And again And killed the Prince of life whom God hath raised up from the dead whereof we are witnesses and both Peter and Iohn to the Sanhedrin For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard And the whole Colledge of Apostles afterwards And we are his witnesses of these things and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey him In which words they give them that twofold rational evidence which did manifest the undoubted truth of what they spake for they delivered nothing but what themselves were witnesses of and withall was declared to be true by the power of the Holy Ghost in the miracles which were wrought by and upon believers Afterwards we read the sum oâ— the Apostles Preaching and the manner used by them to perswade men of the truth of it in the words of Peter to Cernâ—lius and his company How God annointed Iesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil for God was with him And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Iews and in Hierusalem whom they stew and hanged on a tree Him God raised up the third day and shewed him openly not to all the people but unto witnesses chosen before of God even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead And he comâ—anded us to â—reach unto the people that it is be which was ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead By all which we see what care God was pleased to take for the satisfaction of the world in point of rational evidence as to the truth of the matters which were discovered concerning our Saviour Christ because he made choice of such persons to be the preachers and writers of these things who were the best abâ—e to satisfie the world about them viz. such as had been eye witnesses of them Now in order to the making it more fully evident what strength there was in this Testimony given by the Apostles to the miracles of Christ we shall more fully manifest the rational evidence which attended it in these following propositions Where the truth of a doctrine depends upon a matter of fact the truth of the doctrine is sufficiently manifested if the matter of fact be evidently proved in the highest way it is capable of Thus it is in reference to the doctrine of Christ for the truth of that is so interwoven with the truth of the story of Christ that if the relations concerning Christ be true his doctrine must needs be Divine and infallible For if it be undoubtedly true that there was such a person as Christ born at Bethlehem who did so many miracles and at last suffered the death of the Cross and after he had lain three dayes in the grave rose again from the dead what reason imaginable can I have to question but that the Testimony of this person was certainly Divine and consequently what ever he preached to the world was most certain and undoubted truth So that if we have clear evidence as to the truth of these passages concerning our Saviour we must likewise believe his doctrine which came attested with such pregnant evidences of a Divine commission which he had from God to the world No Prince can think he hath any reason to refuse audience to an Embassador when he finds his Credentials such as he may rely upon although himself doth not see the sealing of them much less reason have we to question the truth of the doctrine of the Gospel if we have sufficient evidence of the truth of the matters of fact concerning Christ in such a way as those things are capable of being proved The greatest evidence which can be given to a matter of fact is the attesting of it by those persons who were eye-witnesses of it This is the Foundation whereon the firmest assent is built as to any matter of fact for although we conceive we have reason to suspect the truth of a story as long as it is conveyed only in a general way by an uncertain fame and tradition yet when it comes to be attested by a sufficient number of credible persons who profess themselves the cye-witnesses of it it is accounted an unreasonable thing to distrust any longer the truth of it especially in these two cases 1. When the matter they bear witness to is a thing which they might easily and clearly perceive 2. When many witnesses exactly agree in the same Testimony 1. When the matter it self is of that nature that it may be fully perceived by those who saw it i. e. if it be a common object of sense And thus it certainly was as to the person and actions of Iesus Christ. For he was of the same nature with mankind and they had as great evidence that they conversed with Iesus Christ in the flesh as we can have that we converse one with another The miracles of Christ were real and visible miracles they could be no illusions of senses nor deceits of their eyes the man who was born blind and cured by our Saviour was known to have been born blind through all the Countrey and his cure was after as publike as his blindness before and acknowledged by the greatest enemies of Christ at the time of its being done When Christ raised up the dead man at Naim it was before much people and such persons in probability who were many of them present at his death But least there might be any suspition as to him that he was not really dead the case is plain and beyond all dispute in Lazarus who had been to the knowledge of all persons thereabouts dead four dayes here could be no deceit at all when the stone was rowled away and Lazarus came forth in the presence of them all And yet further the death and passion of our Saviour was a plain object of sense done in presence of his greatest adversaries The souldiers themselves were sufficient witnesses of his being really dead when they came to break his bones and spared him because they saw he was dead already At his resurrection the stone was rowled away from the Sepulchre and no body found therein although the Sepulchre was guarded by souldiers and the Disciples of Christ all so fearful that they were dispersed up and down in several places And that it was the same real body which he rose withall and no aëreall vehicle appears by Thomas his serupulosity and unbelief who would not believe unless â—e might put his hands into the hole of his sides and see
venture their lives upon the truth of what they writ concerning him as the Apostles did to attest the truth of what they preached concerning our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ 2. The fidelity of the Apostles is evident in their manner of reporting the things which they deliver For if ever there may be any thing gathered from the manner of expression or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the particular temper and disposition of the person from whom it comes we may certainly read the greatest fidelity in the Apostles from the peculiar manner of their expressing themselves to the world Which they do 1. With the greatest impartiality not declaring only what was glorious and admirable to the world but what they knew would be accounted foolishness by it They who had sought only to have been admired for the rare discoveries which they brought to the world would be sure to conceal any thing which might be accounted ridiculous but the Apostles fixed themselves most on what was most contemptible in the eyes of the world and what they were most mocked and derided for that they delighted most in the preaching of which was the Cross of Christ. Paul was so much in Love with this which was a stumbling block to the Iews and foolishness to the Greeks that he valued the knowledge of nothing else in comparison of the knowledge of Christ and him crucified Nay he elsewhere saith God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of Christ. What now should be the reason that they should rejoyce in that most which was most despicable to the world had not they seen far â—reater truth and excellency in it then in the most sublime speculations concerning God or the souls of men in the School of Plato or any other heathen Philosophers That all men should be bound in order to their salvation to believe in one who was crucified at Hierusalem was a strange doctrine to the unbelieving world but if the Apostles had but endeavoured to have suited their doctrine to the School of Plato what rare persons might they have been accounted among the Heathen Philosophers Had they only in general terms discoursed of the Benignity of the Divine nature and the manifestations of Divine goodness in the world and that in order to the bringing of the souls of men to a nearer participation of the Divine nature the perfect Idea of true goodness and the express image of the person of God and the resplendency of his glory had vailed himself in humane nature and had everywhere scattered such beams of light and goodness as warmed and invigorated the frozen spirits of men with higher sentiments of God and themselves and raised them up above the faeculency of this terrestrial matter to breath in a freer air and converse with more noble objects and by degrees to fit the souls of men for those more pure illapses of real goodness which might alwayes satisfie the souls desires and yet alwayes keep them up till the soul should be sunning its self to all eternity under the immediate beams of Light and Love And that after this Incarnate Deity had spread abroad the wings of his Love for a while upon this lower world till by his gentle heat and incubation he had quickned the more plyable world to some degree of a Divine life he then retreated himself back again into the superiour world and put off that vail by which he made himself known to those who are here confined to the prisons of their bodies Thus I say had the Apostles minded applause among the admired Philosophers of the Heathens how easie had it been for them to have made some considerable additions to their highest speculations and have left out any thing which might seem so mean and contemptible as the death of the Son of God! But this they were so far from that the main thing which they preached to the world was the vanity of humane wisdom without Christ and the necessity of all mens believing in that Iesus who was crucified at Hierusalem The Apostles indeed discover very much infinitely more then ever the most lofty Pl tonist could do concerning the goodness and Love of God to mankind but that wherein they manifested the Love of God to the world was that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And that herein was the Love of God manifested that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us And that this was the greatest truth and worthy of all acceptation that Iesus Christ came into the world to save sinners They never dreamt of any divine goodness which should make men happy without Christ No it was their design to perswade the world that all the communications of Gods goodness to the world were wholly in and through Iesus Christ and it is impossible that any should think otherwise unless Plato knew more of the mind of God then our blessed Saviour and Plotinus then Saint Paul Can we think now that the Apostles should hazard the reputation of their own wits so much as they did to the world and be accounted bablers and fools and madmen for preaching the way of salvation to be only by a person crucified between two thieves at Hierusalem had they not been convinced not only of the truth but importance of it and that it concerned men as much to believe it as it did to avoid eternal misery Did Saint Paul preach ever the less the words of truth and soberness because he was told to his face that his Learning had made him mad But if he was besides himself it was for Christ and what wonder was it if the Love of Christ in the Apostle should make him willing to lose his reputation for him seeing Christ made himself of no reputation that he might be in a capacity to do us good We see the Apostles were not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ because they knew it was the power of God to salvation and therefore neither in their preaching or their writings would they omit any of those passages concerning our Saviours death which might be accounted the most dishonourable to his person Which is certainly as great an evidence of their sidelity as can be expected which makes Origen say that the Disciples of Christ writ all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a great deal of candour and love of truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not concealing from the world those passages of the life of Christ which would be accounted most foolish and ridiculous 2. With the greatest plainness and simplicity of speech Such whose design is to impose upon the minds of men with some cunningly devised fables love as much ambiguity as ever Apollo did in his most winding oracles of whom it is said Ambage nexâ Delphico mos est Dco Arcana tegere Servius tells us that Iupiter Ammon was therefore pictured with Rams-horns because his answers
had as many turnings and windings as they had But the horns which Moses was wont to be pictured with did only note light and perspicuity from the ambiguity of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which notes the sending forth of rayes of light like a horn and yet Moses himself was vailed in comparison of the openness and plainness of speech which was in the Apostles Impostors cast a mist of many dark and cloudy words before them but when they are once brought into the open light their vizard falls off and their deformity appears Such persons delight in soaring quite out of the apprehensions of those who follow them and never think themselves better recompenced for their pains then when they are most admired and least understood But never was Christianity more dishonoured then when men brought it from its native simplicity and plainness into a company of cloudy and insignificant expressions which are so far from making men better understand the truth of it that it was certainly the Devils design by such obscure terms to make way for a mysterie to be advanced but it was of iniquity and soon after we see the effect of it in another oracle set up at Rome instead of Delphos and all the pretence of it was the obscurity supposed in Scripture What! darkness come by the rising of the Sun Or is the Sun at last grown so beggarly that he is fain to borrow light of the earth Must the Sâ—ripture be beholding to the Church for its clearness and Christ himselâ— not speak intelligibly unless the Popâ— be his Interpreter Did Christ reveal to the world the Way to salvation and yet leave men to seâ—k which was it till a Guide never heard of in the Scripture come to direct them in the Way to it What strange witnesses were the Apostles if they did noâ— speak the truth with plainness How had men been to sâ—â—k as â—o the truth of Christianity if the Apostles had not declared the dâ—ctrine of the Gospel with all evidence and perspicuity Whom must we believe in this case the Apostles or the Roman oracle The Apostles they tell us they speak with all plainness of speech and for that end purposely lay aside all excâ—llency of words and humane wisdom that men might not be to seek for their mâ—aning in a matter of so great moment that the Gospel was hid to none but such as are lost and whose eyes are blinded by the god of this world that the doctrinâ— revealed by them is a light to direct us in our way to heaven and a rule to walk by and it is a strange property of light to be obscure and of a rule to be crooked But it is not only evident from the Apostles own affirmations that they laid aside all affected obscurity ambiguous expressions and Philosophical terms whereby the world might have been to seek for what they were to believe but it is likewise clear from the very nature of the doctrine they preached and the design of their preaching of it What need Rhetorick in plain truths or affected phrases in giving evidence How incongruous would obscure expressions have been to the design of saving souls by the foolishness of preaching For if they had industriously spoken in their preaching above the capacities of those they spake to they could never have converted a soul without a miracle for the ordinary way of conversion must be by the understanding and how could that work upon the understanding which was so much above it But saith the Apostle we preach not our selves but Christ Iesus the Lord and our selves your servants for Iesus sake If they had sought themselves or their own credit and reputation there might have been some reason that they should have used the way of the Sophists among the Greeks and by declamatory speeches to have inhanceed their esteem among the vâ—lgar But the Apostles disowned and rejected all these vulgar artifices of mean and low-spirited men they laid aside all those enticing words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the way of the Heathen Sophists and declared the Tâ—stimony of God with spiritual evidence they handled not the word of God deceitfully but by manifestation of the truth commended themselves to every mans consâ—ience in the sight of God Now what could be so suiteable to such a design as the greatest plainness and faithfulness in what they spake We find in the testimony of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Origen speaks nothing that is spurious or counterfeit nothing savouring of the cunning craftiness of such as lie in wait to deceive and saith he it is impossible to think that men never bred up in the Sophistry of the Greâ—ks nor experienced in the Rhetorical insinuations used among them could ever be able so suddenly to perswade the world to embrace that which had been a figment of their own brains The truth is the Apostles speak like men very confident of the truth of what they speak and not like such who were fain to fetch in the help of all their Topicks to find out some probable arguments to make men believe that which it is probable they did not believe themselves which was most commonly the case of the great Orators among the Heathens We find no pedantick flourishes no slattering insinuations no affected cadencyes no such great care of the rising and falling of words in the several sentences which make up so great a part of that which was accounted eloquence in the Apostles times These things were too mean a prey for the spirits of the Apostles to quarry upon every thing in them was grave and serious every word had its due weight every sentence brim-full of spiritual matter their whole discourse most becoming the Majesty and Authority of that spirit which they spake by And therein was seen a great part of the infinite wisdom of God in the choice he made of the persons who were to propagate the Doctrine of Christ in the world that they were not such who by reason of their great repute and fame in the world might easily draw whole multitudes to imbrace their dictates but that there might not be the least foundation for an implicit faith they were of so mean rank and condition in the world that in all probability their names had never been hard of had not their doctrine made them famous To this purpose Origen excellently speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am of opinion saith he that Iesus did purposely make use of such preachers of his doctrine that there might be no place for suspicion that they came instructed with the arts of Sophistry but that it be clearly manifest to all that would consider it that there was nothing of design in those who discovered so much simplicity in their writings and that they had a more divine power which was more efficacious then the greatest volubility of expressions or ornaments of speech or the artifices which were used in the
so much to be wondered at that the eloquence and reason of the Philosophers should prevail on some very few persons but that the mean and contemptible language of the Apostles should convert such multitudes from intemperance to sobriety from injustice to fair dealing from cowardise to the highest constancy yea so great as to lay down their lives for the sake of vertue how can we but admire so divine a power as was seen in it And therefore saith he we conclude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is so far from being impossible that it is not at all difficult for corrupt nature to be changed by the Word of God Lactantius excellently manifests that Philosophy could never do so much good in the world as Christianity did because that was not suited at all to common capacities and did require so much skill in the Arts to prepare men for it which it is impossible all should be well skilled in which yet are as capable of being happy as any others are And how inefficacious the precepts of Philosophy were appears by the Philosophers themselves who were far from having command by them over their masterless passions and were fain sometimes to confess that nature was too head-strong to be kept in by such weak reins as the Precepts of Philosophy were But saith he what great command divine precepts have upon the souls of men daily experience shews Da mihi virum qui sit iracundus maledicus effrenatus paucissimis Dei verbis tam placidum quam ovem reddam Da cupidum avarum tenacem jam tibi eum liberalem dabo pecuniam suam plenis manibus largientem Da timidum doloris ac mortis jam cruces ignes taurum contemnet Da libidinosum adulterum ganeonem jam sobrium castum â—ontinentem videbis Da crudelem sanguinis appetentem jam in veram clementiam furor ille mutabitur Da injustum insipientem peccatorem continuo aequus prudens innocens crit In which words that elegant writer doth by a Rhetorical Scheme set out the remarkable alteration which was in any who became true Christians that although they were passionate covetous fearful lustful cruel unjust vitious yet upon their being Christians they became mild liberal couragious temperate merciful just and unblameable which never any were brought to by meer Philosophy which rather teacheth the art of concealing vices then of healing them But now when Christianity was so effectual in the cure of those distempers which Philosophy gave over as beyond its skill and power when it cured them with so great success and that not in a Paracelsian way for them to relapse afterwards with greater violence but it did so throughly unsettle the fomes morbi that it should never gather to so great a head again doth not this argue a power more then Philosophical and that could be no less then divine power which tended so much to reform the world and to promote true goodness in it Thus we have considered the contrariety of the doctrine of Christ to mens natural inclinations and yet the strange success it had in the world which in the last place will appear yet more strange when we add the almost continual opposition it met with from worldly power and policy Had it been possible for a cunningly devised fable or any meer contrivance of impostors to have prevailed in the world when the most potent and subtile persons bent their whole wits and designs for suppressing it Whatever it were in others we are sure of some of the Roman Emperours as Iulian and Dioclesian that it was their master-design to root out and abolish Christianity and was it only the subtilty of the Christians which made these persons give over their work in despair of accomplishing it If the Christians were such subtile men whence came all their enemies to agree in one common calumny that they were a company of poor weak ignorant inconsiderable men and if they were so how came it to pass that by all their power and wisdom they could never exterminate these persons but as they cut them down they grew up the faster and multiplyed by their substraction of them There was something then certainly peculiar in Christianity from all other doctrines that it not only was not advanced by any civil power but it got ground by the opposition it met with in the world And therefore it is an observable circumstance that the first Christian Emperour who acted as Emperour for Christianity viz. Constantine for otherwise I know what may be said for Philippus did not appear in the world till Christianity had spread its self over most parts of the habitable world God thereby letting us see that though the civil power when become Christian might be very useful for protecting Christianity yet that he stood in no need at all of it as to the propagation of it abroad in the world But we see it was quite otherwise in that Religion which had Mars its ascendant viz. Mahometism For like Paracelsus his Daemon it alwayes sat upon the pummel of the sword and made its way in the world meerly by force and violence and as its first constitution had much of blood in it so by it hath it been fed and nourished ever since But it was quite otherwise with the Christian Religion it never thrived better then in the most barren places nor triumphed more then when it suffered most nor spread its self further then when it encountered the greatest opposition Because therein was seen the great force and efficacy of the doctrine of Christ that it bore up mens spirits under the greatest miseries of life and made them with chearfulness to undergo the most exquisite torments which the cruelty of Tyrants could invent The Stoicks and Epicureans boasts that their wise man would be happy in the Bull of Phalaris were but empty and Thrasonical words which none would venture the truth of by an experiment upon themselves It was the Christian alone and not the Epicurean that could truly say in the midst of torments Suave est nihil curo and might justly alter a little of that common saying of the Christians and say Non magna lâ—quimur sed patimur as well as vivimus the Christians did not speak great things but do and suffer them And this gained not only great râ—putation of integrity to themselves but much advanced the honour of their Religion in the world when it was so apparently seen that no force or power was able to withstand it Will not this at least perswade you that our Religion is true and srom God saith Arâ—â—bius Quod cum genera poenarum tanta sint à vobis proposita Religionis hujus sequentibus leges augeatur res magis contra omnes minas atque interdicta formidinum animosius populus obnitatur ad credendi studium prohibitionis ipsius stimulis â—xcitetur Itane istud non divinum sacrum est
seek for satisfaction as ever for granting that a Divine power is seen in one and not in the other he must needs be still dissatisfied unless it can be made evident to him that such things are from Divine power and others cannot be Now the main distinction being placed here in the natures of the things abstractly considered and not as they bear any evidence to our understandings in stead of resolving doubts it increaseth more for as for instance in the case of the Magicians rods turning into scrpents as well as Moses his what satisfaction could this yeild to any spectator to tell him that in the one there was a Divine power and not in the other unless it were made appear by some evidence from the thing that the one was a meer imposture and the other a real alteration in the thing it self I take it then for granted that no general discourses concerning the formal difference of miracles and wonders considered in themselves can afford any rational satisfaction to an inquisitive mind that which alone is able to give it must be something which may be discerned by any judicious and considerative person And that God never gives to any a power of miracles but he gives some such ground of satisfaction concerning them will appear upon these two considerations 1. From Gods intention in giving to any this power of doing miracles We have largely made it manifest that the end of true miracles is to be a confirmation to the world of the Divine commission of the persons who have it and that the testimony is Divine which is confirmed by it Now if there be no way to know when miracles are true or false this power is to no purpose at all for men are as much to seek for satisfaction as if there had been no such things at all Therefore if men are bound to believe a Divine testimony and to rely on the miracles wrought by the persons bringing it as an evidence of it they must have some assurance that these miracles could not come from any but a Divine power 2. From the providence of God in the world which if we own we cannot imagine that God should permit the Devil whose only design is to ruine mankind to abuse the credulity of the world so far as to have his lying wonders pass uncontrouled which they must do if nothing can be found out as a certain difference between such things as are only of Diabolical and such as are of Divine power If then it may be discovered that there is a malignant spirit which acts in the world and doth produce strange things either we must impute all strange things to him which must be to attribute to him an infinite power or else that there is a being infinitely perfect which crosseth this malignant spirit in his designs and if so we cannot imagine he should suffer him to usurpe so much tyranny over the minds of men as to make those things pass in the more sober and inquisitive part of the world for Divine miracles which were only counterfeits and impostures If then the providence of God be so deeply engaged in the discovering the designs of Satan there must be some means of this discovery and that means can be supposed to be no other in this case but some rational and satisfactory evidence whereby we may know when strange and miraculous things are done by Satan to deceive men and when by a Divine power to confirm a Divine testimony But how is it possible say some that miracles should be any ground on which to believe a testimony Divine when Christ himself hath told us that there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders in so much that if it were possible they should deceive the very elect and the Apostle tells us that the coming of Antichrist will be with all power and signs and lying wonders How then can we fix on miracles as an evidence of Divine testimony when we see they are common to good and bad men and may seal indifferently either truth or falshood To this I reply 1. Men are guilty of doing no small disservice to the doctrine of Christ when upon such weak and frivolous pretences they give so great an advantage to infidelity as to call in question the validity of that which yeilded so ample a testimony to the truth of Christian religion For if once the rational grounds on which we believe the doctrine of Christ to be true and Divine be taken away and the whole evidence of the truth of it be laid on things not only derided by men of Atheistical spirits but in themselves such as cannot be discerned or judged of by any but themselves upon what grounds can we proceed to convince an unbeliever that the doctrine which we believe is true If they tell him that as light and fire manifest themselves so doth the doctrine of the Scriâ—ture to those who believe it It will be soon replyed that self-evidence in a matter of faith can imply nothing but either a firm perswasion of the mind concerning the thing propounded or else that there are such clear evidences in the thing it self that none who freely use their reason can deny it the first can be no argument to any other person any further then the authority of the person who declares it to have such self-evidence to him doth extend its self over the mind of the other and to ones self it seems a strange way of arguing I believe the Scriptures because they are true and they are true because I believe them for self-evidence implyes so much if by it be meant the perswasion of the mind that the thing is true but if by self-evidence be further meant such clear evidence in the matter propounded that all who do consider it must believe it I then further enquire whether this evidence doth lie in the nâ—ked proposal of the things to the understanding and if so then every one who assents to this proposition that the whole is greater then the part must likewise assent to this that the Scripture is the Word of God or whether doth the evidence lie not in the naked proposal but in the efficacy of the Spirit of God on the minds of those to whom it is propounded Then 1. The self-evidence is taken off from the written Word which was the object and removed to a quite different thing which is the efficient cause 2. Whether then any persons who want this efficacious operation of the Spirit of God are or can be bound to believe the Scripture to be Gods Word If they are bound the duty must be propounded in such a way as may be sufficient to convince them that it is their duty but if all the evidence of the truth of the Scripture lie on this testimony of the Spirit then such as want this can have none at all But if â—astly by this self-evidence be meant
pimple any the most trivial thing with a word speaking or the touch of the hand Upon this Arnobius challengeth the most famous of all the Heathen Magicians Zoroastres Armenius Pamphilus Apollonius Damigero Dardanus Velus Iulianus and Baebulus or any other renowned Magician to give power to any one to make the dumb to speak the deaf to hear the blind to see or bring life into a dead body Or if this be too hard with all their Magical rites and incantations but to do that quod à rusticis Christianis jussienibus factitatum est nudis which ordinary Christians do by their meer words So great a difference was there between the highest that could be done by Magick and the least that was done by the Name and Power of Christ. Where miracles are truly Divine God makes it evident to all impartial judgements that the things do exceed all created power For which purpose we are to observe that though impostures and delusions may go far the power of Magicians further when God permits them yet when God works miracles to confirm a Divine Testimony he makes it evident that his power doth infinitely exceed them all This is most conspicuous in the case of Moses and our blessed Saviour First Moses he began to do some miracles in the presence of Pharaoh and the Aegyptians turning his rod into a Serpent but we do not finde Pharaoh at all amazed at it but sends presently for the Magicians to do the same who did it whether really or only in appearance is not material to our purpose but Aarons rod swallowed up theirs The next time the waters are turned into blood by Moses the Magicians they do so too After this Moses brings up Frogs upon the Land so do the Magicians So that here now is a plain and open contest in the presence of Pharaoh and his people between Moses and the Magicians and they try for victory over each other so that if Moses do no more then they they would look upon him but as a Magician but if Moses do that which by the acknowledgement of these Magicians themselves could be only by Divine Power then it is demonstrably evident that his power was as far above the power of Magick as God is above the Devil Accordingly we finde it in the very next miracle in turning the dust into Ciniphes which we render lice the Magicians are non-plust and give out saying in plain terms This is the finger of God And what greater acknowledgement can there be of Divine Power then the confession of those who seemed to contest with it and to imitate it as much as possible After this we finde not the Magicians offering to contest with Moses and in the plague of boyles we particularly read that they could not stand before Moses Thus we see in the case of Moses how evident it was that there was a power above all power of Magick which did appear in Moses And so likewise in the case of our blessed Saviour for although Simon Magus Apollonius or others might do some small things or make some great shew and noise by what they did yet none of them ever came near the doing things of the same kind which our Saviour did curing the born blind restoring the dead to life after four dayes and so as to live a considerable time after or in the manner he did them with a word a touch with that frequency and openness before his greatest enemies as well as followers and in such an uncontrouled manner that neither Iews or Heathens ever questioned the truth of them And after all these when he was laid in the grave after his crucifixion exactly according to his own prediction he rose again the third day appeared frequently among his Disciples for forty dayes together After which in their presence he ascended up to heaven and soon after made good his promise to them by sending his holy Spirit upon them by which they spake with tongues wrought miracles went up and down Preaching the Gospel of Christ with great boldness chearfulness and constancy and after undergoing a great deal of hardship in it they sealed the truth of all they spake with their blood laying down their lives to give witness to it Thus abundantly to the satisfaction of the minds of all good men hath God given the highest rational evidence of the truth of the doctrine which he hath revealed to the world And thus I have finished the second part of my task which concerned the rational evidence of the truth of Divine Revelation from the persons who were imployed to deliver Gods mind to the world And therein have I hope made it evident that both Moses and the Prophets our Saviour and his Apostles did come with sufficient rational evidence to convince the world that they were persons immediately sent from God BOOK III. CHAP. I. Of the Being of God The Principles of all Religion lie in the Being of God and immortality of the soul from them the necessity of a particular Divine revelation rationally deduced the method laid down for proving the Divine authority of the Scriptures Why Moses doth not prove the Being of God but suppose it The notion of a Deity very consonant to reason Of the nature of Idea's and particularly of the Idea of God How we can form an Idea of an infinite Being How far such an Idea argues existence The great unreasonableness of Atheism demonstrated Of the Hypotheses of the Aristotelian and Epicurean Atheists The Atheists pretences examined and refuted Of the nature of the arguments whereby we prove there is a God Of universal consent and the evidence of that to prove a Deity and immortality of souls Of necessity of existence implyed in the notion of God and how far that proves the Being of God The order of the world and usefulness of the parts of it and especially of mans body an argument of a Deity Some higher principle proved to be in the world then matter and motion The nature of the soul and possibility of its subsisting after death Strange appearances in nature not solvable by the power of imagination HAving in the precedent book largely given a rational account of the grounds of our faith as to the persons whom God imployes to reveal his mind to the world if we can now make it appear that those sacred records which we embrace as Divinely inspired contain in them nothing unworthy of so great a name or unbecoming persons sent from God to deliver there will be nothing wanting to justifie our Religion in point of reason to be true and of revelation to be Divine For the Scriptures themselves coming to us in the name of God we are bound to believe them to be such as they pretend to be unless we have ground to question the general foundations of all religion as uncertain or this particular way of religion as not suitable to those general foundations The foundations of all
the Greeks received from the Barbarians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they put it into a better fashion i. e. they disguise it alter and change it as they please and put it into a Greek habit that it might never be suspected to have been a Forraigner Thence Tertullian speaks with a great deal of truth and freedom of such Philosophers who did ingenii sitim de prophetarum fonte irrigare as he expresseth it that quenched their thirst after knowledge with the waters of Iordan though they did not like Naaman cure the leproâ—ic of the head by washing in them for as Tertullian saith theâ— came only ex negotio curiositatis more to please the i tch oâ— their curiosity then to cure it And wherein they seemed most to agree with the Scriptures their difference was beyond their agreement Siquidem vera quaeque consonantia Prophetis aut aliunde commendant aut aliorsum subornant cum maxima injuria veritatis quam efficiunt aut adjuvari falsis aut patrocinari Whatever the Philosophers speak agreeable to the Scriptures either they do not own whence they had it or turn it quite another way whereby they have done the truth a great deal of injury by mixing it with their corruptions of it and making that little truth a plea for the rest of their errors Neither was this only among the ancient Philosophers but the Primitive Christians began to discern the underhand workings of such who sought to blend Philosophy and Christianity together for Tertullian himself takes great notice of such who did Veritatis dogmata ad Philosophicas sententias adulterare suborn Christianity to maintain Philosophy which makes him cry out Viderint qui Stoicum Platonicum Dialecticum Christianismum protulerunt by which we see what tampering there was betimes rather to bring Christianity down to Philosophy rather then to make Philosophy truckle under the truth and simplicity of the Scriptures Whether Ammonius himself and some others of the School of Alexandria might be guilty in this kind is not here a place to enquire though it be too evident in the writings of some that they rather seek to accommodate the Scriptures to the Sentiments of the School of Plato then to reform that by the Scriptures but I say however it were with those who were Christians yet those who were not but only Philosophers made their great advantage by it For when they found what was reconcileable with the doctrine of Plato in the Scriptures done already to their hands by the endeavours chiefly of Ammonius and Origen they greedily embrace those improvements of their Philosophy which would tend so much to the credit of it and as contemptuously reject what they found irreconcileable with the dictates of their Philosophy Now what an unreasonable thing is it when what ever was noble and excellent in the Heathen Philosophy was derivative from 〈◊〉 Scriptures as the sacred Fountâ—in of it that the meeting with such things should in the least redound to the prejudice of the Scriptures from whence it was originally derived when on the other side it should be a great confirmation to our faith as to the Scriptures that they who were professed Philosophers and admirers only of reason did so readily embrace some of those grand Truths which are contained in the word of God For which we need no other instance then that before us concerning the Origine of evil the making out of which will tend to the clearing the last thing mentioned concerning it which was that the most material things in it are attested by the Heathens themselves And this honey which is gained out of the Lions mouth must needs tast sweeter then any other doth For it is a weak and groundless mistake on the other side which is the second which ariseth from meeting things consonant to the Scriptures in the writings of Philosophers presently to conclude from such things that they were Christians as it is said some have lately done in the behalf of Hierocles For there being such clear accounts given in Scripture of the grand difficulties and perplexities which the minds of men were troubled with when these came to the knowledge of such who were of Philosophick and inquisitive heads we cannot but think they would meet with acceptation among them especially if they might be made consistent with their former speculations Thus it was in our present case concerning the Origine of evil we have already beheld the lamentable perplexities the ancient Philosophers were in about it what Maeanders they were lost in for want of a clue to guide them through them now it pleased God after the coming of Christ in the flâ—shâ—o â—o declare to the world the only way for the recovery 〈◊〉 souls and their eternal salvation the news of which being spread so far that it soon got among the Philosophers could not but make them more inquisitive concerning the state and condition of their souls and when they had searched what the Philosophers had formerly discovered of it their curiosity would presently prompt them to see what account of things concerning the souls of 〈◊〉 delivered by the preachers of this New Doctrine B◠〈◊〉 they could not but presently understand that they declared all mens souls to be in a most degenerate and low condition by being so continually under the power of the most unreasonable and unruly passions that they were estranged from God and prone to fix on things very unsuitable to their nature as to all which their own inward sense and experience could but tell them that these things were notoriously true and therefore they enquire further how these things came to be so which they receive a full account of in Scripture that mans soul was at first created pure and holy and in perfect friendship with God that God dealt bountifully and favourably with man only expected obedience to his Laws that man being a free agent did abuse his liberty and disobeyed his Maker and thence came the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the feathers of the soul whereby it soared up to heaven moulted away and the soul sunk below its self into a degenerate and apostate condition out of which it is impossible to be recovered without some extraordinary expression of Divine Favour Now what is there in all this account but what is hugely suitable to principles of reason and to the general experience of the world as to those things which were capable of being tryed by it And those Philosophers who were any thing ingenuâ—us and lovers of truth could not but confess the truth of those things which we are now speaking of viz. That mens souls are in a very degenerate condition That the most rational account of it is that man by the act of his own will brought himself into it and that in order to the happiness of mens souls there was a necessity of recovery out of this condition As to the degeneracy of the souls of men This
was the common complaint of those Philosophers who minded the government of themselves and the practice of vertue especially of the Platonâ—sts and Stoicks Seneca in all his moral Discourses especially in his Epistles may speak sufficiently in behalf of the Stoicks how much they lamented the degeneracy of the world And the Platonists all complain of the slavery of the soul in the body and that it is here by way oâ— punishment for something which was done before which makes me somewhat incurable to think that Plato knew more of the lapse of 〈◊〉 then he would openly discover and for that end disguised it after his usual manner in that hypothesis of prae-existence which taking it Cabbalistically for I rather think the opinion of prae existence is so to be taken then the history of the Fall of man may import only this That mens souls might be justly supposed to be created happy but by reason of the Apostacy of mans soul from God all souls now come into their bodies as into a kind of prison they being enslaved to the brutish part within them there having been such a true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the soul being now deprived of her chiefest perfections in this her low and degenerate condition And it seems far more rational to me to interpret those persons opinions to a Cabbalistical or an Allegorical sense who are known to have designedly writ in a way obscure and ambiguous then to force those mens expressions to Cabbala's who profess to write a plain History and that with the greatest simplicity and perspicuity But it cannot but seem very strange that an hypothesis capable of being reconciled to the plain literal sense of the Scriptures delivered by a person who useth great artifice and cunning to disguise his opinions and sueh a person withall who by such persons themselves who make use of this opinion to that end is supposed to have been very conversant with the writings of Moses should be taken in its literal sense as it really imports prae-existence of each particular soul in the gâ—ossest manner and this should be made to be a part of the Philosophick Cabbala of the writings of such a person who useth not the least artifice to disguise his sense nor gives us anywhere the least intimation that he left behind him such plaited pictures in his History of the beginning of the world that if you look straight forward you may see a literal Cabbala on the one side a Philosophical and on the other a Moral But now if we remove the Cabbala from Moses to Plato we may finde no incongruity or repugnancy at all either as to Plato his way of writing or the consonancy of the opinion so interpreted to the plain genuine sense of Moses if by Plato his opinion of the Prae-existence and descent of souls be understood by the former the happy state of the soul of man in conjunctâ—â—â— with God and by the latter the low and degenerate condiâ—â—on which the soul is in after Apostacy from him Which â—he later Platonists are so large and eloquent in expressing Porphyrie where he speaks of somethings he counsels men to do hath these words But if we cannot do them let us at least do that which was so much lamented of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us at least joyn with our Fore-fathers in lamenting this that we are compounded of such disagreeing and contrary principles that we are not able to preserve divine pure and unspotted Innocency And Hierocles fully expresseth his sense of the degeneracy of mankind in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The most of men in the world are bad and under the command of their passions and grown impotent through their propensity to earth which great evil they have brought upon themselves by their wilfull Apostacy from God and withdrawing themselves from that society with him which they once enjoyed in pure light which departure of mens souls from God which is so hurtfull to the minds of men is evident by their strong inclination to the things of this world The same Author mentions with much approbation that speech of Heraclitus speaking of those souls which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I cannot better render then undeclinably good he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We live their death and die their life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for man is now fallen down from that blessed Region and as Empedocles the Pythagorean speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which words cannot be better rendred then in the words the Scripture useth concerning Cain and he went from the presence of the Lord and was 〈◊〉 fugitive in the earth and under continual perplexitiâ—s For the soul of man having left 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is Hierocles his own expression the pleasant meadow of truth a fit description of Paradise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Through the violence of her moulting or deplumation she comes into this earthly body deprived of that blessed life which she before enjoyed Which he tells us is very consonant to Plato's senâ—e oâ— the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or descent of souls that when by reason of their impotency of fixing wholly â—on God they suffer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some great loss and a deprivation of former perfâ—ctions which I suâ—pose is meâ—nt by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the â—â—uls impotency of flying up above this earthly world then they lapse into these terrestrial and mortal bodies So Hierocles concludes with this excellent and Divine speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As therefore by Apostacy from God and the moulting of those feathers of our souls whereby we may be raised up above this world we have fallen into this place of mortals which is compassed about with evils So by the casting off carnal affections and by the growth of vertues like new Feathers to the Soul we shall ascend to the place of pure and perfect good and to the enjoyment of a divine life So much more becoming Christians do these excellent Philosophers speak of the degeneracy of mens souls and the consequents of it then some who would be accounted the followers of reason as well as of Christ who make it so much of their business to extenuate the fall of man Which we find those who were meer Philosophers far more rational and ingenuous in then those who pretend so highly to reason but I think with as little of it as any supposing the Scriptures to be of Divine authority But it is not here our businesse to consider the opinions of those who pretend to Christianity but only of such who pretending only to reason have yet consented with the doctrine of the Scriptures as the 〈◊〉 of the Souls of men that it lyes in an Apostacy from 〈◊〉 and have lost those perfections which they had before That mans will is the cause of his Apostacy this we have already manifested at large from