cannot be admitted as such are all 〈◊〉 them found peculiarly appurtenant to the â—iblâ— and cannot belong to any other Books or Writings or to any other Pretences to Revelation whatsoever Having thus established these two general points First that 't is a thing in it self reasonable and fit to believe that there should be some Revelation made from God to the world some Supernatural Laws promulged as the great Rule of mens lives here and Gods Judgment hereafter And that these Laws should be somewhere or other extant upon Record that Mankind might be fully assured and ascertained about them and that they might be visible to all that there should be some such Book as the Bible pretends to be and that 't is greatly unreasonable to believe the contrary And Secondly that in the Judgment of right Reason there are many general qualifications that must necessarily be appurtenant to such a Revelation wheresoever 't is extant and by which 't is but reasonable that Mankind should make a Judgment of every pretence to it and that all those qualifications are found punctually and peculiarly belonging to the Bible and cannot be applied to any other extant pretences to Revelation whatsoever I shall now proceed to the second thing proposed which was a more distinct and particular proof and endeavour to make it appear that this Book is indeed sent us from Heaven and is in truth that Revelation we have good cause to expect from above and that we have all those Reasons concurring to make us acquiesce in it as such from whence a Judgment in such a case ought finally to result That there is so much Evidence to be given in to prove its Divinity as no man ought to desire nor can reasonably expect more in a matter of such a Nature And so much that where mens corrupt Interests and prejudices are not Predominant will appear sufficient to every impartial enquiry And this shall be prosecuted in this Method I will these several ways consider this Book First In the time of its conveyance to the World Secondly In the way and manner of its conveyance Thirdly In the success and effects of it since its conveyance And lastly In it self in the matter of it as we now find it And from each of these considerations will a signal Testimony be given in to its Divinity and when we have taken a view of the whole we shall find that the Book both in the Matter of it and in all the Circumstances that have at any time attended it does eminently relate it self to God as its Author and cannot be reasonably judged the product of any Humane contrivement whatsoever For the first When we reslâ—ct upon the â—â—me of this Books conveyance we shall find two things of very great weight offering themselves to our consideration First the Antiquity of those things it relates to us and informs us of And Secondly the Antiquity of this 〈◊〉 iâ—â—â—lâ— since composed and delivered to us with such a relation The Contents of this Book â—â—ch aâ— far as the first foundations of the Earth and the Heavens and give us an account of Gods Revelations to Man since his first mâ—â—â— and Original and of an Orall and â—erâ—all intâ—â—â—â—â—â—se between God and the World for two thousand four hundred and old years before it was any where extant upon Râ—â—â—â—d or any part of it written Which no other Bâ—â—â— since the World began so much as makes 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â—â—â—ce to If we consider the Revelation Histoâ—â—cally contained in this Book 't is what was 〈◊〉 the beginning and of the same 〈…〉 the World it self If we consider the Edition of it in this Book and the time 〈◊〉 this Books aâ—â—ual Publication with all the aâ—â—â—tional Revelations contained in it we shall find this Book to be the first born in its kind to pâ—ecede all other Writings whatsoever and in truth to be extant while Thales Mileâ—â—us Hamer Hâ—rmes and the most primative writers the world had were unborn and unthought of Moses wrote of the God of Abraham long before any of the Heathen Gods had a written mention made of them God pleasing so to order it that although the Revelations he made to the World were not written from the beginning yet they were written long before any other Writings were extant And his own Laws were first recorded and all other Writings are of a subsequent Date to this Holy Book First I will evidence this in point of fact and shew that it is so that to this Book is indeed due the right of Primogeniture and that all other Books are of a much after-edition And becondly examine what reasonably results from thence toward that proof of the Bible we are about To all which this must be premised that when we speak of the Bible as thus Ancient we intend actually no more of it then the Writings of Moses the whole Contents of the Bible being above four thousand years in a gradual publication and the Bible it self above a thousand and six hundred years in writing for so long it was from the time that Moses writ to St. John the revealer nor need we intend more to justifie the Antiquity of the whole because 't is all there virtually contained all the rest is superstructed upon that as its â—oâ—ndation and every several part of the Bible after Moses till the Top-stone was laid appears evidently to be writ in direct pursuance of what Moses at first delivered and so much St. Paul affirmed before Foelix that he taught nothing but what was long before extant in Moses and the Prophets For the first That the Books of Moses are in fact the most Ancient I find both Jews and Christians have been greatly concerned to make it manifest as judging it a point that did greatly credit their profession and highly justifie that Religion they adhered to Josephus and others of the Jewish writers have much insisted upon it and amongst the Christian Writers Justin Marter Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Eusebius Cyrill of Alexandria in his Books against Julian St. Austin and others But most especially Justin Martyr and Eusebius Justin Martyr in his Parenaetick to the Graecians because they used with great Arrogance to boast of the Antiquity of their own Learning and Religion and upon that account to look with great contempt upon others proves against them out of Pagan Authors and those chiefly their own beyond all reasonable denial that the Books of Moses were of much greater Antiquity then the most Ancient Writers they could make a pretence to And that the Christian Religion being the natural issue of those Writings founded upon them and derived from them was no new or upstart invention but indeed the first and most Antient written and unwritten Truth the World was possessed of and the same thing is afterwards more largely and distinctly proved and made good by Eusebius in his Evangelical Preparation Who thus concludes Quare omnibus Diis ac Heroibus Graecorum multo Vetustior
the Jews in the time of our Saviour and the Apostles nor before and 't is certain if there had been any Books then extant in truth written by him they would have been in great esteem and veneration in the Jewish Church though they had not been within their Canon which we are sure they were not and Philo or Josephus most diligent searchers of their Antiquities would have made some eminent mention of them in whose Works we find altum silentium about any such Books and therefore 't is not to be supposed they believed there were any such real Books then extant But 't is most probable that after the Apostle Jude had in his Epistle quoted a Prophecie of Enoch which Prophecie without doubt he came to the knowledge of either purely by Revelation which I rather believe or else by a Tradition the truth of which was ascertained to him by Revelation by which means came others also of the Sacred Writers in after-times to be ascertained of what they writ about divers things that relate to the History of Moses that were not to be found in his Books for in the Psalms we find mention of some things done in Moses his time that are not recorded in his Books St. Paul in the 9 to the Hebrews sayes that when Moses had spoken every precept according to the Law he took the blood of Calves and Goats with Water and Scarlet Wool and Hyssop and sprinkled bâ—th the Book and all the People saying this is the Blood of the Testament c. In which the Apostle has added several things that are not inserted by Moses in the selation of this passage in the 24 of Exodus So Stephens Speech set down in the 7 of the Acts tells us that Moses in killing the Egyptian supposed that his brethren would have understood how that God by his Hand would deliver them but they understood not By which we have a Reason given for Moses killing the Egyptian that he himself has no where set down and by which we come to understand that before Moses went into the Land of Midian God revealed to him that he was to be the deliverer of that people which Moses himself has not any where told us I say 't is probable that some Hereticks in the Church most likely the Gnosticks who much cryed up those Spurious Writings to promote their own corrupt Opinions and Interests took occasion from thence to frame certain counterfeit Books just as some others did under the names of Jaâ—nes and Jambres after St. Pauls mention of them as written by Enoch before the Flood which Books have sufficiently betrayed themselves for those that were published under his name were stuft as St. Austin sayes with such absurd and fabulous Stories of Angels and such ridiculous relations of Gyants whose Fathers were Angels and no men that they are to be justly rejected as pâ—lpably counterfeit and fictitious Of the same mind is Jerom Chrysostom and Epiphanius and when Celsus alledged some absurd Stories out of those writings in reproch to the Christians Origen in his fifth Book answers him by shewing what a mean esteem the Jews as well as the Christians then had of them For the second those Pillars of the Sons of Seth 't is beyond all compass of credit that any such Pillars should be set up with an intention to outlast the Deluge or that they should so do or that any Engravings upon them should be visible some thousands of years after especially upon one of Brick for Josephus tells us there were two at first erected one of Brick and another of Stone and that of Stone they made on purpose to last if the other should decay how he came to such an exact account of their minds the Reader may guess and yet he sayes 't was that of Brick that then remained upon which he does not absolutely say there was any thing written in Letters but that the Sons of Seth Engraved upon them such things as they had invented which might be by many other representations and other ways then by Letters for I doubt not but that a Symbolical representation of mens thoughts one to another was extream early in the World though they wanted Alphabetical Letters Nor does Josephus say that He saw it it himself or give any punctual account what it was that was engraven upon it or any certain Place where the Pillar was to be seen but only in general that it was then in the Countrey of Syria where he left men of leisure to enquire after it The truth is there are so very many improbable and unlikely if not impossible Circumstances do attend this vain Story that 't is plain Josephus though in the general a Historian of deserved credit took it upon bare report from others some late Authors think and perhâ—ps not amiss from the fabulous relation of Manetho who sayes he took his History from some Pillars set up before the Flood and was marvailously abused in that Countenance he seems to give to it nor ought it to seem strange that he should be so for we sind many of the best Historians have taken up things upon trust and fallen thereby into very great mistakes Suetonius and Tacitus are both eminent Historians amongst the Romans yet both guilty of strange mistakes Tacitus tells us in his History That the Jews worshipped an Asses Head with the highest veneration then which nothing could be more untruly and upon less ground affirmed and Suetonius so mistook that he thought Christ lived in the time of Claudius for he sayes In the time of Claudius Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes civitate expulit That Claudius expelled the Jews out of Rome who were continually making uproars being stirred up thereunto by Christ Then which there could not be an absurder mistake nor a greater falshood well uttered For the third The mention that Moses makes in the 21 of Numbers and the 14 of the book of the wars of the Lord as a Book then extant his words are wherefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord what he didin the red Sea and in the brooks of Arnon First divers probable senses are given of the place that render it no Objection in this case The Geneva Translation not much differing from some others renders it thus Wherefore it shall be spoken in the book of the Battles of the Lord c. If so then 't is Prophetical and may relate to Joshuah who is said to sight the Battles of the Lord and to the Relations in the books of Joshuah or Judges that were to be after Junius reads the words thus Idcirco dici solet in recensione bellorum Jehovae c. Wherefore it is wont to be said in the rehearsal of the Wars of the Lord c. And so understands it not of any particular book but that amongst the Wars that God disposed for the good of the Israelites there was in those times a famous mention in the
a Word that famous and venerable Senate in which the last of the Prophets were present all parts of the Old Testament being compleated and the whole Prophecy that God vouchsafed till the coming of the Messiah delivered applied themselves to the punctual Collection of the several parts together and securing the Original text against any corruption or alteration exactly setled the Canon of the Old Testament which the Jews kept punctually to till the times of our Saviour who fully approved the Scriptures as he then found the Jews in possession of them Secondly That any parts of the Bible or any Books dictated by the Holy Ghost are wholly Lost we utterly deny The affirmation of it is neither consisting with the notion of Divine providence in General nor can any particular proof be brought to make it good Those who insist upon this as Bellarmine and some of the Papists do thereby to gain an advantage to the Church when 't is put in ballance with the Bible And others with design by proving the Loss of any Part to invalidate the Authority of the Whole instance in the three thousand parables or proverbs of Solomon and a thousand and five songs spoken of 1 King 4.32 The Books of Nathan the Prophet and Gad the Seer mentioned in the second of Chronicles The Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and the visions of Iddo or Addo the Seer spoken of in the 2 Chron. 9. and some others And under the New Testament an Epistle of St. Paul written as they suppose to the Laodicaeans mentioned Colos 4.16 Although very many of these Writings mentioned in the Old Testament seem to refer to other parts of Scripture contained in the Bible In particular 't is probable that Nathan and Gad wrote some parts of the Books of Samâ—â— and the Kings so much at least as concern's the Actions of David of which they were exactly knowing if they wrote not the whole Second Book of Samuel and the first of the Kings which some upon probable grounds supposes yet Admit all these were other writings then are now contained in any part of the Bible it will no way follow they were ever any part of Canonical Scripture When the Scripture mention's Books written by these or any other Men and relates historically to the matter oâ— them as St Paul sometimes quoted Heathâ— Authors Will that Infer They are parts of the Bible By no means Nay the very Writers of the Bible themselves such as David Solâ—mon and others of the Prophets might and without all doubt some of them did Write many things in an ordinary way that were True without any Divine or Infallible direction and which were never incorporated with the Bible and so says St. Austin in his 18th Book De civ Dei says be Those Prophet whom it pleased the Holy Spirit to inspire wrote some things as Men And those works we have 〈◊〉 in our Canon nor had the Jews in theirs and other things as from the mouth of God and these works are really Distinct Some being held their own as Men and some the Lords as speaking by them And therefore He that will prove from hence that any parts of the Bible are Lost must first be well assured that These are no parts of the Scriptures we are now possessed of and Secondly that admitting they are not That they were written by an Infallible Spirit and ence within the Canon Of which Latter we are well assâ—red the least proof cannot be made For the Jews were most faithful Preservers of those Oracles of God committed unto their change Nor were they ever so much as once blamed by Christ or the Apostles for any Miscarriage that way As for an Epistle supposed to be written by St. Paul under the New Testament to the Laodicaeons which is since Lost The supposition is frivolous and groundless For the words in the Greck are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that from Laodicaea Which cannot be understood of an Epistle written by St. Paul to Laodicae but of one written from Laodicaea either to the Colossians themselves which they then had by them or else to St. Paul which he sent them and required them to read it as containing something expedient for them to know The mistaken opinion from this place of an Epistle from St. Paul to the Laodicâ—ans hath most probably arisen from the ill rendition in the Vulgar Latin where the words are rendered illa quae est Laodicentium But without any ground from the Original Catherinus confesseth that according to the opinion of Chrisostome and Oecumenius Non hic nominari Epistolam a Paulo scriptam ad Laodicenses sed ex co loco scriptam That here 's no mention of any Epistle written by St. Paul to the Laodicaeans but of some Epistle written from Laodicaea That there was anciently a Counterfeit Epistle that pretended to be written by St. Paul to the Laodicaeans which is since lost is most true But in those times wherein 't was extant it was universally Rejected as Spurious and known so to be St. Jerome speaks of it but says Abomnibus exploditur The second Councel of Nice in their sixth Canon say thus of it Inter Epistolas Pauli Apostoli quaedam fertur ad Laodicenses quam Patres nostri tanquam Alienam reprobaverunt Tertullian against Marcion and Theophilact both reject it with great contempt and say 't is Apostolico nomine planâ— indigna And Bellarmine himself though he had formerly affirmed there was such an Epistle which was certainly Lost Yet in the first Chapter of his Book which he calls his Recognition or After-view of his works Retracts it says he was mistaken and that there never was any such thing as such an Epistle written by St. Paul So that all the Insinuations of this kind that any parts of the Bible any Books written by a Divine inspiration have been at any time Lost out of the world appear to be very weakly and ill Grounded And in truth the foot steps of Divine providence have been eminently visible in Securing those Holy writings upon this threefold account From Destruction Addition and Alteration First No accidents of Time nor Designs of its worst Enemies have Totally obliterated the Whole or any Part. Secondly Though many have attempted to piece in and add to it false and counterfeit Fragments and some whole Gospels yet in defiance to all those Essays the Scriptures have remained intire and stood like a Rock Impenetrable No Spurious Writings have been able to incorporate with this holy Book Such who have gone about to forge Scripture have but made the Lustre of the Bible more Eminent and more evidently shewed us the difference of Gods reâ—ealing from Heaven and Mens counterfeiting upon Earth Mens writing by the strength of humane abilities and mens writing as they were moved thereunto by the Holy Ghost Thirdly From Alteration No man has been suffer'd notwithstanding all the attempts of Hereticks to that purpose to pollute or corrupt it All
Of the first peopling of America from whence it was first peopled or at what time little account can be expected nor can any Objection be reasonably made from thence in this Matter because of the perfect silence in all Antient Story of any such place and because of our total ignorance of it till of late but there is ground sufficient to believe that 't is of a much later Plantation than the other three parts of the World For there are not Records found amongst the People of that Countrey that exceed a thousand years and as most tell us from thence Not above eight hundred The exact and punctual account of this whole Matter we have from Josephus and Eusebâ—us heretofore and from many learned men since But especially from the most excellent Bochart who has herein far exceeded them all and whose most successful endeavours this way have not onely most evidently cleared the Truth of Sacred History in this particular but indeed the Whole of what Moses has wrote is very greatly justified thereby Secondly Those Prophetical Predictions of our Saviour in the New Testament concerning the miseries of the Jews their being led Captive into all Nations the Besieging of Jerusalem and such a Ruine of the Temple as that one stone should not be left upon another with many other Prophesies relating to that business have had such an eminent and notorious fulfilling in the times of Vespatian Trajan Adrian and since as greatly justifies the whole of the Gospel and much assures us of the truth of all that our Saviour has spoken What we find in Tacitus Hegysippus and other Heathen Writers but especially the Story of Josephus their own Historian has written of that which happened to the Jeus their City and Temple about forty years after the sufferings of Christ is so exactly corresponding to what he himself foretold and is set down in the 24th of St. Matthew that no instance can be given that any future events were ever so plainly and fully foretold and so punctually fulfilled in any Age Nor can any impartial man consider that strange Agreement there is in every Particular between what then happened and what our Saviour foretold so many years before without being greatly affected with it And how fully competent Josephus was to write that Story may be judged by what he himself sayes in his first Book against Appion I my self sayes he have composed a most true Story of those Wars and of every particular thing there done As well I might having been present in all those Affairs For I was Captain of the Galilaeanâ— amongst our Nation so long as any resistance could be made against the Romans And then it fell out that I was taken by the Romans And being Prisoner unto Titus and Vespatian they caused me to be an eye-witness of all things that pass't First In Bonds and Fetters And afterwards freed from them I was brought from Alexandria with Titus when he went to the Siege of Jerusalem So that nothing could then pass whereof I had not notice For beholding the Roman Army I committed all things to writing with all possible diligence My self did onely manage all Matters disclosed unto the Romans by such as yeelded themselves for that I only did perfectly understand them Lastly Being at Rome and having now leasure all businesses being past I used the help of some for the Greek Tongue And so I published a History of all that had happened in the aforesaid War Which History of mine is so true that I fear not to call Vespatian and Titus Emperors in those Wars to witness for them I first gave a Copy of that Book to them after to many noble Romans present in those Wars I sold also many of them to our own Nation to such as understood the Greek Language Amongst whom were Julius Archelaus Herod the Honest and the most worthy King Agrippa who do all testifie that my History containeth nothing but truth who would not have been silent if any thing either out of Ignorance or Flattery I had changed or omitted in any particular The City of Jerusalem and the Temple being about forty years after our Saviours time by Vespation and Titus totally ruined and demolished The Jews after that three times indeavoured to rebuild their Temple The first time was under the Emperor Adrian in the year after Christ 136. Which attempt had no other effect but the slaughter of fifty thousand of them with many other sad Desolations which we find set down at large by that noble Historian Dion Cassius Their second attempt was under Constantine which he soon quashed but not without great Expressions of his Displeasure against them cutting off their Ears and branding their Bodies and making most of them Slaves and Vagabonds Their last attempt to rebuild it was in the dayes of Julian when they were so far from being any way hindered that they were highly encouraged by Julian himself with Money and all Materials on purpose as Sozomon tells us to vilify the Christian Religion and confront our Saviours Prediction The Story of it we have from one that we are sure could have no design to befriend the Christians Ammianus Marcellinus a Heathen-Historian and a Souldier at that time in Julians Army He tells us with what immoderate Expences and indefatigable Industry the Jews by the help of Julian set about it intending to make it more famous than ever And that to expedite the Work Julian appointed one Alyppius a Person of great quality in his Army to oversee it and assist in it And at last concludes his whole Relation with these words Cum itaque rei idem fortiter instaret Alyppius juvaretque Provinciae Rector Metuendi globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebis assultibus erumpentes fecere locum exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum hocque modo elemento destinatius repellente cessavit incaeptum Am. Marcel lib. 23. When therefore this Alyppius set eagerly on the work being assisted by the Governour of that Province dreadful Balls of Fire bursting forth with often assaults near the Foundation made the place the Workmen being several times devoured with the flames inaccessible And after this manner the Element resisting as with some kind of destiny the design was given over This was that final stroke from Heaven that put a period to all endeavours of rebuilding that place and to all future attempts of restoring again the Jewish Church-state and Polity And how great an Evidence is it to the truth of the Gospel and the Whole of what our Saviour has spoken to sind all these Predictions against his great Opposers and Crucifiers so strangely and so exactly and in so visible and notorious a manner fulfilled And in truth that general prophetick Spirit we find throughout the Bible those manifold plain and direct Predictions 't is every where fill'd with of things future and to come tells us much of its Divinity and greatly assures us It could not be an effect
us as appear evidently sitted and suited to supply all the defects of our natural Knowledge and after an admirable manner harmonize with the rational Nature in which things from Above are so interwoven with things below and every way so proportioned to them as that Truths Supernatural which we cannot fully comprehend appear justified to us by Truths natural that we are perfectly judges of and between both there appears a wonderful concord If we find a Book written in God's own Name commanding the World upon that single account to bow before it and in a way peculiarly proper to his own Soveraignty and Greatness with a positive claim to his immediate Authority and the truth of this claim established to the World by a multitude of the greatest and most eminent Miracles at several times openly wrought that ever were extant and the Fact of which was never by any deny'd A Book the Doctrine whereof by the power and reputation of those Miracles it s own innate Worth and the Divine Assistance that accompanyed it without the least humane help nay against all Humane-Opposition all earthly Policy and Force withstanding it has gain'd so great an acceptance as we see â—his to have done subdued in its first enâ—rance that great Empire of Rome subâ—erted the whole Judaical Fabrick and â—as made both Heathenism and Judaism â—inaly fall before it If we find a Book that gives us the â—est and most satisfying account of the â—hole affair of this World and all the Vicissitudes of it and of God's providential Rule and Dispose of all Humane Affairs A Book in which the whole business of the World is fully and strangely epitomized and we see nothing happen or come to pass contradictive of but according to what is there written and of which we find there some general notice If we find a Book the Doctrine whereof totally subverts the whole interest of the Devil and all the corrupt interests of Men in a way far superior to what ever was or can rationally be supposed ever could be attempted in that kind by the wisest and best of men and introduces much nobler and elevated Notions oâ— Piety and Vertâ—e than the World werâ— any other way ever possessed of If we find a Book that has plainly anâ— directly foretold most of the great thing that have come to pass in all Ages thaâ— has many hundreds of years beforâ— some of them happened pronounced with an absolute prophetick certainty about thâ—m and has never been found tâ— mistake in a tittle though it has somâ—times descended so to Particulars as 〈◊〉 name even the Persons of men long before they were born cannot once be impeached for giving a wrong Divination about the least Circumstance relating either to Persons or Things If we find a Book that has been signally preserved from the greatest rage of many powerful Adversaries and from the most Violent and Potent Attempts for its total Suppression and Ruine of such who were in highest Authority and furnished with greatest advantages to effect it A Book that has scap'd all sorts of Contrivance against it and safely descended through the Channel of so many Ages and been to this day providentially secured and unmaimed and intirely delivered over to us If we find a Book that evidently in the judgment of all right Reason improves Mankind to the highest pitch in all worthy and excellent Attainments boâ—h Moral and Divine Brings the World into the best posture 't is capable of Makes men Wiser Better and Happier than they ever were or could themselves find out how to be If we find a Book that by means utterly unthought of and far out of all humane-reach and yet of a most holy and excellent Nature sweetly and safely even to our greatest admiration reconciles us to God Fills up that vast Gulph that was between Heaven and Earth and makes way for a free and perpetual intercourse between God and Man Exposes to the view of the World thereby a Beatitude infinitely transcending whatever the Wisdom of Man could contrive or invent which the rational Soul the more it considers still the more it adores and admires and in which to the utmost 't is delighted and satisfied In short If we find a Book that has all those things if we respect both the Matter of it and the Manner of its conveyance to us appurtenant to it that we can rationally expect should accompany a Revelation from Heaven and such a supernatural Law by which we may suppose God would enlighten and rule the World A Book that every way answers all the great ends of Revelation proposeth most suitable Remedies to all our natural Defects leaves not a Disease in Humane Nature uncured nor a Breach that mans fall hath occasioned un-made up If there be not one thing we can imagine God should reveal to us in order to our present or future Welfare about things visible or invisible about This World or the Next that we are not here told of If we have here such discoveries made of things supernatural and unseen as have evidently set bounds to the restless and inquisitive minds of Men about those Matters And such as we cannot reasonably judge could be the product of any humane thoughts nor of any thing lesse than the infinite and boundless Wisdom and Knowledge of GOD himself If we have found such a Book If the Bible be thus qualified What can be otherwise judged upon such Premises but that this Book is indeed that sacred Instrument wherein God has recorded his Sovereign Pleasure This is in truth that Revelation from Heaven the World in all Ages have so much expected and to which so many false pretensions have in all Ages been made Here is indeed contained that System of Laws supernatural by the publication whereof God has abounded in all the effects of his Bounty and even out-done the furthest Conceptions the World has at any time had of his Goodness How strangely unreasonable were it to derive such a Book from the highest degree of imposture How heterodox is it to all good sense to suppose that the worst and most pernitious delusion by which the World has been ever abused which we must needs reckon this Book to be if it be not from God should have in point of time the precedency of all true Religion and be of an antienter date than any divine Truth the World can pretend to Who that believes the supream Existence of God can imagine that the best documents in the judgment of all unprejudiced reason that ever mankind were disciplin'd by should have the Devil or the vilest of men for their Authors That such should contrive and publish a Doctrine that brings men to the best method of living That such should reduce mankind to the happyest and best condition and out do the Divine goodness in that particular Who can imagine that the Devil or any ill men in promoting the highest Treason against God counterfeting his Name and Authority and
upon him For if all things be originally in themselves indifferent and have neither good nor ill in them 't was then indifferent whether there should be any Law-makers or any Laws made Authority it self is indifferent and if that be it self indifferent and have neither intrinsecal good nor evil in it my obedience must needs be indifferent too For if it be indifferent whether there should be any such thing as civil authority or no and civil Authority have no real internal good or ill annexed to it it must needs be indifferent as to matter of inward Conscience whether I should obey it or no. If all things be in themselves indifferent 't is impossible for men by positive Laws to make any thing otherwise because the power by which those positive Laws are made is in its nature indifferent too and has neither essential good nor ill belonging to it And if so it must needs be indifferent to me whether I obey it or not For the things they command or forbid are in their own nature indifferent and the power commanding is it self indifferent as to its own Being whether it should so command or no! For although a thing in it self and all its circumstances wholly indifferent ceaseth to be so to me when commanded or forbid by a positive Law because of the conscience I ought to have of the authority commanding or forbidding as having an intrinsical good in it to which I am positively obliged and as a thing in its own nature obligatory to me yet were that Authority wholly indifferent in it self in its being whether it should be or no and had no essential good or ill in its constitution it must needs be indifferent to me whether I should obey it or not There can never be any good or ill in obedience or disobedience where there is a perfect indifferency in the being of that Power that requires it Secondly If all things were to mankind in themselves alike and indifferent and there were no such original distinction of good and evil make in the rational nature 't were impossible ever to frame any amiable or excellent Idaea of God 'T were all one whatever we thought of him We might as well think him cruel and unjust as merciful and just For we have no other way to frame an Idaea of God but from that distinction of good and evil we make in our own breasts When the Epicureans tell us We must venerate the Deity for its excellency What excellency is it we can ascribe to God and from whence can we derive the notion of any such thing If to our own reasons all things are alike and there is no innate distinction of good and evil in the rational nature this maxime of the Epicureans does in truth put a total end to all well-doing and to all well-thinking and does utterly extinguish all Religion amongst Mankind The Noblest and best ground of all Religion is good thoughts of God arising from an amiable apprehension of him in our minds Without this 't is impossible to be truely Religious And this is utterly impossible ever to be made but upon gross Delusion and mistake if no one thing be in the true judgment of men better then another but all things as to their good and evil in themselves equal and indifferent 'T is that distinction founded in the rational nature between good and bad and an ability arising from thence to frame to it self an Idaea of excellency and perfection that is the ground of all right conceptions of God And indeed by finding things distinguished in our own rational nature we come to know they are eternally distinguished in Gods Nature Because he himself is the Author of our rational nature And 't is not reasonable to conceive he should create a nature contrary to his own And so we know there is not only a Reason in our own Breasts why some things are good and some things are evil but there is an eternal Reason in the nature of God why they are so What I think good I must necessarily think agreeable to God And what I think evil I must needs judge contrary to him or else I do not answer the original notion my reason gives me of his being And so by the distinction I sind made of things in mine own rational Nature I come to know there is the same Eternal distinstinction in Gods Nature and so an unalterable Obligation arising from thence because my Reason tells me Gods nature must be agreeable to what I think most excellent by the judgment of that faculty God has made me withall And of this I am as well assured as I am of Gods being for the same faculty that tells me God Is tells me also his Nature must needs be agreeable to what my reason tells me is in it self Holy and Good and directly opposite to whatever it tells me is in it self Evil. Thirdly were it Custom and Positive Laws that did only constitute the difference of Actions and Things that difference must needs be regulated thereby And 't will then unavoidably follow that Custom and Positive Laws might possibly invert the whole frame of things and that universal opinion of Good and Evil the World is now possessed with that is Honesty Truth and Virtue might come to be in the place of Wickedness Falshood and Vice And those we now think the Best Actions reckoned the Worst and the Worst adjudged to be the Best The very mention whereof would be as Nauseous as the practise of it would prove Ruinous to humane Nature And every man carries about him in his own Reason such an innate abhorrency of it as renders it utterly impossible upon any terms ever to be It would be also a task too hard for the wisest Epicurean to give any rational account how the World without a Divine disposal and the admission of Providence should be continued in that orderly frame we see it never any such thing as the order of the world fell out by chance 'T were absurd to suppose it how all things even some contrary to their own Nature and proper tendency should be made so subservient as they are to a common end 'T is not possible for a rational Eye to view over the general Oeconomy of the world arising from the regular motion of each particular and exclude the influence of Divine Wisdom from it If we look up of how admirable consideration is the constant course of the Heavens and the suitable influences of the Heavenly Bodies to the good of things here below though the motion by the Equator only had been more simple and direct yet we see they have also an Oblique motion whereby with more variety they dispence their favours to the World The motions of the Stars Eccentrick and Epiciclike as the best observers of them find not only declare the virtue of their own Materials but plainly point to us the regulation of a superior Agent which seeing how far they are from
particular Answer ought to be given to it As God in making the World has left us undeniable Evidence that he himself is the Author of it but yet has left us without an Answer to many questions men may ask about it and made it very suitable to our reason to think we should be so left and to suppose a sinite capacity not fully able to comprehend the product of Infinite Wisdom and Power so in his Rule over the World we have undeniably Evidence that he does Rule but in the manner of his doing it we see many passages that far out-go our comprehension If any man say that in Gods first make of the World we acquiesce singly in his Sovereignty nor need we go farther therein then the bare act of his Will but in his Rule of the World 't is not so there we expect the visible effects of his Justice suitable to those natural Laws he has given to us and that capacity of judging between just and unjust by which we ascend upward and come to be ascertained that there is a supreme and perfect Justice in God I answer 't is true that Gods Will was the great Reason at first of the make of the world but yet we must look upon his Will as the Effect of his wisdom and it cannot be otherwise God could not will to make any thing that would not be Wisely made when it was made nor can we suppose he should And yet 't were as reasonable to deny Gods make of the World because I cannot see the visible Effects of his Wisdom in every part of it as to deny his Rule of the World because in every passage of it his Justice is not visible to me All the Philosophers heretofore agreed to this as a general Truth that Nature produced nothing in vain And yet never any nor all of them could give a distinct account of the Reason and Use of every particular If there be sufficient ground to assure me that God made the World in the general 't is absurd to question the Wisdom or the Reason of any Particular So if there be Evidence sufficient to establish Gods general Providence over the whole his Justice in Particulars is thereby necessarily implied The being of Providence in general is not only proved upon such rational grounds as every unprejudiced man must needs acquiesce in but in many things we are experimentally convinced of the Being of it from the Effects of it He that denies the existence of Providence can admit but of two ways by which any thing can be supposed to come to pass either from the Moral determinations of Men and their Actings thereupon or else from some purely Natural Cause Now 't is evident that many things have and do come to pass in a visible judicial way which have not their rise from any humane Judgment nor can with any good Reason be derived from any natural operation and can be ascribed to nothing else but Gods supreme Judgment Virtue and Religion have been often rewarded and wickedness brought to a due punishment before Mens Eyes in this World by ways unthought of and undesigned by any and out of the reach of all humane Authority and in such a manner as no man impartially judging can possibly imagine to come to pass by a meerly casual conjunction of natural Causes but must needs acknowledge an effect of Divine Justice therein And of this we are informed by the Records of all Ages and no one Age passeth without some experience of it This objection how great soever it may seem to be will be sufficiently removed in every candid opinion if two things be made appear First That there is good ground upon which to establish the belief of a providence in general which hath been proved already And Secondly that a satisfactory account may be given how the present course of the world and this providence may very well consist together And this latter may be done by the consideration of two things First our own great Incapacity to judge of the whole of providence or of very many parts of it And secondly the rational supposition of a Future State The first ought to make us cautious not to impeach providence hastily nor to deny it when we cannot fully comprehend it The second ought fully and finally to satisfy us in all such cases where we see Gods providence and his justice are not in this world reconcileable For the first How reasonable is it to conceive that the ways and methods of God in his providence should not be fully grasped by our comprehension when he is so much above us in those excellent attributes by which they are contrived and brought about The Rule of the world and the harmony of providence in conducting all things to a common end is an effect of the same infinity by which the world was at first produced 'T is unreasonable for us when God Rules to expect an exact and perfect Knowledg of all his proceedings No humane abilities can create a competent Judg of the whole or of very many particular parts of Gods providential Rule over the World and that for these three Reasons First God knows the Aims Ends and Intentions of all Men in what they do he sees the inside as well as the outside of the whole World and proceeds according to the compleatness and intire Circumstances of every Action This we are no way capable of and so in many passages of his Providence no fit Judges of his proceedings 'T is a great piece of folly to judg of Conclusions when we are uncertain of the Premises and to call in question Gods determinations when we know not the grounds of them Secondly God has designs to accomplish and bring about in this World of which we are totally ignorant and 't is very unwise to find fault with what God does and be angry that we cannot comprehend it when we know nothing of those Ends 't is designed to 'T was weakly done of Cato and a great defection from his discretion to fall foul upon Providence because he could not find out a Reason why Caesar had the conquest of Pompey when he must needs be ignorant of that future Monarchy and all the Consequences of it God designed to set up in Rome upon the foundation of his Successes We see often by a subsequent course of Providence great Reason for that of which we could give no account at first The future Events of good Mens sufferings often reveal to us a sufficient Reason for it and reconcile mens opinions to the Wisdom and Justice of Providence The impunity of ill Men in the worst Actions becomes sometimes very intelligible to us even in this World by the after disposal of things This we have excellently discoursed of in Plutarchs incomparable Treatise De sera Numinis vindicta Had the famous Constantine suffered what was due to the eminent sins of his Youth what a loss had the World had of the Virtues of
his riper years and as Plutarch tells the Athenians if Themistocles had been punished as the enormities of his Youth deserved and Miltiades for his rebellion in Chersonesus where had been sayes he those great Victories those two afterwards obtained in the Plains of Marathon on the Coasts of Arlesia and at the River Eurimedon The truth is in all humane Judgment we are bounded by particulars Individual actions are the Grounds upon which Men proceed Nor can they look forward to know what any will be hereafter But God has the whole of every Man before him and has not only respect to the All of every Action but to the All of every Man in the whole of of his Actings from the First to the Last Thirdly There is a Harmony in Providence which unless we knew All from its Beginning to its Ending we can never fully comprehend 'T is one intire System a compleat Bottom wherein all Ends are exactly wound up A rare contrivance of Divine Wisdom A curious piece of Divine Workmanship wherein all particulars are so Interwoven as to make up the beauty of the whole All the passages of the world from first to last have in the providential Dominion of God over them some dependency each upon other and are not to be fully judged off singly and a part No One Action but relates to Millions of others nay has some reference to all others from the first to the last of the world Each particular hath some reference to the whole like the Parts of a Natural Body where every Part refers to the Whole And is not in its use to be fully comprehended without an exact knowledge of the Whole Every part of Providence hath somewhat in it Relative to all the rest Though God be Just in each particular yet he still executes his Justice to every part with reference to the Whole And so Times and Orders all particulars that the beautiful season of every part is when it bears its exact proportion to the Oeconomy of the Whole Nor can we suppose this to be otherwise but that God who by an Infinite comprehension had all things present and before him should so rank and dispose them that at last the whole business of the World should appear but One complicated and orderly united Means to bring about the first designed Ends. This consideration of our own incapacity to make a full and compleat Judgment of the whole or of many parts of Divine Providence ought to prevent such rash Censures as Men are too apt to make upon it And to perswade them not to deny it where they cannot fully comprehend it And to answer in many cases the doubts men may propose to themselves about this matter but does not answer this Objection fully Because 't is not to be denied but that there are very many particular cases wherein Gods Justice and his Providence are visibly not to be reconciled together in this World And upon that consideration I say 't is much more reconcileable and natural to suppose the Being of a future state after this life by which all Objections against Providence are fully answered then to make that an Objection against Providence and deny the Being of it thereupon and that upon these two grounds First the existence of a general Providence is upon convincing evidence proved to us We have as good Reason to believe God Rules the World as we have to believe that he is Just And in that case when we find we cannot here in this World accommodate his Rule and his Justice together 't is not reasonable to oppose the one by the other when neither can be rationally denied but to admit a state beyond this World by which they are both safely reconciled Secondly there is nothing in the admission of a future state in it self any way unreasonable Nay the existence of such a future state after this life besides the evidence it has from the notion of Providence has also many other rational proofs peculiarly appurtenant to it and is a thing in it self upon other grounds highly probable He that will bottom a denial of Providence singly upon this Objection must prove that there is no state of things after this life or at least have it granted to him The proof of it is impossible and the grant of it were very unreasonable when 't is a natural and necessary consequent to all that rational proof that is made of a Providence in general and I cannot deny the one without rejecting the other the thing in its own Nature is greatly credible and has been believed in all Ages not only by the greatest part of the wisest and best but even of the rudest and most barbarous 〈…〉 which strongly tend to perswade us the belief of it is founded in the dictates of right Reason and the common Sentiments of Nature 'T is to be taken as an undeniable Truth that the existence of Providence and the Being of a future state have a necessary dependency each upon other and are no way seperable If there be a Providence there must be a future state after this life And if there be a state hereafter it must relate to a Providence here The Epicureans therefore deny both Epicurus under all his pressures made his retreat to this Maxime That there had been a time when we were not in Being and there would be a time when we should exist no more Of how little a signification to the World the bare notion of a Deity would prove abstracted from the belief of a Providence here or any state hereafter is easie to discern The Truth is whoever admits the existence of a Supreme and first being will be rationally forced to acknowledge the other two If there be a God he must Rule Infinite power cannot be set by and if he do Rule there must be a reversion of rewards and punishments after this life so Plutarch observes The same Reason which confirms Providence doth likewise confirm the immortality of the Soul And if the one be taken away the other follows so that the great fundamentals of all Virtue and Religion will appear sufficiently justified to us from the regular determinations of right Reason Upon these and many other invincible proofs is Gods providential Rule over the World established The true notion of which frees us from the manifold absurdities of Epicurus his chance and Chrysippus his destiny the two wide extreams on either hand The first is the poorest account that ever was given of such Oeconomy as we see in this World and a monstrous piece of folly to think Chance should be Predominant whilst infinite wisdome is existing The other such an unreasonable and abusive fiction of Providence if related to God as renders it inconsistent with the freedom of a Rational Agent The one denies all providence and makes God to do nothing The other destroys mans freedome and makes God to do every thing Both equally false 'T is true that God Rules over
the Whole And 't is as true that his Rule no way destroys the freedom of mans will Nor is the world subjected to any such thing as a Stoical Fate from any necessary connection of causes but all the actions of men proceed from the free choice and determinations of their own breasts Every mans own Will being the true cause of his own doings Thus much may serve to silence and shame all the ignorant doubts and profane denials of providence to assure men there is a God that Rule 's in the earth and to justifie the exercise of a supreme ' Dominion over the world Upon the truth of which the validity of all Divine Laws must necessarily depend Such who in the third place admit the being of God of Providence and Religion but reject the Christian-religion and consequently the Bible as not true and close with some other in opposition to it against those the whole of this discourse will chiefly tend If the Divine Authority of the Bible be sufficiently made good and the Scriptures proved in trueth to be what themselves tell us they are Laws sent us from God by which he will Rule and judge the world two things will result from it first All other Religions but the Christian will thereby appear to be false and fictitious Secondly Such who have embraced the Christian Profession will be abundantly confirmed in the verity thereof freed from all such doubts as may arise about it and be ascertained of the truth of those grounds upon which it is established In the prosecution of this matter when we deal with Antiscriptural men such as pay no homage at all to the Bible nor yield any obedience to its Authority two things are to be avoided and ought not to be insisted on in order to their confutation First 'T is not a reasonable step towards it to say the Scriptures are the Principle upon which our Religion is built and therefore ought to be granted to us Because in every particular Science some Principles must be granted as the Substratum without which it cannot be upheld and by a denial of which the being of it is subverted This unwary demand is the ready way to six every man in his own profession whatever it be and to prevent the most important Discourse of Religion amongst all such who have already embraced any Religion for there is no Religion without some prime Principles upon which 't is erected and by the grant of which it will be established And as we are sure 't will be equally expected so there is no better ground upon which it can be denyed Nor no less reason why we should admit the principles of other mens Religion then they grant ours And if so we shall soon come to a full point in all our debates about different Religions To such who have already closed with the Christian-profession this holds good And he that admits not the Scriptures as the first Principle and Rule of all discourse upon any internal point of the Christian-Religion is not to be disputed with Because in disowning that principle he destroys the being of the Religion he is contending about and subverts the whole by the manner of his disputing about a part But when we deal with men out of the Church and Enemies to it and the doubt is about the Scripture it self we cannot otherwise defend it then by admitting it a matter Debateable and indeavouring its justification upon principles common to us both and such rational grounds as carry in them the greatest aptness to convince such opponents 'T is not to be denied but that in all Rational enquiries after truth and all humane-debates there must be some common maxims and principles acknowledged on all sides without which there can be no due measures of any discourse nor any Standard by which a man can proceed either to satisfy himself or convince another and 't will be utterly impossible ever to come to a rational end of any debate whatever For If one thing be to be proved as it must be where things are in controversy by another and every thing may be still denied we must prove in infinitum He that opposeth needs nothing to help him but a bare Negative and he that is to prove will be lost in an endless circle Some principles therefore there are which govern all mens thoughts and discourses as things granted by them and are of absolute necessity to the rational conduct of the World And they are of two sorts First Such as are in themselves so obviously true to our Senses and Reason that they gain an Universal Assent and are approved by the common Vote of Mankind These are such things as no man can be supposed to deny if he would no more then he can deny himself to be Reasonable and do discover to us the truth of the rational faculty by the natural Emanation of which we fix upon many positions as undoubtedly true and beyond all question or dispute and from thence measure out the truth of all other things Therefore Aristotle says that in all acquisition of knowledg there is a proceeding from premisses known and agreed to conclusions that before were not known nor agreed These first principles are secured by the innate rectitude of the rational faculty These prove themselves by their consonancy to the rational Nature and cannot be otherwise proved because they are the ground and foundation of all other proof And of these 't is true what the Schools say A posteriori possunt manifestari non per aliquid prius probari Whatever knowledge we find attained to amongst Mankind 't is deduced from these first principles and is a Science subalternated to them 'T is from hence that all thoughts and debates are steered to some end and guided to some conclusion These principles are not to be confined to any enumeration being of equal extent with the rational capacity it self and are occasionally produced by our reason according to the various objects 't is conversant about Nor can any other Character be given of them but that they are such genuine Issues of Reason as become self-evident Maximes to the universal Reason Secondly There are acquired principles amongst mankind which are taken as granted truths and proceeded upon as such that are not of this first nature These secondary principles lye more remote from the first view of our reason and are discovered by a chain of Inductions and our assent to them proceeds from an Industrious exercise of reason by which we come at length to acknowledg their verity as agreeing to that idaa of truth we find seated in the rational Nature and corresponding to those primary dictates of Reason and equally true with them These things men accidentally make principles to themselves and laying them aside from debate as things granted and agreed to proceed to superstruct other notions and principles upon them such principles as these in the pursuit whereof mankind doth greatly differ and often mistake
are the reasonable bounds of all such future debates as are bottom'd upon them but ought not to be imposed when the principles themselves are in question nor upon such who make it their business to oppose them as erroneous and mistaken When two Mabumetans are in dispute the authority of the Alchoran is to them a proper Umpirage because a principle granted by both But when a Mahumetan disputes with a Christian the proof of the Alchoran it self must precede any proof he can make of Religion from thence because whatever is it self under question and doubt can never be a Rule to determine other controversies by Nor ought this the fact whereof is so verified to us to seem strange that men should often mistake and generally differ and divide upon all such acquired principles as they do that 't is hard if not impossible to find an instance wherein the whole World have been able universally to take one step together beyond those first and irrisistible institutes of Knowledge and those primary Elements of a rational Being 'T is no way strange to see what is laid as a foundation by one should seem an absolute nullity in the mind of another What one man resigns up himself to as his guide another should reject with contempt If we consider first the difficulty wherewith all acquired knowledg is attained and the various paths men tread towards it How hard it is to reduce things to a Harmony with the rational Nature With what labour and sweat of the mind we come to measure out things by the line of our Reason and to find out those proper Mediums of demonstration that lie in a direct line to the truth of any proposition And how natural is it to doubt and object to the utmost in all rational progression Secondly with what various abilities the World is capacitated for all intellectual attainments and how differently men do improve their knowing faculty First principles arise from the Truth of our Reason in its naked existence but all second Principles from the exercise and improvement of it How few be there that travel so far as their own Reason would guide them or suffer that noble faculty to do what it would do What unequal concerns have Mankind about Truth 'T is the Jewel and delight of some 'T is an absolute Drug to others Some men make the Talent of their Reason ten Talents oothers fold up their knowing faculty in the slumber of a drowzie sensuality The greatest part of the World sit down satisfied with what they do know not what they might know And choose a lazy enjoyment of ignorance and errour rather then an inquisitive possession of Truth Men are not only born of several Statures in the knowing part but they continually render themselves so by the various and different improvement of those abilities they possess Thirdly the faculty of our Reason it self renders all things capable of dispute and debate that are not bounded with visible contradiction to its own Being and are beyond the limits of those primary Laws it necessarily gives to it self and makes various determinations about all such disputable matters and very often where we may well suppose an equal ability on both sides men differ about the same thing The cause whereof must not be imputed to any innate defect in the rational Nature as if God had made us with a lame faculty for whoever denies the truth of that must needs retort the lie to himself because he has no other faculty to judge by but the true Reason of it lies collaterally either first From the difficulty relative to our Reason in the Objects 't is conversant about from whence may well be supposed to arise various and different Sentiments for all things are not in their own Nature capable of positive determinations we meet with few things without some difficulty but with very many things that greatly pose us with some things so much out of our reach that they exceed all bounds of comprehension are beyond the Verge of Problems and serve only to shew us the limits of a finite understanding Or Secondly from the want of such perfect information as is requisite to ground a compleat and perfect Judgment upon There being not a little share of uncertain guess and conjecture mingled with most of our Knowledge of things which nothing but experience can deliver us from Or Thirdly which is most general and an undeniable evidence of Mans fall From the Byass of some Interest or Concern whereby Men are engaged or some natural propensity and inclination they are born with that opposeth and undiscernedly prevails over the true and genuine issues of Reason inslaves them to appetite and sways the Judgment another way 'T was therefore a prudent observation that one made heretofore upon those various Sects that arose amongst the Philosophers in Graece that Qui fuerunt ingenio severo rigido moroso querulo aroganti ij Stoicismum suns amplecti qui vero fuerunt ingenio molli stadiosi tranquillitatis atij ij fuerunt Epicurei qui denique fuerunt ingenio civili modestoque liberali ij Peripateticorum Doctrinam sunt secuti And Aristotle in his Discourse of the Summum Bonum sayes Vnumquemque prout animo affectus est ita de Summâ— Rono judicare atque inde oriri quod alij Summum Bonum collecant in Divitiis alij in Honoribus alij in Voluptate 'T is from hence and from those many other circumstantial impediments we are liable to in all our rational determinations and not from the faculty of our Reason in it self considered that hath been derived that great variety of Judgment and Opinion whereby the World in all the Ages of it hath been divided Of this second sort of acquired and accidental Principles is Mens assent to and belief of the Scriptures as a Book penned by Divine Inspiration and being of extraordinary Mission from God 'T is not of those first born Principles of Reason from which we cannot dissent without an apparent absurdity and therefore is not within the compass of those first praerequisites to all debate and discourse and the standing boundaries of all Ratiocination but is of such a Nature as admits mens doubts quaeries and debates about it And the absolute positive belief of it is not to be imposed upon any man but all men reasoned and discoursed into an assent to it upon such grounds as are most suitable to such a subject and mens satisfaction about it Natural Religion is born with men and is connate with their Beings and must be supposed But all supernatural Religion is discoursed into men and makes its entrance that way Though it be true that in all Sciences there must be some Principles granted yet they ought to be no other nor need to be then such as are general and common to all Mankind and such as lie adequate to every mans Reason And not such as are only the property of one party and are peculiar
his summa Philosophorum dissentione certatur And those says he that do acknowledge the Being of the Gods have such various and different Opinions about them that 't were an extreme trouble to reckon them up For about the shape of the Gods their imployments and what they do and the places where they are there are endless dissentions amongst the Philosophers Now why did not he out of all the several Sentiments of the Philosophers Compose a true notion of his own unite their differences and rectifie their mistakes by one common Truth instead whereof we find him doing little else but repeating their various opinions which amount to no less in number then four or five and twenty and in Diogenes Laertius there is good store more and generally condemning them all as false and extravagant unworthy the names of their Authors otherwise famous and learned men and at last sits down finding his own inability for so impracticable a task and has left the World not much more informed then they were before in that point The Sum of his three Books of the Nature of the Gods is indeed a perfect Condemnation of the whole Pagan Religion for he sayes directly All their Gods were but Men and reckons up their Ages their Garments their Children their Ancestors their Alliances and plainly confesseth their Temples were their Tombs and their Sacrifices and Ceremonies representations of their Lives and the whole of their Religions Superstition and Vanity But when he came to speak of the Supreme Deity that made all things yea the Heathen gods themselves he openly declares his own Ignorance and says he can sooner admire then utter any thing and better declare what the Deity is not then what it is And concludes upon the whole Vtinam tam facile veram Religionem invenire possim quam falsam convincere I would I could as easily find out true religion as discover that which is false Himself Socrates and some others of the wisest of them saw far into the Impotency of their own Religion but I could never yet find that any of them arrived at any ability to compose a better Nor can any man in any Age be produced that without Revelation has been able to give the world aright or satisfying information about the Being of God and the Truth of Divine things It having been in fact according to what is observed by the most excellent Mornay in his discourse De veritate Relig. Christ Denique evolve quaecunque a Priscis mundi sapientibus To be short says he Amongst all the things which the Wise men of the World have written here and there of the Service of God ye may hap to find some one good saying in a hundred years and some one other in another hundred But when ye have gathered them all together as diligently as you can yet shall ye be able to make of them neither Rules nor Grounds nor scarcely good Problems So greatly is man by his corruption both blinded in things concerning God and helpless in things that concern his own welfare T is true that many points of the Christian Religion especially the three Grand Fundamentals of it The Being of God his Providence and Rule over the World and the Immortality of the Soules of men have been even through these Heathen Ages two ways acknowledged and justified First Implicitely and more Remotely by the general and most corrupt practice of the Ethnick-Religion What greater proof can there be of a God and that the World still thought there was something above them then their grossest Idolatry All Idolatry apparently taking its rise from the corruption of mens natural notion of the True God What meant their Imaginary Deities for every business and for every part of the World and their applications to them upon all occasions to seek their favour and appease their anger but that they supposed a Supreme Disposal of things and that the World was Ruled by a Divine Providence And what signified all their fictions about Heaven and Hell and their adoration of Daemons and the worship of dead mens Souls which they made to be Mediators to the Gods and variously called them Lemures Lares Manes Larvae some of which if they were the Souls of their friends they fancied stayed about their Houses and Dwellings for their protection others were more at Large some were good Daemons and above Others Infernal and Below as appears by that of the Poet. Vos O mihi Manes Este Boni quoniam superis Aversa voluntas Whence came all this but from an obscure confused notion of mens existence after this Life and a belief of the Souls Immortality In the second place more expressly and explicitly from the Judgment of some particular persons amongst them who have uttered here and there some fragments of Truth and have sometimes spoken in justification of these Main Points So Plato and others have spoken somewhat of One God Though it ought to be noted that the Being of One God was never generally and distinctly acknowledged in any Heathen Country nor was there ever a Law made in any Heathen State to establish the Being and Worship of one God Nay some have supposed that no particular Person did ever purely by Natural Light determine that there was but one God But that such who have spoken of it had it from a Tradition originated in Revelation So says a Learned Author in reproch of the Grecian and Romane Learning That setting aside what they learnt out of Egypt they could never by themselves determine whether there were many Gods or but One Cicero Plutarch and others have spoken fully about Providence and others of them have said much to justifie the souls Immortality so much has been acknowledged in the Heathen World that the sparks of Divine Truth though under much Rubbish have been there secretly kept alive and so much as does sufficiently assure us that the great Fundamentals of the Christian Profession are most Suitable to the Rational Nature do only Rectify its Depravations and have been some way witnessed unto in the darkest times And to that end we often make use of their Testimony But 't is not imaginable that God should leave the world without any further discovery of himself their chiefest good or any further direction toward an eternal happiness which is mans chiefest end then what we find the world without Revelation has attained to Nor can there be a stronger evidence of the necessity of some Revelation then the condition the world has been in without it The whole of the Heathen Divinity having been some way or other tainted and is reducible to one of these three heads either erroneous uncertain or imperfect Most of it erroneous much of it uncertain but all of it imperfect If we enquire how mankind came to be benighted as they have been in these things of greatest concernment How such a flood of Idolatry and Superstition came to overslow the Gentile-world Two things ought to be
considered in order to the satisfaction of such an enquiry First the Internal Cause of it And secondly the External Means by which it hath been brought about The Internal Cause of it hath layn in two things First An Insussiciency in our Natural Abilities since the Fall to ascertain us fully about Divine things and to give a satisfying answer to all those enquiries we naturally make about them Secondly the general ill improvement the world has made of those abilites it had and the universal Declension and Apostacy of mankind from that knowledg they might have arrived at For the first Though the Being of God and the existence of a Supreme Power be witnessed to by every mans Reason and every man be born with a relation to somewhat Above him and there be many Maximes of Natural Divinty connate to the true exercise of our rational faculties yet there be two things can never be attained by any Natural search First A certain knowledg What God is And Secondly a certain knowledg How he is to be Served Neither a Satisfying account of the Nature of his Being nor of a Worship acceptable to him is to be compassed without Revelation About these two things when men have had nothing told them from Heaven to fix them their Opinions have been as various as their Inventions The grosser part of the world God being onely an Intellectual Object whom they could not see generally fell to conceive of him by what they did see Cicero himself confessing that when we come to consider Qualis sit Deorum Natura Nihil est dificilius quam a consuctudine oculorum aciem mentis abducere Lib. 2. de Nat. Dear And the more Refined part lost themselves in a Wilderness of Abstracted Speculations about what they could never distinctly comprehend For the Second 'T is plain a great part of the Heathen Idolatry arose not only from their Mistakes in what they could not know but from a corrupt defection from what they might know Those Notices their own natural abilities gave them of God thwarting their Sensual Inclinations they delighted not to retain such a knowledg of God in their minds but willingly turned aside to Delusion left the guide of their Reason and chose the conduct of Appetite The Stupendious folly of their Religions is as a Thousand witnesses to this Truth That they lived not only below the true Knowledg of the one God but farr beneath the exercise of Right Reason For though I am apt to believe that a Supernatural knowledg does much instruct us in the true extent of what is meerly Natural and does much inkindle our natural Light and we see many things now to be attainable by Nature which the world so farr as I can discerne never found out without Revelation Yet 't is not credible that a Rational Being without some way extinguishing the dictates of his own faculty should make a God of that which he himself knew to be but a Perishing Creature or should think to please a being of such perfections as every mans Reason must needs ascribe to God by debasing himself before the Meanest parts of the World Secondly If we consider the External means by which these Internal Causes have operated and how all that Rubbish of Pagan Theology hath been visibly induced to defile and cumber the world from five things chiefly we may derive it First From a corrupt Tradition of the Worlds first original and the History of the Creation and the Flood and many passages both before and after the Flood which Noah and his family first conveyed down to the world in its Repeopling and the Jews from Moses afterward inform'd them off This appears to have been a great rise to many of the Heathen Superstions and Vanities and most especially amongst the Phaenicians much of whose Religion seems to be a plain corruption of those original Truths and an apparent Mythology upon the True History of things before and after the Flood as appears by Diodorus Sicubus and more anciently by their own famous Antiquary Sanconiathon in the Version of Philo Biblius The occasion of which corruption in the Tradition of those things was probably the Confusion of Tongues at first the great increase of Barbarisme after the proud desire every Nation had to apply all Traditional Stories of famous persons to some of themselves with many other Reasons which Scaliger Bochart and other Learned men give for it Secondly From the Fictions of the Poets who 't is clear were the first beginners of all the Graecian Learning and were therefore anciently called in Graece 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Teachers and as Strabo says and I thinks upon very good grounds were also the first beginners of all the ancientest Learning every where All other Speech whether Historical or Rhetorical being but the progeny of Poetry the Ancients knowing no other artificial or set form of speech but what was in Verse and therefore as the same Author saies Poetry was anciently called Prima quaedam Philosophia These fill'd the World with innumerable Fables Mythologized upon every thing and did greatly promote their Theological Vanities and the Corruption of all true Story Thirdly From the wild Speculations and multiplied Theories of the Philosophers of whom there were some hundreds of Sects which served greatly to Puzzle and Mis-lead men There being as Cicero saies no Absurdity but had some Philosopher for its Patron Fourthly From their Oracles by which the world lay subjected to all Diabolical delusions And fifthly from their corrupt Legislators such as Numa in Rome and others who finding the World Sequacious in point of Religion and Mankind apt to adore every fiction imposed upon their belief whatever they thought most conducing to their own Politick Ends. Nor has the World without Revelation been free from defects in its Morals though Men attained far therein and their Morality much outwent their Divinity Cicero wrought with much better success de Officiis then he he did de Nat. Deorum yet the Bible has greatly improved the world herein Let any man extract the most exact Scheme he can of Morality out of the best Philosophers and the acutest Moralists and compare it with the Doctrine the Bible proposeth to us about those things and the defects of it will be visible Amiraldus observes in his Treatise of Religions That scarce can there be found any Common-Wealth amongst those which have been esteemed the best policyed in which some Grand and Signal Vice has not been excused or permitted or even sometimes recommended by publick Laws Plato makes a Community of Women one of the fundamental Constitutions of his Republick Socrates and Cato I think are agreed to be two as famous Moralists as ever were in Graece or in Rome Cato the great exemplar for Virtue and Justice amongst the Romans and Socrates the Phoenix of Graece for Virtue and Piety of whom Xenophon gives this admirable account in his Book De Socratis memorabilibus dictis Nemo autem unquam Socratem
Methods by which Mankind came since to be saved things beyond all natural kenn and which only served to reproch the wisest thoughts and to tell men how little they could discover of what they were most concerned to know Moses having told us more in two Pages then the whole World ever discovered by the utmost of all Humane search Nor has the world any way improved it self in this kind of Sience to this day However men by experience and industry have meliorated the condition of Humane Affairs in other things whatever advance they have made in Natural Theories or in any Mechanick contrivance whatever Rust of Errour or Ignorance that stuck to former Ages may be worne off by an improvement of Natural Speculation in this yet where the Scriptures are either not Known or Rejected they are at the same Loss in point of Divinity they are as Ignorant of the True God as ever And the Result of all Natural Theology without the help of some Revelation has been and still is no other then this That while men have been most busily contemplating the nature of an Infinite Being and contriving Ways to gain Acceptance with him they have Lost themselves in the Crowd of their own vain Imaginations Secondly Such have been the Principles and Practices of all Nations in all ages that it evidently appears The world men themselves have generally found and acknowledged a Necessity of Revelation and out of an experimental sense of their own Impotency without it have still lived in expectation of somewhat Supernatural to be Revealed from Above Mankind since the Fall have been still listening after some further discovery of God then what the Work of his hands does afford them and some more perspicuous Notices of his pleasure then what their own Natural Abilities could dictate to them as that which Gods goodness and his own excellent Nature seemed to promise to the World and mans natural Tendency to some Supernatural happiness as the great end of his being continually call'd for The Genius of the World has been so suited to the notion of Revelation and mens thoughts have been so constantly taken up with an Expectancy of some Divine Instruction that they have been still in danger to fall into all the extreams of deluding Enthusiasme Not only their Religion but whatever else they thought well off they were ready to Father it still upon Revelation Scarce was there a Mechanick Invention but they ascribed it to a Discovery made by the Gods Pythagoras when he had found out an excellent Demonstration in Geometry sacrificed a hundred Oxen in gratitude to the Gods who had favoured him with such a Discovery Whatever was in it self difficult or Excellent they imputed the Accomplishment of it to a Supernatural Power Homer the great Oracle of the Heathen Divinity not only ascribes to the gods the Invention of all abstruse matters and all the Heroical motions of the mind but referrs our Ordinary Cogitations to Divine Impulses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Talis nempe mens est Terram incolentium hominum Qualem in dies indit pater hominumque Deumque And his Book is filled throughout with Enthusiastick Advertisements directed to Men from the Gods Cicero in the end of his 2. Book De Nat. Deor. is large in his expression this way Nec unquam Magnus vir sine aliquo Afflatu Divino Never was there any great Man sayes he without some Inspiration Not only were the Poets who seem to be the Divines of the Pagans and the Priests of their Mysteries all Inspired Men but not an eminent Physician or a Souldier was there among them nor a Man any way excellent but they derived his Abilities from some Supernatural Gift and thought his Qualities from Above Socrates that excellent person often says That virtue and Religion are not things to be learnt as Arts and Sciences are but to be had by inspiration being Divine and Heavenly gifts He avowed himself raised up by God to Philosophize and by his Precepts to Reforme the Athenian manners And when condemned to dye and sentenced to the Poisonous Cup Resolutely protested Though the Prison-dores should be opened to him with an injunction never more to Philosophize he would wholly refuse his Liberty upon those Termes and would chose to obey God rather then Men. We read not of an eminent Legislator in a Commonwealth but pretended he received his Laws from the gods Solon's Laws were said to come from Minerva Lycurgus derived his Laws from Jupiter And much more was their Religion and the Rites thereof still fathered upon some Deitie or other and handed down to the world with a Supernatural Stamp Numa Pompilius the first founder of the Romane Ceremonies declared he received them from the Goddess Egeria No Religion in any Nation but has made some pretence to Revelation That absurd Imposter Mahomet was wise enough to father his Medley Divinity and all the confused trash of his Alchoran upon Revelation Nothing else could have cheated so many into a belief of such a Religion but that they were first perswaded it came from Above and that Mahomet had it Revealed to him from Heaven The Heathen world were in Truth without any Revelation in Religious affairs that is They had no Divine Laws given them from Heaven to direct their Religious obedience Whether it pleased God to Reveal any particular matters at any time to any of them I dispute not But He gave his Statutes his Divine Laws to Israel and he did not deal so wit◠any Nation besides And yet nothing more general then the expectation of it and nothing more common then Pretensions to it This seems to have been a Catholick Maxime that the true knowledge of the Deity and the right way of serving him must be revealed from Above All the Nations of the Earth seem to have concenter'd in this belief that Divine Revelation and a Supernatural intercourse between God and Man was necessary for the present and future good of Mankind 'T is well expressed by the Learned Camero Omnium Gentium etiam Barbararum consensu receptum est ut homini bene sit praeter eam Rationem quam nimis magnifico superbo Titulo vitae Ducem vocant requiri Coelestem quandam Sapientiam inde Nata est Religio Ritus Cerimoniae quae sola Sanctitate se commendant Praelect de Verb. Dei 'T is a thing says he agreed to by the consent of all Nations yea the most Barbarous that in order to mans well being there should be a heavenly Wisdome to direct him besides the guide of his own Reason and from thence comes Religion c. 'T was from this General apprehension that the World came to be so often and so easily imposed upon by deluding pretensions to inspiration and the many gross Cheats of Enthusiasme the greatest Impostors still setting up for Enthusiasts 'T was upon this account that the Heathen parts of the World were so enslaved to their Oracles
in themselves Morally Good and Morally Evil. No mans Reason determines about the positive Use of any such Outward Mediums of Worship nor can assure me of Gods distinguishing Acceptance in any of them And to be upon certain grounds of Acceptance with God is the chief thing in all our VVorship Nor is any man by Nature a clear and certain Law to himself about such things Nor is it possible he should Because there is no Intrinsically Religious Good as to matter of Worship in any parts of the world but all such goodness results purely from Institution God has not sanctified any part of the Creation to his Service in such a way by any unalterable obligation arising from the Rational Nature No such External Mediums of Worship are founded in Reason but all in Institution 'T is true the Light of Nature will direct me to that behaviour of my self in the performance of all Worship which I think most Decent and Reverent But for any External Mediums of Worship the Light of Nature will give me no certain Direction at all If any parts of the World be to be made use of in Worship as by the judgment of God himself and the practice of the whole world it has been declared Necessary that some should be we must then both for the Choice and the Use of such parts of the World be wholly guided and steered by Revelation And the truth is every mans own Reason is Impregnated with Obligations to a further Degree of Worship and Divine Homage then Reason it self is able to be a Safe and a Certain guide to us in and directs us to many Duties which we want Revelation to teach us how to performe Which has in all Ages made the world so inquisitive after it and shews us how Rationally we tend Upward in this matter and how greatly our own Natures prepare us to expect and receive Instructions from Above Secondly Should this be admitted that Divine Worship might be confined simply to Thoughts Gestures and Words yet would not our natural light inable us to acquit our selves as we ought in this matter nor well to perform such a service as that without supernatural help There be two great ends of all worship which though inseparable in their attainment are yet distinct in their application and if not attained the whole of mens attempts that way will prove altogether useless and fruitless First in a right manner to give to God the Honour due from us to him And Secondly to provide sufficiently for our own welfare by an acceptance with him For the First how can we Honour God with the Honour due to him unless we have a right Knowledge of him and such a discovery of his Being as may fully inform and ascertain our minds about him which we never can have nor to this day the World never had without Revelation 'T is impossible to Honour God as we ought unless according to our measure we know him as in truth he is and 't is equally impossible to know what God is unless it be told us by himself 'T is not simply sufficient to Capacitate me for a due address to the Deity to know in the general that there is a Supreme Wisdom and Justice and Power above me that some way or other exists which is all my Reason will tell me but I must have some direct and distinct Knowledge of that Being wherein all those Attributes do exist Upon which as the Object of my Worship my mind may terminate and without which I shall be sure to form an Idol to my self in the room of that Being and then apply those Attributes to It. To which fatal mistake and Idolatrous delusion the World having by Nature no certain account what God was not after what manner the Deity did exist in all Ages has been too apparently subject Secondly how can we sufficiently provide for our own welfare unless we can be safely assured of the forgiveness of sin and the total removal of natural guilt And how is it possible to be so assured unless we knew the Terms of Gods forgiveness and the Means of our Reconciliation to him Of which we have no certain satisfying account given us by any dictates of Nature nor can they ever be found out until they be told us from above Men must needs make strange Prayers and have very wild and uncertain Meditations about God and their own Conditions that were benighted with Ignorance in such things Prayer and whatever else is it self a part of Natural worship would be very lamely performed without some Revelation to guide it The Pagan devotion was a medley of strange Sentiments founded in horrible Ignorance of God and of their own Condition and the way of mans Restoration Had Plato or Aristotle or the wisest amongst them but left us a Liturgy of their own Composition it would with great effect have convinced us what necessity there is of some Revelation to guide even the best understandings in all Divine addresses Two things about Worship the practice of the Heathen World has taught us beyond all reasonable denial First that Mankind have generally acknowledged it necessary that some Supernatural direction should be given for the manage of that intercourse that ought to be between God and Man and have subscribed to the shortness and defficiency of Humane Wisdom about it And Secondly that there is no one certain compleat Systeme of Worship that by the light of Nature Men do uniformly agree in The one results from their constant recourse to Supernatural enquiries and the many Enthusiastick pretensions thereupon The other from their great and eminent disagreement amongst themselves for the Pagan world who were only under the conduct of Naturallight and had in truth no Revelation at all but were still abused with the counterfeit of it fell by that guidance into endless diversity in practice and into a numberless variety of opinions about the right way of serving and approching the Deity and were universally engaged in multiplied Mediums and Methods of worship no way prescribed by any Natural Law connate with Mens beings or any general uniform issues of right Reason nor indeed were they under any direction at all either for their Choise or their Use further then what their own fancies or best guesses or some Enthusiastick Imposters could suggest to them which plainly declares there is not an ability in Nature sufficiently to guide Men in Divine worship so far as their own devotions do naturally Steer them And we that indeed have Revelation are instructed by that Revelation it self sufficiently to know the necessity there is of Revelation For we find that God by his revealed Laws does not only revive in general the whole of Natures Laws about worship and instruct us in the true Extent thereof which he does and much inlightens our natural Knowledge therein which we find was greatly defective even about Natural Duty and gives us a compleat view of our Natural Obligations
Vice had his inclination to evil as well as to that which is good been Created with him his reason would never have approved the one and condemned the other because both natural and upon equal terms in our Constitution To condemn any one part of our original constitution by another had been in it self not only unnatural and unreasonable but it had been directly to reproch our maker and our selves which nothing Created can be supposed to be so Created as naturally to do Nature as 't was first framed could never be so divided against it self A man could never have had any Conscience of evil nor any remorse for it nor could any guilt have been contracted by it had it been as now it is part of himself and at first Created with him 'T is not possible a man should judge in himself that to be evil and repent of it as such which he acted in prosecution of his first make There can be no fault in acting suitably to our original frame and composure nor any punishment due for so doing in the judgment of a rational Being because 't is impossible to do better All Conscience of evil and sin must necessarily arise from an inward conviction that we are not what we ought to be which we must needs be if we be as we were first made VVhenever my Reason tells me I do that which I ought not to do the same reason will tell me I am degenerated and do not what I was first made to do Besides 't is utterly impossible that a man should be originally Made with Opposite Inclinations and an irreconcilable conflict within himself one part condemning another by a Being that is Unity it self in all goodness and one and the same by an infinite Identity in all Perfection We can never with any common sense father Division upon Unity or that which is Imperfect and Evil upon that which is Perfectly Good or primarily derive such a Composition as Man now is from what we know God must needs be Nor can we imagine That inherent Shame we now find in the nature of Mankind relating to much of themselves could be of the Same Date with their first Constitution or that Man should be at the first so created as to be naturally ashamed of any part of Himself or anything relative to his own Being 'T was an Apostacy from what he once was must needs make him turn aside and hide himself from his own eyes 'T was Evil and Guilt must needs be the first Authors of Shame So far we may go in the Negative What we now are is not what we first were But how came the Change Has any ill Genius Since taken up its abode in Humane Nature And imposing upon it Acted it to all this Evil we See Is the world under the Tyranny of any Evil Spirit Or is man-kind degenerated by any Necessary Decay in the course of Nature Or was mans own Will the great root of Evill Came it from a Created Freedom Have men Wilfully defaced themselves If they have When was it done What was the first occasion of doing it Was it done all at once and has it ever since come by Descent and been intailed by a certain Propagation upon the world Or has its entrance been Gradual Were some only the first Authors of it Or has every man in every Age had his share in the Conspiracy In short If we suppose which we ought that Man was Not at first created with an Actual principle of Evil in his breast Whence could it primarily Arise And whence should we come to call it Sin and in the true judgment of Reason Determine against it It must be grounded upon a mans Relation and Duty to God All conscience of Evil and Sin which we have in our own Nature is still with a reference to God to his Nature and to his Will and our Subjection to him If such a thing then as Evil and Sin for they are Conjoyned by the Rational Nature must needs arise from mans Relative Subjection to God it must be by Opposing and Disobeying his Will revealed by some Law And that Law must be either Natural or Supernatural If Natural and Created with him it must needs be the Dictates of his Reason And 't is marvellous hard to conceive how Man while he was intire and untainted in the compleat furniture of his first make should without some very violent Impressions or some very strange concurrence of Accidents go astray from the guide of his own Reason and transgress such a Law as was the chief Ruling part of himself Nor are we able to give to our selves the least satissying account of it If a Law Supernatural What that Law was or How or When or by Whom Transgressed we can never discover Nor so much as make one probable Guess towards it No man will ever find an Answer to these and many other endless Enquiries that searches by the Candle-light of Nature Nor is there any one Way-mark set up to direct us No one thing has so point-blank silenced the whole world in all Ages as this has done How miserably involved in their own Confused notions were the Philosophers about this matter Never arriving at the least glimps of truth in the case Sometimes deriving Evil from the perverseness and malignity of Matter sometimes from I know not what fancyed principle of Discord Nor could they issue their Doubts at last into any better Resolve then that there were Two Supreme Beings one infinitely Good and the other infinitely Evil equally the Cause of both the principles of Good and Evil. And so were fain to Canton the Deity and to put both the Principles upon even termes which directly overthrows the dictates of all right Reason to make room for a Solution of this Problem And should we admit such a Cunning contrivance of Nonsense as two contrary Supremes it would but still further Involve us If a man were so made as he is How came it to pass that both the Deities Agreed in the doing of it and are yet perfectly Opposite and Contrary each to other Did one make the Good part and the other the Ill part Or did the Good Deity make man alone and the other Debauch him and Un-make him after 'T will not be easy in a due manner to Share him Between them And if that we naturally call Evil came originally as well as that we call Good from a Being Eternal and equally Supreme Why should the Judgment of right Reason in man be so much for the One and directly against the Other If it be so the Pedigree of the One is no whit meaner nor baser then the Other Nor is it a thing in it self possible to annex that we mean by Evil or Imperfection from whence it naturally results to what is Eternal because Eternity necessarily includes Perfection and cannot be reasonably supposed without it In such a dismal Wilderness of Ignorance and Error has Mankind wandered about
And indeed well might he tell them so for the Prophets Hosea and Isaiah were contemporary with the first Olympiad which began as Scaliger proves aut of Eusebius and others but in the Reign of King Ahaz whose Son Hezekiah lived at the same time with Numa in Rome and Eâ—dras himself and the latest Writers of the Old Testament wrote before Socrates Philosophized in Athens who taught not there till some time after the Captivity This Antiquity of Moses and his Writings and their precedency to all other written Religion or Learning is in fact so evident that 't is not capable of any tollerable denial And as Scaliger sayes in his discourse upon Eusebius the proof of it resulting so plainly from the universal Testimony of Heathen Authors themselves nihil superesse Paganis videtâ—r nisi aut ut ingeâ—ua confessio ab tis exprimcretur aut silentium pertinacâ—ae sinem faceret And he adds quod certe faeliciter câ—ssit ut hac in parte Porphrius manus daret 'T is not made out from any nice disputes between Chronologers comes not within any near compasses of time but from a general concurrence of all Histories and is so far beyond the â—each of all contradiction that the worst Enemies to our Religion have agreed it and given in their Testimony to it Of this Eusebius in the tenth book of his Praep. Evan. Chap. 3. takes special notice and tells us that Porphrie one of the most raging malicious Enemie that ever the Christians met with had in his fourth book which he writ against them given this Testimony to Moses and his Antiquity That he had written the History of the Jews truly which thing he had perceived by conferring it with Sanchoniathon the Berutian who rehearseth the very same Circumstances and Names and Places that Moses does the which he had learned out of the Registers of one Hierumbalus a Priest of the God of Levi and out of the Chronicles of the Cities and out of Holy Books dedicated to Temples and this Sanchoniathon sayes he was after Moses about the time of Semiramis By which it evidently appears he had such an Opinion of the Antiquity of Moses that he makes him to be much earlier in the World then we affirm him to be But 't is agreed on all hands he lived and writ in a time long before any other Authors of books or any other written Learning was known And this clear Evidence we have so clear that in such a case a clearer cannot be expected of the Antiquity of Moses in point of fact and the Preeminence of his Writings above all others in that respect gives us very probable ground to believe that he himself was the first introducer of Letters as well as the first Writer of Books whatever other Nations have fabulously boasted to the contrary and notwithstanding Plinies absurd supposition that Letters were Eternal because he imagined the World to have been so for 't is not reasonable to think if the World had enjoyed the use of Letters before but that there would have been some Monuments of it before his time remaining at the least to the next after Ages of which we should have had some credible account from them And therefore Diodorus Siculus gives this as the Reason why there were no more Antient Histories and that the Actions of Kings were not Recorded of old because the World wanted Letters Impossibile est sayes he primas Literas aeque ac primos Reges vetuslas extitisse And Josephus gives the very same Reason why we have no more Antient History then we have because the world antiently wanted the use of Letters but especially we cannot suppose but that those Revelations God made before of himself and his mind to some parts of the World would have been safely preserved in Writing and left upon Record to posterity long before Moses writ nor can we well imagine that those Holy men to whom at any time God pleased to reveal himself should not use their utmost diligence in the best way to secure and communicate so inestimable a Treasure of this we hear not the least upon any tollerable ground of credit nor of any other Writings before Moses but upon reports that appear grosly fictitious and fabulous 'T is a thing greatly probable that till Moses his time the World knew nothing of Letters for we neither find any Laws of God or of Men written before and 't is likewise most probable that we owe them not nor their use to Humane invention but to Divine Revelation and 't is likely Plato had learned so much from the Jews when he said in his Cratilus that the Original of Letters was from the Gods 'T is a thing offers its self very fairly to our belief that God himself when he gave the Ten Commandements written by his own singer to Moses introduced the first Alphabet and that Letters themselves and those Divine precepts are of an equal Date I insist not on this as capable of any certain and positive proof nor if it were is it to be urged as a convincing Evidence of the truth of the Bible But yet 't is a Circumstance of very considerable weight and has very good probabilities for its belief and that we shall find if we consult but what Chrysostome Theophilact and other of the Christian Writers have said in the justification of it Cyrill of Alexandria in his seventh Book against Julian insists much upon it Vives upon the thirty ninth Chapter of St. Austins 18 Book de Civ Dei sayes that 't is the most common opinion both of Jews and Christians that Moses first gave Letters to the Hebrew Language which doubtless has the Priority of all others and that Eupolemus Artapanus and many other profane Authors affirm it and that both the Egyptians and also the Phaenicians from whom the Graecians first learnt the use of Letters had their Letters from Him and that Moâ—es was that Mercury to whom the Egyptians ascribe the first invention of them The Objections that are usually made against this seem but of very little weight First we are told of certain Tractates of Enoch that were written before the Flood Secondly of two Pillars of the Sons of Seth with observations Astronomical engraven upon them which they set up to continue their Learning and that it might remain beyond the Flood which Adam had foretold them of The one of which remained in the Countrey of Syria till the time of Josephus as he himself sayes Thirdly that Moses in the 21 of Numbers makes mention of the Book of the Wars of the Lord as a Book extant before that time And fourthly that Moses himself is said to be Learned in all the Learning of the Egyptians which learning probably was written For the first That there were Books of Enochs Writing before the Flood which were preserved in the Ark for so they must be seems to be a story wholly fabulous we find not one word of them amongst
has and in its own Antiquity answering that antiquity we may justly expect to accompany Gods First Revelations the Bible I say upon this account has a singular evidence given in to its Credibility and its antiquity does strongly affirm its Divine Authority Secondly The Antiquity of the Bible does point us to its Divinity because 't is not reasonable to believe that the First Writen account the world had of Religion should be a Cheat that the First eminent Record of Religion should be a Lye and not only a Lye but the Worst of Lies and the most Pernicious and Destructive falshood for so it must needs be to impose a Law upon the world in Gods name without his Authority that ever was published amongst mankind 'T is not in the judgment of right Reason consisting with the Wisdom and Goodness of God to suffer the world to be Originally Cheated in point of Religion to suffer a publick open Counterfeit of his Name and Authority to the highest degree First to possess the world and take the Precedence of all truth to permit the Devil to publish a Systeme of Lies and erect a Monument of Falshood Before there was any written Record of Truth We must needs suppose Gods care of Men and the concern's of his own honour to engage him to the contrary and that God should First establish his own Truth to which mankind might still have a recourse and by which as a Standard all Delusions and False Pretensions might be Tried 'T were as one says well very absurd to think God should permit the Devil to set up a Chappel before he had built a Church If the Bible were originally composed by Impostors and be not a Divine Book 't will then undeniably follow that the most Primitive and Ancient account we have of Religion is connterfeit And that in the Earliest notices we have of God of the worlds Original Mans fall and the way of his Recovery for we have none so early as what the Bible gives us of any of these and of some of them no other the world is Deceived and Abused and that God suffer'd the Devil in the first place and before any thing was publiquely extant from him to contradict it in his name and with pretence of his Authority to abuse and deceive Mankind with a false and delusive account of all those things they are most concern'd to know and upon the right Knowledge of which their present and future happyness does unavoidably depend This very one consideration will prevail much upon every impartial judgment Who can believe the first Religion should be the worst when True Religion must needs be as old as the World And the Earliest notions of God the falsest when we must needs think it reasonable that God should reveal himself to the World from the beginning Or that the first book we sind writ should contain the Highest imposture in point of Religion and more dishonour God and abuse the World then any or all the Books written since 'T is a thing beyond all compass of credit That God should suffer false informations to be given in his own Name of himself and his own Revelations from the first beginning of the World for about 4043 years for about so long a time it was from that first intercourse between God and Man the Scripture gives us Historically an account of till the last Revelation of St. John And that this account should begin with the first book that the world had and be gradually carried on into such a complete Systeme as now we see it is in a Written way by several hands in several Ages for a thousand and six hundred years together for about so long a time it was from Moses his first Writing to St. Johns Closing the Bible Nor is it supposable that the vilest falshood for such is the Bible if it be not from God a Religion whereby if it be false God would be more dishonoured and men more deluded then by any that ever was yet extant should have this to say in its justisication That 't is of all others the most Ancient and has been longest lasting amongst Mankind The consideration therefore of this Book in the Time of its conveyance the Antiquity of it in respect of the matter it contains and the Antiquity of it self as a Book written long before all others and of so early a Date in the World does with great Evidence point us to its Divine Original and very strongly tends to perswade us that God himself was the Author of it Secondly The way and manner of this Books conveyance to us The Method of Gods thus Recording his pleasure has been such that we shall find we have all those reasonable inducements and in some respects more to credit it upon which we receive any Humane Authors and acquiesce in them as true And all such farther Evidence as we can well expect to insure us of the truth of a Book that pretends to come from God and be Divint And this will appear to be so if we consider first the Instruments God imploied in the writing of it and such humane Circumstances as attended their doing it And Secondly The Divine witness God himself has in the most eminent way given to this Book in its conveyance to ascertain us of the truth of it and of the sincerity of those that wrote it First If we consider the Pen-men of this Book those Amanuenses God made use of for the writing of it and such Circumstances as attended their doing it How unlikely a thing is it that they either did or could abuse the world in this matter if we reflect upon these several things First the unblemished Credit and Reputation of these Writers Secondly the several Qualifications and Qualities of them Thirdly their Interests as moral and reasonable men Fourthly their Number and that great distance of Time in which many of them wrote one from another For the first Nothing we know does more credit Ancient Authors then the good Report of those Ages wherein they lived transferred to posterity Not one of those Holy Pen-men God imploied in writing the Bible was that ever we find upon any good grounds tainted in Reputation or convicted of any sort of Impostor in their own or future ages but were men of acknowledged Integrity and Sanctity in those times wherein they lived and very many of them gave the highest Testimony to their integrity in becoming Martyrs in justification of what themselves writ For the Second the various Qualities and Conditions of these Writers seems much to secure us against so vile a design as this book must needs be composed with if it be not from God Some of them were Kings and men of the greatest quality before they writ and not very likely to be guilty of so much baseness and meanness to carry on such a work and also men of deepest Learning and Knowledge Others of them many of the Prophets and most of the
Apostles were men Illiterate and of Parts and Education so mean that they seem no way capable to write so profoundly to lay so deep a Contrivement of mischief or by the single strength of their own abilities to bid so fair to delude the World 'T were strange to Imagine men of such distant qualities and different abilities should all agree in the same Imposture and so Harmonize as we find they do in the promotion of it Thirdly If we consider the Interest of these Writers as they were Reasonable Men for so we must needs suppose them and to act upon the same inducements that Mankind do in all other things No man could reap any advantage by counterfeiting this Book nor could the Composers thereof design any Earthly or Heavenly Good to themselves as a Recompence for such an undertaking not Heavenly for 't were the highest Offence against God and meriting the highest Punishment Nor Earthly and that upon these two Grounds First because the tendency of the Book throughout is to mortifie mens Earthly ambitions and appetites and to propose a happiness of another Nature as mens great Interest and relating to another World and no man of common discretion that designed to greaten himself here would choose to become the Author of such a Doctrine in order to it because every step he advanced that way would visibly betray an Apostacy from his own Principles and render him an open Impostor meriting the scorn and contempt of all Mankind Secondly The most of those that God imploied in that work actually exposed themselves by the doing of it to all the Persecutions Hazards and Contempts imaginable And some of them as amongst the Prophets Isaiah Jeremiah Amos and Ezekiel and all the Apostles according to what our Saviour foretold them as History assures us save only the Apostle John with the loss of their own Lives published their Doctrine 'T is a thing greatly ridiculous to imagine so many men in so many Ages should agree to cheat the World to no other end but their own certain ruine both in this world and the next What end could many of the Prophets have in those unwelcome Messages they brought to those Ages wherein they lived and for which they knew beforehand they should meet with so much ill usage No man can be so sottish to think Jeremiah designed to himself any Interest in this world when he prophecied himself into the Dungeon and at last into his Grave Or that the Apostles designed greatness or happiness here when they knowingly exposed themselves to all the rage that was then upon Earth and endured the shock of all that fury which either Jews or Gentiles or the whole World together could execute upon them He that reads the Story of St. Paul must needs suppose him to act beyond the bounds of all folly and madness and not like a man either capable of instructing or abusing Mankind if he intended any thing in this world as his End The Motives of those Holy Writers in what they did cannot with any Colour of Reason be judged to be other then pure obedience to God love to truth and preferring a Reward hereafter above their own lives and all enjoyments here How highly did they preach up obedience and submission to Magistrates when all the Rulers upon Earth were their most bitter Enemies And that Doctrine could have no other effect but to bring their own Heads to the Block The Authors of the Heathen superstitions were of a very different Genius And as one sayes well of them Cute Authores superstitionis inter Gentes omnes sibi suis semper conciliarunt Dignitatem Nor is there any part of the Bible written by any of them with any the least shew of intention to greaten or advance themselves thereby But on the contrary many of the most eminent of them have themselves Recorded their own great fatlings and imperfections as well secret as open They all appear to be themselves under a subjection to the Doctrine they taught which plainly declares they were inspired from above and no way Masters of it as a Creature of their own Throughout the whole Book there is a visible Antipathy to all self-seeking flattery or compliance God alone is exalted and all mens persons Actions and reputations are openly Postponed to his honour and put in subjection to those Holy and excellent truths there delivered Moses of all the rest seems the gâ—etâ—st gainer in this world because 't was necessary at that time God should raise up a leader to his people yet 't is plain he had no design for himself for he pronounceth a grievous curse and a sore Judgment upon his own Tribe the Tribe of Levi rejects his own posterity leaves them to the condition of common Levites sets up Joshuah to succeed him and places the Kingly superiority over that people in another Tribe from his own the Tribe of Judah and himself while he lived attained to no more but to spend his days with great trouble amongst a murmuring mutinous people in a wearisome Wilderness Fouruthly The Number of those Writers and the great distances of Time may of them lived in from the other does as probably secure us against any Humane contrivement in the composure of this Book as we can reasonably expect The world affords not an instance that ever so many Men that lived in so many several and distinct Ages so exactly agreed about any one thing much less to cheat and abuse the World and carry it on in such a continued written way Never any such thing was done in any kind nor is it supposable upon the grounds of common Reason that ever any such thing should be 'T were strange it should be done in a matter of highest concernment wherein Gods Honour mans welfare are to the utmost engaged that such a number of Impostors should be at several distant times for fifteen or sixteen hundred years together in contriving and composing such a Book as the Bible is to delude and deceive the World and that in all that time there should be no palpable discovery made of them nor they themselves should so trip in the doing it as visibly to shame their own undertaking and betray those corrupt and rotten principles upon which they proceeded As 't is highly improbable that such a number of men living at such distances of time should all agree in the same design and the same way of promoting it and agree they must for 't were absurd to imagine it could happen so to be by chance because most parts of the Bible have been still written with a reference to things future and no man that writ any one part could at that time know that others in future Ages would justifie what he said and take up the design in a right nick of time just where he left it and so still carry it on and yet this must still so come to pass if the Bible were written by any Humane contrivement
of And if so these two things will follow upon it First That he that rejects the Bible obliges himself to believe no other books without apparent disingenuity Secondly He that does credit the Authors of this book with the same credit wherewith he credits other Authors and supposes they were men of common honesty that would not knowingly write an untruth cannot then refuse to receive it as a book Divine and Infallible upon as good termes of credibility as he believes any the best humane Author in its Kind to be True because they themselves tell us that it is so which were it otherwise without most impudent falshood they could not do that God himself inspired them to write it That 't was no product of their own but that every part of it is the genuine Dictate of the Holy Ghost But in the second place in the manner of this books conveyance we shall find a further and more unquestionable ground of satisfaction and a Divine witness given by God himself to the Truth of these Writings to assure us beyond all reasonable doubt they were written by men that did not deceive us but such as were Intrusted by himself for that purpose And that is the miracles that were wrought and which visibly accompanied their first publication In the discoursing of which after a due sort these three things will naturally fall under consideration First the Nature of a Miracle in general what propâ—rly it is Secondly What evidence we have for the Fact of those Miracles we say the Scriptures are justified by Thirdly Whether Miracles simply in themselves are always an unquestionable proof of that Doctrine they are wrought to confirm and an infallible justification of the integrity of the persons that work them The two first are of an eaâ—y dispatch the difficulty rests in the Latter For the first A Miracle is pâ—operly that which can have no second cause for its Author such a thing as no created Power in the judgment of reason can effect Raising men Dead curing â—iseases by speaking a Word being able in a moment to speak all Languages are things that exceed the bounds of all Natural Ability and such things as can be only related to God as effects of his supâ—eme and unlimited Power And suâ—h is a Miracle Secondly For the Fact of those Miracles we claim in defence of the Bible we are much eased of the labour of proof from a General Concession And 't is of great remark That the Warmest Adversaries the Scriptures have met with have never denied the Fact of those Miracles pleaded in their behalf but indeavoured to invalidate their testimony some other way Neither the Miracles of Moses which we find often mentioned in Heathen Story nor of Christ are denied by any in point of Fact but both fathered upon Egyptian Magick Those of Moses by the Heathens heretofore as we find in Pliny and Apuleius Pliny says There is a very great Magick depends upon Moses and the Cabala Though he might have remembred that never any Law so positively forbad Magick as did that which Moses delivered and those of our Saviour by the Jews and the Heathens since The Jewâ— affirmed that all that our Saviour did was done by a Magical skill he first learnt in Egypt and brought with him from thence And Julian the Heathen says that Peter and Paul were the most expeâ—t men in Magick that ever lived and that â—hrist himself wrote a Boâ—k of that Profession and Dedicated it to them two Our Saviours Miracles in point of Fact are not only acknowledged by the Jews but expresly both by Celsus and Julian two of the most Learned Malicious and Industrious Adversaries that ever opposed the Christian-profession And this we may see in Origin's second book against Celsus of whose wâ—â—kâ— there is nothing left but what is there â—â—peated and Cyâ—ill's sixth book against Juâ—ian And â—n truth the Miracles of Christ and the Apostles and those that succeeded them in the Christian-church were in Fact so many so eminent so visible lasted so long for in the Church for three hundred years in some measure they lasted and the Relation of them has descended down to us by such a Constant Uninterrupted Written and Unwâ—itten Tradition that no man has yet assumed Impudence enough publickly to Gainsay them For the Third Whether miraclâ—s simply in themselves are always an unquestâ—onable proof of that Doctrine they are bâ—â—ugâ—t to Confirme and an infallible justâ—ficâ—tion of the Persons that work them I answer In the general they are not If the Doctrâ—ne be no way Destructive to those Natural noâ—â—ons of God we are born with If it be not evidently to our Reason Dishonoraâ—le to H m tendâ—ng to seduce us from him and oppâ—siâ—e to that Natural Duty we owe him They are But if otherwise if they come in direct Competition with the Law of Nature They are not No Miracles whatever can or ought to oblige me to what my Judgment Dissents from as sinful And that upon these two grounds First The Law of Nature as 't is Previous to all Laws so 't is an unrepealeable Law because t is so perfectly the Result of my Reasonable self that should God contradict it he would cease to deal with me as a Rational Being which is not upon any account to be thought Secondly 'T is not against Reason to suppose a possibility that God may in some cases exert a supernatuâ—â—l power by ill instruments for Trial as well as Eâ—tablishment God has no where told us that he will not so do nor do our own faculties Recoile against it and adjudge it unreasonable that God should exercise the world with such a Trial if he afford means sufficient to Oppose and Resist it Such who deny this Latter and say that a Supernatural power in a way miraculous was never exerted but to confirm and establish a Divine Truth that 't is an Impeachment of Divine Justice and most unreasonable to think the contrary That although many things may be bâ—ought to pass by the Dâ—vil and Ill men that are in their own nature Wondrous miranda and miraâ—itia and utterly beyond the compaâ—s of our Reason to conceive How by any natural power they should be effected yet they are not Miracula they are still eitheâ— natural effects proceeding from â—atuâ—al causes though secret and occult or else delusions some way or other upon us From the opinion of such I dissent and that upon these four Grounds First That which they say does no way answer that end for which they themselves intend it Secondly 'T is against plain Texts of Scripture Thirdly 't is against great evidence of History And fouthly Because the admission of the contrary is no way Destructive to those natural nâ—tions we have of Gods aâ—trâ—butes and his providential Rule over the world Fi st What they say does not answer that end for which they themselves intend it For if God suffer the Devil to exert a natural power in
reach exercise the World with the greatest Trials even Trials from an appearance of his Almighty power so long as he still affords a plainly Superiour Evidence to Truth and so Circumstantiates things that there is abundant ground of distinction To make this appear is of chiefest concern in discoursing of this matter how Gods Miracles can be an infallible Evidence if the Devil and Ill men be sometimes inabled for so it is to be understood for by no inherent power of their own can they do it to act also in a Supernatural and miraculous way for if a miracle by whomsoever wrought be not a sufficient proof of any Doctrine 't is wrought in confirmation of t will then be said the Testimony from miracles seems to to be much Invalidated and Mankind to be left at great uncertainty about it That God when he is pleased to establish Divine truth to the world by the power of miracles does make that Testimony unquestionable and clearly Distinguish the witness given by His miracles from any witness the Devil or his Instruments can give by any either seeming or real operations of that kind will very evidently appear these three ways First from the order of his proceeding Secondly from the manner of his proceeding and Thirdly from the maâ—ter about which he proceeds First God maks the miracles he works from Heaven an infallible Testimony by the order of his proceeding He primarily and in the first place before false Doctrine and worship can have any such pretence by the power of Miracles settles and fixes his own truth and makes that so setled a Rule to us to try all other Doctrines by God has been ever beforehand with the Devil and his Instruments in this kind Nor have they ever been suffered to attempt the World this way till truth was First so unquestionably setled that there was abundant ground to secure unbyassed and unprejudiced men from any seduction were the temptation to it never so great This was the case at first under the Old Testament God by most eminent and undeniable miracles from Heaven established the Doctrine and Worship published by Moses and thereby fixed that as the great Standard and Rule of all Religion before the Devil had ever attempted to impose any Systeme of his own upon the World in such a way and that being so setled aâ—ter-propâ—ecie was not to be judged of singly by a power of working Miracles God himself had directed the contrary but also by its coâ—foâ—mity to that established Rule and therefore if any Prophet arose though attended with a Miraculous power and indeavouâ—ed to introduce a Doctrine destructive to whâ—t was so already established and to withdraw them from the worship of that God to whom by Moses his Law they were Primarily subjected they were obliged not to hearken to him but to reject his Doctrine as a vile and wicked temptation And 't is of great remark and an eminent justification of Gods proceedings in this kind that the most that ever the Devil was suffered to do was at first in opposition to Moses when he by a power of miracles came to settle that Divine Law for never any false Prophet after could reach to do what the Magicians then did and God in that very way plainly and openly to satisfie the World for ever after in this matter determines the Cause against him And Moses so far out went the Magicians in a Miraculous way that they were forced to this confession This is the singer of God By which expression seems not to be meant that this particular work of turning Dust into Lice in which the Magicians faâ—led is an effect of a Power Divine and Supernatural and all that was done before both by Moâ—es and us which were works every whit as great was done by a power meeâ—ly natural But This is the singer of God that is To stop us that now we have tried to do the like we find we cannot that we should â—e able to go no â—â—â—ther that our power of working Miracles should fail us and be taken from us and Moses should be still able to proceed So under the New Testament the Gospel was first eminently established by uncoâ—â—ollable miracles as the great Standard and Rule of all suture Doctrines And acquaints us that there is no further Revelation to be expected before the wonders and Miracles of Seducers were extant And when God has by a miraculous power once unquestionably established his own truth all pretences to Miracles be they feigned or real they come too late Truth is in possession and by that all things are to be tried and whatever is found opposite to it is but reasonably to be reckoned as a Trial and a temptation only to prove us The Broad seal of Heaven is already solemnly and openly set And let the Devil bring what shews he can of the same impression they are still to be rejected And whatever the Devil has been at any time able to do of that kind has been but this second hand work and to seduce men from a truth beforehand unquestionably estabâ—lished and to which there was Reason sufficient whatever could be done to perswade to the contrary for all men to adhere And this made St. Austin when the Donatists much urged upon him in their justification a power they had of working Miracles to tell them The truth was that way fully setled before and we had warning enough not to be seduced from the Orthodox Doctrine of the Gospel by any such pretensions Secondly The manner of Gods proceeding in his working of Miracles to ascertain the World does sufficiently secure us against the danger of being seduced by Impostors that way and any Miracles they can produce if we consider First The grand occasions upon which God still works them Of how vast concernment was the rearing up of both Testaments and justifying the descent of Christ into Humane Nature Secondly The number of them How far have Divine Miracles out-gone all others in that kind Thirdly The Eminency of them Fourthly The Perspicuity of them to all sorts of men Fifthly Their performance without the least outward means wherein there might possibly lye a deceit Sixthly The long and lasting continuance of them In all these respects are Divine Miracles differenced from all Diabolical Actings that way which for the most part have been fictitious and discoverable so to be and when real comparatively but few and in no sort bearing any proportion to any of these Circumstances wherewith Divine Miracles have been openly accompanied And 't is also to be noted that very many of those Miracles we are told of amongst the Heathens admitting them true were not wrought to confirm or justifie their Religion but upon other occasions often for ends concealed and wrapt up in the Counsels of God which we know not of and sometimes for other ends then to establish their Religion visible as it seems to be in the case of Vespasian whom God had designed
as his Minister to execute so many dreadful Judgments upon the Jews and therefore would establish him by those extraordinary Actings in the possession of the Roman Empire which with great difficulty and against much probability to the contrary he obtained and as Suetonâ—us sayes of him after he had obtained it wanted Personal Authority and Majesty to manage such a Dominion A clear instance concerning this whole matter God gave us at first in the Magicians opposition to Moses wherein he gave us to know that although Divine Truth might by Miracles be opposed yet the superiour Luster of his own Miracles should be so visible to all as perfectly to silence and vanquish the rest and both in Number Continuance and Quality as then it was the difference should be to every Eye obvious and apparent Thirdly The matter for the establishment of which Divine Miracles are ever wrought affords us ground sufficient to distinguish in this case 'T is always a doctrine leading us to that God of whom we have a notion imprinted in our own Nature revealing him further to us and instructing us in all those Holy Virtues and excellent ways of living that most correspond to our Natural light are most suitable to that natural Divinity we are born with and evidently tends to make us most happy here and conduct us to the highest reward hereafter Whatever miracles we shall at any time see wrought to justify a Contrary doctrine my own Reason will reject as a Temptation and assure me that in the one case a miracle is sent from God to Ascertaâ—n me and in the other the Devil is only inabled in the highest manner to Tempt and to Try me And these three ways in the case of miracles are we sufficiently secured against all the attempts that can be at any time made to seduce us that way And may hereby rest abundantly satisfied in the testimony of Divine Miracles given to Divine Truth by whatever ways the Devil shall be able to countenance and promote a Contrary Interest Now That the Scriptures have been attended with Miracles in their conveyance is not as before is proved by any denied And that those miracles have the advantage of all the foregoing circumstances is likewise very evident The Doctrine of Moses is the First bâ—rn of all others being the Religion that was from the Beginning God in the first place setled and consecrated That by a miraculous Power before any other Systeme of Religion was extant and gave it therein the Precedency of all false Prophets and Impostors and whatsoever Doctrines they should by that means oppose it withall And so the New Testament being the natural product of the old is by the miracles of Moses at the first and those of our Saviour and the Apostles after upon the validity of both which 't is established secured against all opposition that can that way be made against it to the end of the world Secondly The way and manner of Gods working those miracles by which the Scriptures are justified to us to be his Words has eminently distinguished them from all other operations of that kind So 't was in the times of Moses when the Devil by the Magicians went further that way then ever he did after How far did the miracles of Moses exceed His More miracles Greater miracles More Continued miracles Undeniable and Uncontrolable evidences of Gods Infinite and Almighty Power in a way far superiour to what they could bring about Under the Gospel the miracles have been such in the manner of their working as leaves no room to doubt of Gods intention to secure us from Heaven â—â—ereby of the Truth of our Saviour and his â—â—â—â—rine If we consider First the grand â—â—â—â—sion of them To fullfil the Old Testament and establish the New And this by Private men respecting the world without the least clothing of Humane Power or Authority Who can imagine less then that a Commission to Christ and the Apostles should be sealed from 〈◊〉 Heaven in extroardinary way to assure the World of their Authority to do this Secondly The admirable Nature of those miracles Raising dead persons curing all sorts of diseases commanding Winds and Seas Vanishing in a moment out of the sight of multitudes Thirdly Their Number being exceedingly Many done in all places and upon all occasions where they came Fourthly Their Visibility openly seen and acknowledged by all present by multitudes Fiftly Without the use of any Secondaâ—y means or the least shew of Diabolical enchantments And as one of the Ancients says Sine â—lla vi Carminum sine Herbarum aut Graminum sâ—ccis sine ulla aliqua observatione sollicita Sacrorum Libaminum Temporum c. All most frequent in Heathenish Sorceries and Enchantments Sixthly The Long and lasting continuance of them Not only during the times of Christ and the Apostles and one of them the Apostle John lived till Trajan's time which was above a hundred years from Christs birth but also for very many years after in the Christian Church What miraracles does the world pretend to that can compare themselves with these miracles upon all or any of these accounts No men noâ— Devils ever did such works nor in such a manner as these were What lamentable and pitifull things are those of Apollonius Tyanaeus Esculapius or any others compared with These And what a shameful and indeed Ridiculous Partiality does appear in Hierocles and Porphiry who designing thereby to incense the Empeâ—ours against the Christians who much justified themselves upon the power oâ— miracles and to bring them under persecution have indeavoured to draw a Paralel between the miracles of Christ and Apollonius We find by Eusebius that Hierocles in a Book that is since lost compared Apollonius and Christ the Evangelists who wrote our Saviours Story and Philostratus the writer of Apollonius his Life upon that account together and preferred Apollonius and Philostâ—atus before the other But with what an unreasonable Partiality is eaâ—y to be seen by any that wilâ— consult Eusebius his Answer to him One chieâ— miracle Philostratus tells us off was that Appollonius sitting at meat was served after wonderful manner with Men of Brass And another is That an Elme tree speak to him and Saluted him with many other such things which to every common understanding appear at first sight very capable of Deceit and Delusion The Sun is not in Lustre more Superior to the Dimmest Star then Christs miracles are to all Pretensions of that kind Nor were there ever any operations either of men or of Angels visible in this world that with any colour of Justice and Truth can all circumstances considered be put in ballance with those eminently miraculous actings of Christ and his Apostles Thirdly The Doctrine contained in the Scriptures which the miracles were wrought to confirme and to assure us of the sincerity of those that delivered them to us is most evidently from God most corresponding to our Natural obligations to him and
these latter Ages in whole streams of Blood that ran from its Primitive Martyrs God pleasing to introduce the Gospel at first without any thing Humane to befriend it that we might be for ever ascertained of its Author Who but God himself by a Power from above can we reasonably imagine could have enabled a few Mean Ignorant and Contemptible men so to confront the whole World and in the Evening of it when other Religions had so long lasted and were so fast rooted to erect a Religion destructive to all the rest and to break through all the Opposition that the Religion of the Jews and Heathens the Philosophy and Learning of all the knowing parts of the World the Laws and force of the Roman-Empire in its greatest splendor and strength could form against it And what Doctrine but one in its own Nature Diâ—â—â—â— and attended with the visible effects 〈◊〉 Almighty Power to own and juâ—â—â—â—â— can we conceive could have 〈◊〉 the World so to bow before it How ridiculous does it appear to suppose a company of mean Impostors that had neither God nor Men besides themselves to befriend them nor any other Foundadation but a Design in the highest manner to cheat and abuse the World could have effected all this and that they should finally so prevail and impose the grossest Delusion imaginable upon Mankind against all such Opposition Had I no other consideration to induce me to believe the Bible but what ariseth from hence this one seems singly sufficient to me to justifie its Divinity against all reasonable suspition of Imposture and for ever to silence all the doubts that can be at any time made about it What greater assurance can we have that a Doctrine is Divine and comes from above then when we see it has ventured it self upon its own Divine Evidence against all Humane Opposition and singly by that prevailed and spread it self all the World over Neither Arms nor Councils neither the Policy of Julian nor the Sword of Dioclesian could put a stop to its progress Had God disowned the Gospel at first Nay had he not Eminently and Visibly witnessed to it from Heaven we cannot possibly imagine how it could have taken one step forward It had doubtless as it was then circumstanced been stifled in its first birth and buried in perpetual silence We find all the Religion of the Heathens has still grown up under the shadow of Humane Power and Authority and has still decayed when Humane props have been removed I challenge any man to shew me any other Religion that ever prevailed in the World without Humane help and that ever stood out the brunt of Persecution All other Religions but what have been founded upon the Bible have still fallen before the Power of the Sword 'T is only the Religion of the Jews and the Christians founded at first upon the Bible and the Miracles wrought to confirm the Doctrine contain'd in it that has weather'd out all attempts for its eradication 'T is a marvelous evidence of that solemn and divine foundation upon which the Jewish Church and the Old Testament were at first established That notwithstanding all that the Jews have suffered and their very Being in a National way and their National Worship in which their Religion chiefly consisted be utterly extinguished yet still they retain their Profession submit to a Yoke of most burdensome Ceremonies remain dispersed in the World a Monument of Scripture-verity and so many standing Witnesses to the Truth of many eminent Predictions both in the Old and New Testament And thus from the success of this Book also since its first conveyance and all the circumstances that have attended the progress of it since its first publication have we as great an assurance as in such a Case we can well expect that God himself and no other is in truth the Author of it I come in the fourth and last place to consider this Book in it self in the Matter of it as at the present we find it and as it now lies before us In the doing of which I mean not to insist separately and abstractedly upon any Internal evidence that results from the matter of the Scripture it self but to take it as it ought to be in Conjunction with the former and all other Collateral proof 'T is neither Reasonable nor Warrantable to disjoyn the proof God has afforded us of his Word and lay the weight of its Justification upon any one single Evidence For when God commands us to believe and obey this Book as his Word and imposeth the highest penalty upon our not doing it he layes not the stress of his Command or the Penalty nor ought we upon any one particular sort of Evidence External or Internal but upon the whole intire proof he has made to us of it and all those means he has afforded for our Conviction and Satisfaction about it When we are upon a general proof of the Bible 't is not necessary to insist upon any Internal Evidence that results from the Bible it self as singly sufficient to prove it or enter into any debate whether it really be so or no because we have all the Cumulative advantage of an External justification And if all together be sufficient to prove the Bible to be what we that profess the Christian Religon take it to be 't is enough for our purpose And that the matter of the Bible it self with what ever Evidence will arise from thence is not to be abstractedly insisted on from other Collateral proof nor that any Collateral proof will prevail in this Case without there be also an Innate Evidence resulting from the matter of the Bible it self so that a Conjunction of the Evidence in both kinds is absolutely necessary to establish a general proof will be thus made to appear The Bible as hath been said consists of three parts Doctrinal Prophetical and Historical whatever Evidence we have from the Scripture it self to prove its own Divinity must needs chiefly arise from the Doctrinal part Because the Prophetical and Historical part can never be fully justified without Forraign proof we cannot know the History of the Bible to be certainly true from the Bible it self Nor can we sufficiently prove any Prophesies in any part of the Bible to have been actually fâ—llfilled because they are said in other places of that Book so to be For 't were to beg the Question and admit the Book to be true when we are debating whether it be so or no! This we may urge in proof of the Historical and Prophetical part from that Divine Evidence that comes from the Doctrinal that we find such History and such Prophesie in an admirable Conjunction with such a Doctrine subservient to it tending to the establishment of it and inviron'd with all probable Circumstances of being true both from the nature of the Prophesies and also from the excellent Manner of their fulfilling and from the rare Method of the History in
Truths are visibly concenter'd in it Here is indeed a perfect Rendesvouz of all such Truths as were any where scattered and the World imperfectly has had and all such as they were in need to have All such natural Truths both of a Moral and Divine Nature as the Reason of the World does acknowledge and a full discovery of all such supernatural Truths as the minds of men naturally pursue and are inquisitive after Whatever is written in mans heart or upon the Works that God has made is here after an excellent manner Transscribed Justified and Improved And many defects of natural Knowledge supernaturally supplyed by a most suitable Revelation So that if we'lâ— judge of this Book either by what we certainly do know or by what we need and desire to know and expect should be revealed to us concerning God our selves and this whole World We shall find great reason to derive this Book from Above and subscribe to it as Divine For the First Never any Book contained such a System of natural Truth since the World began nor ever so far interpreted to us what truly is so And of this every mans own Reason becomes a proper and competent Judge Secondly Never any Book has told us so much nor gone so far to fix the restless minds of men about all such supernatural things as they are most inquisitive after 'T is here we have a certain account of God's Nature and the manner of his Existence how and when he created the World With what Designs and to what Ends he disposes and governs it Whence all our disorder first came How 't is to be cured Sin removed and Man reconciled to God! 'T is here we are certainly assured of the Resurrection of our Bodies the Immortality of our Souls and the condition of our future being for ever 'T is here we know all we can know and all we need to know both of this World and the next From no other but God himself could such a Beam of Light have broke forth so to enlighten the World Nor will it seem any way tolerable to an unprejudiced Judgment to father such a Book upon the highest principle of Falshood and derive it from the worst design that ever the World was defiled with Secondly I shall endeavour to shew that this Book so far as it relates to matters of Fact wherein an Etxernal justification is necessary is so far witnessed unto that there can be no room left for any reasonable doubt to be made about it First That there was such a man as Moses and such a People as the Jews in Egypt in those times which the Scripture mentions That Moses was their Leader and that he led them out of Egypt wrote their Story and gave Laws to them we have attested to us by the most Ancient Records of the Egyptians the Phenicians the Caldeans and the Grecians By Sanchomathon the famous Phenician Antiquary Berosus a Caldean Ptolomeus and Manetho Writers of the Egyptian-Chronicles The latter of whom Manetho speaks very particularly both of the Jews coming into Egypt and their departure thence And amongst the Grecian Writers by Artapanus Polemo Eupolemus Diodorus Siculus with many others as is at large proved by Josephus in his first Book against Appoin And one of these Artapanus is so large in his Relation of the Story of Moses that he sets down much of the business of his whole life and many of his Miracles his contesting with the Magicians before the King of Egypt his carrying the Jewâ— thorow the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptians who pursued them his dwelling with the Jews after in the Wilderness Who were there says he fed with a certain Snow that God rained from Heaven And at last describes particularly the very Person of Moses and sets down his Stature his Countenance and his Complexion Many of the same things are Recorded by Eupolemus Demetrius and others Numemus a Pythogorean-Philosopher whom we find quoted in Origens's fourth Book against Celsus tells us he had read the Life of Moses in many good Histories And relates many particulars of him as his being taken out of the Water his being bred up in the Court that he wrought many Miracles and that certain Magicians called Jannes and Jambres attempted to do the like No one Story amongst the Heathen of any Nation has been so witnessed unto by Writers Forraign to that Nation as the History of the Jews has been who from their greatest enemies have received a sufficient Testimony in point of Fact to the truth of Moses and what he wrote And indeed considering how great and eminent a Common-wealth was at first first established by the Writings of Moses and what a notorious and visible conâ—mâ—â—nce and succession there was of it ' Tiâ— Morally impossible that the business of Moses and his Writing in those times in matter of Fact should be fictitious and false Of so much of the History written by Moses as relates to things transacted before the Flood we cannot expect to find any exact and punctual account in a Traditional way Because of the great disadvantage of Oral Tradition especially by the confusion of Babel And yet 't is very evident that some considerable Remainders of the Ancient Story of the first World about the Creation the long lives of men in those first times and divers other things were preserved amongst the several Nations after the dispersion at Babel And we find many things relating thereto in Hermes Orpheus Homer Hesiond and the most Primitive Writers Of which Vossius Bochartus and many others have given a very satisfying account Concerning the Flood that there was such a Deluge nothing has been more universally credited And because the Tradition of it was That it befel in the prime time of the World and men were generally ignorant of the right account of times Therefore they applyed it still to that time they thought most ancient So the Thebans to the times of Ogyges and the Thessalians to the time of Deucalion which Floods of Ogyges and Deucalion were not two other distinct Floods as some have supposed but the same Flood of Noah applyed to those times and called by those Names which they thought of greatest Antiquity One sayes well What Nation has not believed it Even amongst the remotest Indians we find the Tradition of it has remained And what Author has not spoken of it Amongst the Egyptians Phenicians Grecians and Romans nothing more common And well may we suppose it should be so For Those who attempted the rearing of that Structure at Babel had probably a particular respect in what they did to the Flood that was past resolving to prevent the danger of another which sprang from their own Infidelity For God by his Promise to Noah had secured them against all fears of that kind and therefore had sufficient occasion wheresoever they came to preserve and continue the memory of it Berosus one of the most antient Writers after
the greatest ruine to mankind deluding them with false informations about their chiefest concerns should be able to produce in their justification the most eminent Miracles and all the greatst Evidences that rationally can be expected to ascertain the World in the publication of the highest supernatural Truths In a word who can beleive a Book so circumstanced as we find the Bible to be should be composed by the worst Instruments and with the worst of designs No such thing can ever be credited while we suppose there is a God ruling above and men live in the exercise of Reason below 'T were most absurd to suppose that any Book falsely pretending to Gods Name and Authority designing his dishonour and mans destruction should be capable of such a proof as has been brought in defence of the Bible And yet so must the Tables be turn'd the whole proof must so be inverted of all that hath been said a contrary application must of necessity be made if this Book comes not from God and be not in truth what it self openly claims to be The Divine Authority of this Book we call the Bible being thus upon the forementioned grounds established I come in the last place to a Consideration of such Doubts and Objections as are usually made about it All the Material Difficulties that can be proposed will be reduceable to these four Questions I. First How could men come to be assured in those times wherein the several parts of the Bible were first writen that they were written by an Infallible Spirit and upon sure grounds distinguish them from all other Writings II. Secondly How come we certainly to know the true Compass and Extent of Holy Writ How can we know that we have now contained in our Bibles all that was writen by a Divine Inspiration and intended as a standing Rule to the Church and no more That is How can we be now safely assured about the Canon of the Scripture And be able upon good grounds to say What is Canonical and what is Not III. Thirdly How can we that have not the Originals of the Scripture not the Autographa's of those that wrote it but onely the Copies of them and most but the Translations of those Copies rest assured we have God's Mind as it was first delivered IV. Fourthly How can we believe this Book say some to be from God when we find contained in it divers Contradictions several strange and incredible Stories and other things greatly lyable to exception In answering the first Question This ought to be previously considered That there were Advantages peculiar to the belief of those who first received the Bible or any parts of it and lived in those Times wherein it was first delivered that we have not And we have likewise some Advantages and those very considerable to our belief which they had not They conversed with the Pen-Men themselves the Names of many of whom are to us wholly unknown the Holy Ghost not judging it necessary to record them foreseeing the Scriptures would descend to us upon other sufficient Evidence They were able to judge of their personal Integrity and the account they gave of their Divine Commission were Eye-witnesses of the Miracles saw the Original Writings And in the Apostles times many knew some of their Hands These we have not but we see the progress and success of this Book which they saw not We see this Book translated into all Languages whole Nations converted by it The Gospel spread all the World over and the fulfilling of many Predictions since which they could not then be Witnesses of With many other great Effects of it We see the Whole conjoyn'd and the excellent Harmony of it and the relation each part has to compleat the Design of the Whole Are in divers respects upon different terms of judging now upon the Whole from what men were in judging at first upon any particular parts But to come to a direct Answer to this Question There could be but two wayes to ascertain men in their reception of any part of the Bible when it first became publick First By some outward visible Justification of the Persons imployed in that Service to assure us that they were sent and commissionated from God Or secondly From the Matter and the Nature of such Writings themselves And herein a due consideration of those Times and Seasons in which the several parts of the Bible were written and the then present state of things and the order of writing it will much inform us Moses who layed the first and great Foundation of the whole Fabrick in the five Books that he wrote He had a justification Personal beyond all question His Commission and Authority to do what he did was sufficiently evident to all that conversed with him There was all that could be expected to assure those that then lived that God had imployed him For God admitted him openly to a personal converse with himself We read in the nineteenth of Exodus that the Lord said unto Moses Loe I come to thee in a thick Cloud that the People may bear when I speak with thee and believe thee for ever c. He impowered him upon many occasions to work the greatest Miracles that since the World had a being had ever been wrought and openly to shame and out-doe all his Opposers and all Pretenders that way And whensoever there was a doubt made about this Divine Authority or any contest with him upon that account as in the case of Korah and at other times God plainly and openly from Heaven in the sight of all the People decided the Matter to assure them and all Generations to come that Moses was no Impostor but acted by a Divine Commission in what he then did And indeed It being the first time that God revealed himself to the World in a written way and published those Laws which were to be a Standard to all that succeeded and the great Corner-stone of all that Revelation that he would at any time after make to Man-kind 't was but necessary it should be fixed and established upon certain and unquestionable grounds So that such who lived in Moses his time could have no good reason at all to doubt in the least of his sincerity for all was done that could be done to put that matter out of question And God visibly shewed himself as we find in the four and twentieth of Exodus and his own glory amongst them For 't is said They saw the Lord God of Israel and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a Saphire-stone and as it were the Body of Heaven in its clearness Nor could there be any doubt raised Whether the Laws and Precepts of Moses were rightly recorded and as he intended they should For before his Death he himself by God's special command in a publick Assembly delivered over his Five Books to the Levites to be layed up in the sides of the Ark. After Moses his time
in such a Succession Established upon the Authority of this Book ought ever to be admitted without very positive Proof Especially when we have such apparent Reasons to believe the contrary By Whom is it I ask that the Bible could be corrupted It must have been either by Jews Pagans or Hereticks 'T is plain the Jews have not done it for we find multitudes of Texts that give in a daily witness against them which doubtless had they attempted the Bible in such a way they would never have suffered so to remain upon Record against them No part of the Pagan World can be reasonably thought to have done it for the Scriptures contain such an eminent Revelation of the One true God and his Worship as puts an end to all Heathenish vanities and at once dispatches all False gods out of the world Nor have Hereticks done it for 't is this Sword of the Spirit the Written Word of God that upon all occasions mortally wounds them the Scriptures have slain their thousands and their ten thousands in this kind 'T is the purity of the Scriptures in asserting the Orthodox Truths of Religion that has in all Ages kept up the Christian Verity and still brought all sorts of Hereticks to an open shame It has been the Wresting or Perverting not the Corrupting of Scripture from whence all Heresies have chiefly arisen and the native and genuine Sense of the Bible has still proved their Ruine Nor is there upon the whole of this matter any tolerable Reason to Doubt but that as God was pleased by his special Providence to Secure the Old Testament which we are sure he did and preserve it intire till the time of our Saviour so by the same Providence he has secured the Old and the New since and delivered them over to the Church in these latter Ages without any considerable variation from what they were when they were first written And this ought to be duely considered as an eminent help towards a rational Satisfaction in this point That the very same Objections which some men now please themselves with against the New Testament the Old Testament was equally lyable to in the times of our Saviour and the Apostles For after Esdras's time the Old Testament came into no Infallible bands till the times of the Gospel was conveyed by fallible means through many Ages down to those times had the same possibilities of Alteration then that the New Testament has now Various Lections also in the Hebrew copies were then extant And yet for all this the Scriptures of the Old Testament were then pure and intire Nor does our Saviour or the Apostoles mention the least defect that was then in them Nor was there in those eminent times of Reformation the least Question or doubt ever raised upon any such account One grand Objection is usually made upon the whole of this matter and 't is thus framed All these Arguments brought either to prove the Bible in general or to answer such particolar doubts as arise about it are built say some upon no better foundation then Huâ—anâ— and in themselves fallible grounds And if so we still embrace our Religion but upon uncertain terms can never from chance arrive at any positive and absolute assurance nor come to such a Divine and Infallible faith as we ought to have in this case In answering to this Objection this must be acknowledged that although the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were at first Penned by the infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost yet the manner of their Conveyance to future Ages has been by Humane and in themselves fallible means The Grounds and Reasons of which disposal of God though we cannot pretend fully to reach yet we are thus far informed First the Scriptures could not have been by means in themselves absolutely infallible handed down to all Places and Ages without the visible continuance and constant exertion of such a supernatural and extraordinary Power as would have wholly inverted that course we find God most generally takes in his Rule and dispose of the World Secondly it would have prevented all that case and industry God intended to exercise his Church withall to their great advantage in the exact preservation of these sacred Records Thirdly there had been no room for a belief of not occasion for a dependance upon that Wisdom and Power God has expressed and wherein he has greatly honoured himself in an over-ruling disposal of ordinary means to such extraordinary Ends who has providentially secured this Book through all the several Channels of Humane conveyance This Objection is much urged First by those of the Roman Church on the one hand to convince us of the great uncertainty of our own profession and the stability of theirs And Secondly by men of Sceptical Principles on the other hand either to fright or perswade us or both out of all Religion by telling us There is no positive or absolute certainty in the grounds of any How serviceable this Objection though it has filled the World with great noise and clamour as it has been pressed both ways will prove to either of these designs and indeed with how great absurdity t is managed in order to both will be soon made to appear All belief of things Divine in an ordinary way I speak not of such Divine illumination as God may particularly vouchsafe to any â—ust of necessity be ultimately resolved into that we call Rational and Moral assurance for when we speak most properly of Divine faith we mean such a faith as is built upon a Divine Testimony not denominating it from the Object of it nor from the Effect of it which is less proper but from the Foundation and Ground of it Now Divine faith in that best and truest sense of it will be reduced into no more then a Moral a ssurance at last for if I say my faith is Divine because built upon a Divine Testimony 't is in some sense true But if I am asked by what means I came to know that Testimony to be Divine That question must needs bring me back to a Moral assurance as the ground of all my previous belief about that Divine Testimony it self that it really is so Whatsoever Revelation God makes of his mind to me I must needs without Divine assistance receive it upon Humane and in themselves fallible terms and so judge of it as I judg of all other things No man can receive my Revelation from God with a faith a Divine and infallible as the Revelation is in it self unless there be an equal inspiration in both cases and God make men as infallible in Judging of Revelation when proposed as he made the Instruments of it in the Act of its Conveyance The plain Question in this Case is how I come to receive all other things into my belief that are Objects of belief It must be confessed upon the grounds of Rational credibility and Moral assurance and therefore upon the
may serve in some measure to manifest the vanity of all pretensions to an Infalible belief without a Divine and Infalible assistance of revealed and supernatural Truths and the Mistakes of such who suppose we can never be settled in any Points of Religion without it And may sufficiently justify an indeavour to make a Rational proof of the Scriptures without a pretence to any such Divine and Infalible Judgment about them If so much be urged for the Proof of the Bible in general and in Answer to particular Doubts relating to the manner of its conveyance as will amount to a rational assurance and satisfaction 'T is all we can have without Inspiration and all we ought to Expect in this case All we pretend to from attempts of this nature is but a Moral assurance that this Book was at first written by Gods direction and that those Copies we now have of it are without any designed corruption or other variation from the first Originals then what humane frailty in the Transcribing of them has occasioned descended down to us and that in all such places where we find various readings the true Sense of the place and the original Dictates of the Holy Ghost are amongst them all safely preserved and by a diligent search may be discovered And upon the same Grounds of Moral Assurance are men in point of Translations and all such who are Illiterate For as we can be without extraordinary assistance but Morally certain that the Bible was Originally Written by a divine direction and that those Copies we now have of it in the Original Languages were at first Rightly transcribed and have not been since corrupted or changed so men may be also Morally Certain about a Translation For 't is in it self a thing very possible to be that the Scriptures may out of their own Languages be truely and rightly translated and being so are of the same Divine Authority that they were before and upon circumstantial considerations men may come rationally and safety to conclude that they are so And indeed unless all men in an Age that understand the Original tongues should agree which is absurd to conceive and morally impossible to be to deceive and abuse those that do not no Designed abuse nor any palpable falshood can be imposed upon men that way And in like manner persons Illiterate may be Morally Certain that they are no way deceived when the Scriptures are Preached or Read to them The Ground of Assurance in all these cases is still the same the Difference is onely Gradual Those who understand the Original Languages are upon easier and nearer terms of Moral Assurance about them but in the other cases it may be also attained And in all cases God has providentially afforded means sufficient to secure any reasonable man about the Truth and Authority of his Word Fourthly How can we believe this Book say some to be from God when we find contained in it divers Contradictions Several strange and Incredible Stories and other things greatly liable to Exception This Objection though it looks with the most Threatning aspect has yet the least prevailing Influence is of all others the most Impotent has the least rational Vigour and when duely examined will prove least effectual to those bad Ends for which it is by any intended When men tell us in general of Contradictions they find in the Bible but come to no Distinct and positive Proof they do not in that case Object but Revile He that will give an Edge to such kind of Discourse must punctually Instance Wherein this book has asserted any One such thing as implies a direct Contradiction and is in its own Nature utterly Impossible to be or where any two things are affirmed and denyed so directly contrary to each other that they are wholly uncapable of any Reconciliation This task with some degree of Contempt we impose upon all Antiscriptural men And are very secure that all those seeming Contradictions that are to be found in the Bible do at last prove an eminent Testimony to its Divinity For first they are in their appearance so to be a great Instance that in the Writing of this Book there was no corrupt Design to Cajole or engage the opinions of men to it And Secondly upon a thorough 〈◊〉 due there appears in them all such a deep unthought of and admirable Concord without the least shew of any Designed Agreement and such a unanimous tendency towards the great End of the whole as greatly savours of Divine Council and such a Contrivance as we may reasonably expect to come from Above In the management of these kind of Weapons against the Bible we find none that have been at any time since more dexterous then heretofore were Celsus Juliâ—n Porphiry and Faustus the Manichee How mean their attempts were and how little Impression they made will appear by the Instance of some of their chiefest Objections in this kind First they Object against the Bible because we are told therein of divers Incredible things As that a Serpent should speak to Eve an Ass reprove his Master that the Sun should stand stâ—â—â— and a Woman be turned into Salt with many other things of the like nature That the Devil should speak in a Serpent or that God should open the mouth of an Ass can seem Impossible and so incredible to none that acknowledge such Superiour and Invisible Powers especially 't was absurd in Celsus and Julian and others of the Heathens so to Object because nothing was more commonly believed amongst them then Stories of this nature and 't is well known the Devil spake daily to them through Images Philostratus gives a large account how an Elm-tree spake to Apollonius Porphyrie tells us that a River saluted Pythagoras Julian himself and his Philosopher Maximus had oft heard the Devil speak with divers kinds of voices and therefore no such things could seem Impossible to them Nay Julian acknowledged a Possibility of the highest point in the Bible which is the Incarnation of the Deity and himself gave an instance of it in Esculapius whom he supposed to descend from Heaven and assume Humane Nature that he might instruct the World in the art of Physick 'T is in truth in it self a thing Childish and absurd to Object against the Bible for the relation of any such passages if the Being of God be once acknowledged 'T is true that no humane power can make the Sun stand still turn a Woman â—â—â—o Salt or effect any thing of such a nature and should the Scriptures ascribe any such things to any Humane Ability the Objection were well grounded but they are things possible and easy with God to effect and the fact of them when ascribed to Him of an easie belief Nor can any man reasonably Object against the Scriptures upon any such account that does not first deny the Actual Existence of God Secondly They tell us there are some things contained in the Scriptures
and did so greedily embrace whatever they thought came from above The truth is there is in every man not besotted with sensuality and brutishly degenerated an earnest thirst after the knowledg of God and Supernatural things And there is as clear a Conviction upon every Reasonable man that without some further discovery from God himself then what this World and our own contemplations thereupon will afford us no satisfying account of those things can be attained Thirdly Man is a Creature designed by his own Faculties for a Converse with the Diety and by Natural Obligation Tends to an Intercourse with God To serve him acceptably and to pay the Homage due from us in such away as we may be fully ascertained is pleasing to him and will be rewarded by him is absolutely necessary to all humane welfare That is The greatest concern we have in this world is to be fully instructed about Divine Worship And this seems no way attainable without some Revelation That God is and that he is to be Served my Reason will tell me But What he is and after what Manner he Exists the knowledge whereof is indispensibly necessary in all our Approches to him as that without which we shall be sure to Debase his Excellency and to represent to our selves some vain Idea's and Fantasmes of our own imagination I must be taught from above And for the manner how he is to be served and what will be acceptable to him therein I must look upward and expect a full and compleat direction from thence Mankind seem una voce to have concenter'd in this as a thing most sit yea necessary that God should from Heaven reveal to us the way of his own Worship and Teach us the Methods of our Converse with Him Where can we find a Religion in any Nation not founded upon some Pretences to Revelation and established upon this Admission 'T were indeed a most irrational thing and a great Indignity offered to the Supreme Majesty to make Men their own Judges in that case and to suppose it left to the Arbitrary Determinations of Humane Discretion How God should be worshipped The consideration of the Wisdome and Sovereignty of God and our own Dependance upon him is singly sufficient to evince this Truth that we ought to be under a Law and a Stated Rule for the Manner of our Serving of him Without which we can never intitle the best of our Services to Obedience or upon any good Grounds be secured of Acceptance Not ought we to judge that any Worship ever found favour with God that had not the stamp of his own Command and was not by himself some way or other Appointed Though 't is fit to believe that God was well pleased with the Moral goodness of the Heathen world and any real conformity there was amongst them to that Natural Diâ—inity that is originally annexed to every mans Being and greatly displeased with the contrary and rewarded and punished them upon their Good and Ill behaviour in those things yet t is not to be doubted but that the whole of their own contrived Worship with all the Rites and Ceremonies of it was a thing to God most Odious and Detestable And of this we are well assured not only from the Reason of the thing considered in it self but from a very Authentick Determination that tells us The whole of that Worship was a Service performed to Devils Nor could any the best Intentions that any men ever yet had since the world began sufficiently excuse for Will-worship and Idolatry There are but two ways by which any worship can be aâ—pointed by God Either by a Law Natural given to us in our first Constitution or by some Revealed Laws since The Foundation of all Worship must be either in Nature or Institution The Point then to be proved will be this That God has not by any Natural Laws given to Mankind a sufficient direction about his Worship and that Intercourse between Himself and the World that respecting either his own Honour or mans Happiness is necessary to be maintained and all mankind naturally tend to But has left us to expect it in a Supernatural way That God by a Law Natural binds us to acknowledg his Being and has given us sufficient notices of it in General and binds us to acknowledg that there is an Honour and Worship due to his Being and has given us some General Innate directions about the performance of it I grant And has also obliged us to Live according to the Dictates of our Rational Nature which shews to us Good and Evil by that very Nature which becomes Obligatory to it self In these things our own Reason is our Law and according to that Law men without Revelation are Rewarded and Punished And so I doubt not but all the Heathen Nations were But the Laws of Nature the dictates of the best Reason are not intrusted with such a plenary direction about Worship as 't is necessary for us to have and we all tend to Nor can any man be a sufficient Law to himself in those things And that may be thus made to appear All Worship must either be confined to Words Thoughts and Bodily Gestures and simply Terminated there or else it must be extended to some further expressions of Service by an Appropriation of some other Mediums unto it First No part of the World have ever yet thought it a thing Reasonable that God should be no otherwise served then by Thoughts Gestures and Words Both the Principles and Practices of all Nations have in all times declared the contrary Nor has any Worship in any Place been established or such a constitution framed as that we call Religion without some other expressions of service and some other External Mediums appropriated to it And this seems to have arisen from two things First Men have never supposed their Words or their Thoughts or their Gestures to be alone a sufficient expression of that Homage they are naturally sensible they owe to the Greatness and Bounty of God for their own Beings and the Donation of this world which he has visibly bestowed upon Man in making the Whole in a subserviency to Him and giving him the plenary and quiet possession of it But they still thought themselves bound to a further expression of Gratitude and Subjection Secondly Mankind in every Age have applied to God under a sense of Sin and of Guilt contracted by it and upon that account have still adjudged it as necessary to make some further Offering to God for their sins and by some other Mediums then bare Thoughts and naked Expressions to apply to Him about them No man ever yet imagined such a service a sufficient Compensation for Sin but have still attempted a further Satisfaction to the Justice above and by some other ways have indeavoured to appease Divine Anger Now the Reason of the world does not issue it self into any positive Certainty about such things as it does about things
minds of men No man can well judge this an effect of any Humane Design nor can reasonably think that the private observation or experience of any particular men could have reached so far Providential Occurrences would soon have confuted any counterfeit pretence to such an universal account of the whole Affair of the World Nor could any but God himself be secure not to mistake in such a matter The more we contemplate this World in its various motions the more we consider the many intricacies and changes of it the more is the Bible still justified to us because we perceive the whole transaction of this World to be there strangely Epitomized We are not only told in the general what shall fall out that bad men shall often Prosper and good men Suffer that there is one even to the Righteous and the Wicked that no man shall be able to make a certain judgment of Gods Loving or Hating by the course of things here below but we are so far pointed to the Reasons and Ends of these things as much justifies Providence to us and greatly informs us about those Grounds upon which God proceeds in his Supream Rule here in order to his future judgment hereafter Nothing can befall a good man or an ill man or happen in any kind of which we are not told in the Bible and of the reason whereof we have not some general and satisfying account 'T is extreamly unreasonable to think that any other but God himself especially not the worst deceivers could have made such a compleat Model of his own Government and 't is no little justification of this Book that God visibly governs the World according to what is here delivered And those Laws must needs have all the rational probability to be Divine and come from the Supream Ruler above sutably to which all things evidently come about here below and to which the whole Revolution of this World in all times and ages and in all respects appears exactly corresponding Fifthly We find in this Book a full and ample provision for all the ills that have accompanied mans first Apostacy and adequate and proper Cures for all the Maladies of humane life And therefore 't is very likely to be a Divine preseription sent from above to heal and relieve the World Who but God himself can be reasonably supposed safely to disengage Man-kind from all the entanglements of their Lapsed and Apostate condition I appeal to every unprejudiced man whether this Book be not a general Store-house a Divine Treasury far beyond what the World besides can afford to supply all the wants of Humane Nature Not only more clearly and fully than was ever before revealing to us the greatest good pointing us to that true Summum bonum of a rational Being which Mankind in all Ages with so much ignorance and disagreement with themselves had been groping after and conducting us to the greatest happiness but applying suitable Remedies to every Distemper Where can any man under the sense of sin and the displeasure of God or under any other dejection of mind poverty or disgrace in the World sickness of body loss of friends or any sort of affliction comfort himself as he may here What a Sacrifice are we here told of for Sin We find all men in all Religions have still harped upon a Sacrifice The Sacrifices of living men were most Inhumane detested by the best of Heathens The sacrificing of Beasts though generally practis'd the wisest knew not what to make of and thought it strange that God should be Atoned by the fat of a Bruit How infinitely does the Sacrifice we are acquainted withal by the Gospel exceed all the World has thought of in that kind Of how amazing and yet of how satisfying a nature is it What Divine Antidotes are there provided in this Book from suitable Examples comforting Promises wise Directions heavenly Counsels to keep up a sinking Mind 'T is like that Wood where Jonathan came in his extremity and found Honey every where dropping and a taste of it revived his Spirits and renewed his Vigour And herein lies the strength of this Consideration The reality the excellent and proper nature of that relief and those Satisfactions that upon al occasions are here proposed to us They are no such deluding Trifles as men are cheated into by education and acquiess in only because they are bred up with a good Opinion of this Book But they are such things as are of intrinsick value such as are in themselves and in their own Nature most real most suitable to a rational Being in all such cases and justified to us from the Light of our own Reason and that innate Notion we have of a Deity The Voice of the Bible is If thou do well they own Conscience being judge thou shalt be accepted If not Sin lies at the door We find no resemblance here of the Heathen Superstitions nor of those Vanities wherewith other Religions through mens ignorance and the track of Education have besotted the World The terms of our Reconciliation with God and our happiness in this World and the next are such and so propounded to us as every mans own reason must needs acquiesce in and there is a self-evident satisfaction results from the performance of them It prevails much upon me this general provision I find here made to suite all mens conditions in all Times and Ages and the great worth and transcendent excellency of it And 't is a great account to us of that wonderful variety we find in this Book both for matter and expression What Depths and Shallows in both respects Sometimes the sublimest Notions clothed with the highest Expressions Sometimes the easiest plainest Truths imaginable Sometimes Divinity deck't with the richest Expressions of Oratory to delight and instruct the noblest and largest mind Sometimes brought down to the meanest Similitudes and expressed by things of the most common use amongst Man-kind to be grasped by the poorest understanding And yet a decency and majesty in all No part of Man-kind but find here a plentiful and suitable provision for every Condition Not an impotent impoverished mind but is here relieved nor a condition so mean but is cared for And this tells us much of the vanity of those who are apt to sit in judgment upon this Holy Book To find fault with some things as too Mysterious and with others as too mean To think many Stories Examples Directions Superfluous and others wholly Impertinent When such men can fathom the deep and large design of this Book are able fully to comprehend the sizes of all mens Capacities and the variety of all mens Conditions and can assure me that what one contemns or not understands may not prove of excellent and proper use to another I then will acknowledge They are every way fit to correct the Bible and leave them free to fit the World with a better Model Sixthly This Book appears so composed that all