ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them Male and Female And said for this cause shall a Man leave Father and Mother and shall cleave to his Wife and they twain shall be one Flesh Matth. xix 4 5. And St. Paul in like manner to shew that the Woman ought not to usurp Authority over the Man proves it by this Argument For Adam was first formed then Eve 1 Tim. ii 13. and in another place and upon another occasion he observes that the Man is not of the Woman but the Woman of the Man 1 Cor. xi 8. And long before the Prophet Malachi had Argued from the same Topick Malach. ii 15. And Hebr. iv 4. it is noted that God did rest the Seventh day from all his Works from whence the Apostle concludes that he that is entred into his rest he also hath ceased from his own Works as God did from his Vers 10. Now as these and whatever other Arguments are to be found in the Scriptures of the like Nature do evidently suppose the Creation of the World in the same manner as it is related in the Book of Genesis so they explain to us the Reasons why it was thus Created For all these Arguments had been lost and there could have been no ground for them if the World had been otherwise created As certainly therefore as this Arguing from the manner of the Creation is good So certain it is both that the World was so Created and that there was great Reason for it But whatever some Philisophers may think now there is nothing which would have been more disagreeable to the Notions of the Generality of the wisest Men in all Ages than that the World should be made upon Mechanical Principles He spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fact Psal xxxiii 9. He Commanded and they were Created Psal Cxlviii 5. This expresses not only the Truth of the History but the general sense of Mankind who have ever had this Notion of God that to command and to do is the same thing with him And therefore the Objection till of late has run the other way that God did rather Create the World in an instant than in six days It was little suspected formerly that divers Years or many Ages were spent in the Creation It was in the Description of the Creation of the World that Longinus observed the sublime Style of Moses and if the Relation of it be admirable the Creation it self in such a manner as is there related must be much more admirable For it is proper for it to be thus described for no other Reason but because it was proper for it in this manner to be done But what would Longinus have said if the Creation had been related to have been performed not by any command which had its immediate effect but by the tedious Process of Mechanical Causes What Grandeur what evidence of the Divine Power and Majesty is there in this more than in any Chymical Operation if the Mechanical Hypothesis were true It were strange Presumption to demand of Almighty God a Reason of all his Actions and not to believe him upon his Word that he has done any thing but when and how some Men conceit it ought to have been done But what I have now said may at least serve to silence the Cavils of such Men. 2. The Preservation of the World is not performed according to Mechanical Laws or Principles The Mechanical Hypothesis supposes that Bodies act upon Bodies or Actives upon Passives in a certain course and according to such Laws as that being left to themselves they necessarily produce their Effects without any immediate Interposition of a Divine Power But this Notion is grounded wholly upon mistakes 1. It supposes that there was at first a certain quantity of Motion infused or impressed upon Matter which still continues passing from one Body to another according to certain Methods or Rules prescribed But this Supposition that there is always the same Quantity of Motion in the World is wholly precarious or rather notoriously false and the best Philosophers have been able to give no Account how Motion can be Communicated without an immediate Impulse or Concourse of the Divine Power 2. By the Mechanical Hypothesis it is supposed as a thing certain that there is a Plenum which at least is very uncertain or rather it has been demonstrated by Mr. Newton that there is a Vacuum not only interspersed but of a Prodigious and almost incredible extent at the distance of the Earths Simidiameter from us And by his Principles Gravitation must proceed from an immediate and constant Impression or Impulse of God For it proceeds from no Action of one Body upon another but is a Quality belonging to all Matter alike and to every particle of Matter however separate and distant from all others The Projectile Motion and that Attractive Force by which the Planets are carried in their Orbits cannot be communicated or performed according to any Mechanical Laws whereby they are determined from a Rectilinear to an Orbicular Motion For Bodies can act upon Bodies only by Contract and therefore cannot Communicate their Motion or any way determin or affect the Motion of each other in a Vacuum so vast as it must be near the Circumference of the several Orbits so that the old occult Qualities and Substantial Terms were not more repugnant to the Mechanical Hypothesis than these Principles are The being of a Vacuum must suppose an immediate Divine Power necessary to keep the System of the World in that order in which we see it continue For otherwise by this Principle of Gravitations being inherent in every Part of Matter all Bodies would press towards the Center and in a Vacuum there can be nothing to hinder their tendency towards it till they come crowding the upon another so that all the Order of things would soon be reduced to one confused Heap or Moss unless some immaterial Power interposed to hinder it It is evident then that the Mechanical Hypothesis is quite destroyed by these Principles For by these here is no Connexion of Causes and Effects according to any Laws of mere Matter and Motion but all must be done by the immediate Power of God Gravitation and the Projectile Motion must be impressed and suspended without any dependance upon surrounding Bodies they must produce their Effects thro' prodigious void Spaces where Bodies have no Communication of Motion from one to another And all being performed by the immediate directing and assisting Hand of God a Man may as well pretend to solve a Miracle Mechanically as to give any Account of the Phaenomena of Nature by Mechanical Laws according to these Principles 3. The Abetters of the Mechanical Hypothesis argue that God acts in the most General and Uniform ways that it is more becoming his Wisdom to let Nature have its course and that constantly to interpose would be a disparagement to the Order
were kept of every Family made them have a more separate and distinct Interest in every Tribe and a more exact Account of Times and perfect Knowledge of things in every Family and therefore they were not so capable of being imposed upon in things of this nature as the People of other Nations might be where Marriages and Inheritances are promiscuous and no occasion is given for the like emulation and watchfulness over one another and where no such Remembrances and Notices of the Transactions of Affairs are to be consulted by any one of every private Family In the wilderness of Sinai on the first day of the second month in the second year after they were come out of the land of Aegypt Moses and Aaron assembled all the congregations together and they declared their pedigrees after their families by the house of their fathers according to the number of their names from twenty years old and upward by their poll Num. i. 1 18. and this was done again in the Plains of Moab at the end of Forty Years chap. xxvi And these Genealogies we preserved not only during the Captivity Ezra vii and down to the Reign of Herod but even to the time of Josephus who in his First Book against Apion says That they had the Genealogies of their Priests then still extant for two thousand Years By which means it came to pass that every Tribe had a kind of separate Interest which was the occasion of Korah's Sedition against Moses And every Man amongst their Tribes might certainly hereby know how many Generations he was removed from those who first took possession of the Land of Promise and might find the Names of his Ancestors registred who were in the Wilderness with Moses or came with Joshua over Jordan And this must make the memory of their Ancestors more dear and familiar to them and it must make them have a greater regard for any thing they had left behind them especially for a Book upon which their Rights of Inheritance and the Title they had to all they enjoyed depended This was the Deed by which they held their Estates and the Last Will and Testament as it were of their Ancestors amongst whom the Land was divided But it is certain Men are more careful of nothing than of the Writings by which they enjoy their Estates and there is no great dauger when a will is once come to the hands of the right Heir that it will be lost or salsified to his prejudice but if the Books of Moses were altered it must be upon the account of some advantage to such as must be supposed to make the Alterations and consequently to the disadvantage of others who therefore would have found themselves concerned to oppose such Alterations But as the Books of Moses were in the nature of a Deed of Settlement to every Tribe and Family so they were a Law too which all were obliged to know and observe under the severest Penalties And being so generally known and universally practised it could no more be falsified at any time since its first Promulgation than it could be now at this day For 2. Another thing which made the People of Israel less capable of being imposed upon in this matter was That they were by their Laws themselves obliged to the constant study of them they were to teach them their Children and to be continually discoursing and meditating on them to bind them for a sign upon their hand that they might be as frontlets between their eyes to teach them their children speaking of them when they sate in their houses and when they walked by the way when they lay down and when they rose up to write them upon the door-posts of their houses and upon their gates Deut. xi 18 19 20. Nothing was to be more notorious and familiar to them and accordingly they were perfectly acquainted with them and as Josephus says knew them as well as they did their own Names they had them constantly in their mouths and thousands have died in defence of them and could by no Menaces or Torments be brought to forsake or renounce them And to this end One Day in Seven was by Moses's his Law set apart for the learning and understanding of it The Jews have a Tradition That Moses appointed the Law to be read therice every Year in their publick Assemblies And Grotius (q) Grot. ad Matth. xv 2. is of this opinion However the Scripture informs us that Moses of old time had in every city them that preached him being read in the synagogues every sabbath-day Act. xv 21. It is indeed the common opinion That there were no Synagogues before the Captivity But then by Synagogues must be understood Places of Judicature rather than of Divine Worship for there is no reason to question but the Jews had their Proseuchas or Places of Prayer from the Beginning since it is incredible that those who lived at a great distance and could not come to Jerusalem on the Sabbath-days and other time of Divine Worship besides the three great Festivals when all their Males were bound to be at Jerusalem should not assemble for the Worship of God in the places where they dwelt nay they were by an express Law obliged to it on the Sabbaths The seventh day is the sabbath of rest an holy convocation ye shall do no work therein it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings Lev. xxiii 3. They must therefore have places in all their Dwellings to resort to where they held their Convocations or Assemblies and these they went to on the New Moons as well as on the sabbaths 2 King iv 23. which made the Psalmist lament that the Enemy had burnt up all the synagogues of God in the land Psal lxxiv. 8. And being met together there is as little doubt to be made but that they read the Law which was to be read by them in their Families and much more in their Publick Assemblies on their solemn Days of Divine Worship The Books of Moses therefore were â—ead in their Synagogues in every City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from ancient Generations or from the first settlement of the Children of Israel in the Land of Canaan And then at the end of every Seven Years the Law was read in the most publick and solemn manner in the Solemnity of the Year of Release in the Feast of Tabernacles Moses wrote a Book of the Law and commanded it to be put in the side of the Ark Deut. xxxi 29. as the Two Tables of Stone were put into the Ark it self chap. x. 5. and this he delivered to the Priests and to all the Elders of Israel and commanded them saying At the end of every seven years in the solemnity of the year of release in the feast of tabernacles when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their
we may not be assured of some things as certainly from the Testimony of others as from our own Senses 2. Whether this be not the present case relating to the resolution of Faith I shall therefore consider in the first place the certainty which we have for the matters of fact by which the Authority of the Scriptures is proved and confirmed to us compared with the evidence of sence and will then apply it to the resolution of Faith I. In many cases men seem generally agreed that there is as much cause to believe what they know from others as what they see and experience themselves For there may be such circumstances of credibility as equal the evidence even of sence it self no evidence can satisfie sence so much indeed nor perhaps so much affect the passions as that of sence but there may be other evidence which may give as clear conviction and altogether as good satisfaction to our Reason as that which is immediately derived from our sences concerning the Being of Objects or the Truth of matters of fact Thus those who never travelled to the Indies do as little doubt that there is such a place as those who have been never so often there and all men believe there was such a man as Julius Caesar with as little scruple as if they had lived in his time and had seen and spoke with him I suppose no man in his wits makes any more doubt but there are such places as Judoea and Jerusalem from the constant report of Historians and Travellers than if he had been in those places himself and had lived the greatest part of his Life there and the greatest Infidel that I know of never pretended yet to disbelieve that there was such a person as our Saviour Christ But all men think themselves as well assured of things of this nature upon the credit of others as if they had seen them themselves For how doubtful and intricate soever some things may be for want of Knowledge or credit in the Relaters yet there are other things delivered with that agreement and certainty on all hands that to doubt of them would be as unreasonable as to doubt of what we our selves see and hear And if our Saviour's Resurrection for instance be of this nature we can with as little reason doubt of it as if we had lived at that time and had conversed with him after his Resurrection from the Dead But we have as great assurance that he was alive again after his Crucifixion as that he ever lived at all and we have at least all the assurance that there was such a Person as Christ that we can have that there once lived any other man at that distance of time from us We can no more doubt that our Saviour was born in the Reign of Augustus Coesar and was Crucified under Tiberius than that there were once such Emperors in the World nay we have it much better attested that Christ was Born and was Crucified and rose again than that there ever were such Princes as these two Emperors for no man ever made it his business to go about the world to certifie this and to testifie the truth of it at his Death But the Apostles themselves and their Disciples and Converts and innumerable others ever since from the beginning of Christianity have asserted the particulars of the Life and Death and Resurrection of our Saviour under all dangers and torments and deaths and have made it their great aim and design both living and dying to bear Testimony to the Truth of the Gospel So that a man may as well doubt of any matter of fact that ever was done before his own time or at a great distance from him as doubt of these fundamentals of the Christian Religion and yet there is no man but thinks himself as certain of some things at least which were done a long time ago or a great way off as if he had been at the doing of them himself Indeed in some respects we seem to have more evidence than these could have that lived in the beginning of Christianity for they could see but some Miracles we have the benefit of all they relyed upon their own sences and upon the sences of such as they knew and conversed with we upon the sences of innumerable People who successively beheld them for the space of Divers hundred years together so that whoever will not believe the Scriptures neither would he believe though one rose from the Dead that is though the greatest Miracle were wrought for his conviction This was said of the Old Testament and therefore may with greater reason be said of that and the New both And we have besides one sort of evidence which those that lived at the first planting of Christianity could not have for we see many of those Prophecies fulfilled which our Saviour foretold concerning his Church we know how it sprung up and flourished and from what small unlikely beginnings it has spread it self into all corners of the Earth and continues to this day notwithstanding all the malice of Men and Devils to root it out and destroy it The continuance and success of the Gospel under so improbable circumstances was matter of Faith chiefâ—y to the first Christians but to us is matter of Fact and the object of sense they saw the work indeed prosper in their hands but their Faith only could tell them that it should flourish for so many Ages as we know it has already done This is a standing and invincible proof to us at this distance of time and has the force of a twofold Argument the one of a Power of Miracles the other of Prophecies we know that a miraculous power has been manifested in conquering all opposition and in a wonderful manner bringing those things to pass which to humane wisdom and power are altogether impossible And the fulfilling hereby of Prophecies is a visible confirmation to us of the truth of those Miracles which by the Testimony of others we believe to have been done by the Prophets whose Prophecies we see fulfilled And since it must be acknowledged that things may be so well attested that we may with as much reason doubt of the truth of our own sences as of the Authority by which we are assured of the truth of them and must turn Scepticks or worse if we will not believe them we may conclude as well upon the account of these Prophecies which we our selves see fulfilled as upon all other accounts that the Historical evidence in proof of the Christian Religion amounts to all the certainty that a matter of Fact is capable of not excepting even that of sense it self II. Let us now apply all this to the Resolution of Faith and give an account how a divine and infallible Faith may be produced in us Humane Testimony is the Motive by which we believe the Scriptures to contain God's revealed Will this certifies us that such Miracles were wrought
Gross God was pleased therefore to display his Glory before the Angels and by several steps and degrees to excite their Praise and Love and Adoration which moved them to Songs and Shouts of Joy and by this means his Glory and their own Happiness was advanced much beyond what it would have been if all things had been created and disposed into their Rank and Order at one Moment They look'd into the first Principles and Seeds of Things and every day presented them with a glorious Spectacle of New Wonders the first Seven Days of the World they kept a continual Triumph or Jubile and thus their Voices were tuned and raised as I may say to those Praises which were to be their Employment and their Happiness to all Eternity the more they saw the more they knew and the more they knew of the Works of God the more they for ever loved and adored Him This affords us a Reason why so much more time was spent in the forming of the Earth and the Creatures belonging to it than in the formation of the Heavenly Bodies Because the Heavens are of a Uniform and Similar Nature and a vast Vacuum is now supposed to be in them and therefore the Nature of them might without any successive Production be displayed at once to the Angels but the Earth being of a Compound Nature and containing Creatures of very different kinds it required more time to give a distinct perception of the several Parts and Species of it And the Planets being of the like Nature with the Earth since the Earth the Seat of Man's Habitation was framed by such leisurely degrees as might give a suitable Idea of it the other Planets might be framed at once there being nothing more in them than what was observeable in the Formation of the Earth or they might be framed together with the Earth by the same Measures and Degrees But according to the Mechanical way the Angels would have only the Prospect of a vast Chaos rolling and working for many thousands of years perhaps before any thing considerable could have been framed out of it And those tedious delays must yet according to this Notion have been carried on by such certain Methods that there could have been little wonderful in it to an Angel when the Mechanical Philosophers themselves think they can point out the several Steps and Motions by which all was done The making of Man was the last and finishing Work of the Creation when the World was prepared for the Reception of him and he was made with much solemnity Let us make Man in our Image after our Likeness Gen. i. 26. and the Man and the Woman were made apart For Adam was Created with all the Perfections suitable for him both as a Man and as the first Man out of whom Eve was to be formed As Man he was to have all the Parts and Faculties which Men have now but in greater Perfection as the first Man he was besides to have a Rib or (c) Dicunt etiam Vnam ex eostis ejus idem esse quod unam ex partibus ejus vel unam partem ejus quam explicationem confirmant ex eo quod in Targum vocabulum Tzelah costa redditur per Setar ut Tzelah costa Tabernaculi redditur in Targum per Setar latus Tabernaculi ita hic dicunt Mitzalotar idem esse quod Missitrohi Maimon More Nevoch Part 2. c. 30. Part out of which the Woman was to be made Which being the Principal and as it were the seminal Matter no mention is made of any other but as Animals and Plants are properly said to come from the Seed tho' they are not made of that only so Eve was properly made of Adam's Rib tho' other Matter besides might go to her Composition This way of Formation was to betoken that Love and Duty which ought to be between Husband and Wife And as the Creation and Happiness of Man provoked the Envy of Evil Angels so no doubt it occasioned the Joy and Praise of the Good ones 2. By this successive and Gradual Production and Disposition of things in six days at the Creation the Glory of God is likewise more manifested to Men than it would have been if all had been done at once or by slow and tedious Methods This gives us a more clear and distinct comprehensive Notion of the Works of God than we could otherwise have had It is acknowledged that Moses has given such an Account of the Creation as is more intelligible and better adapted to the Capacities of the generality of Men than that which any one would now obtrude upon us as a true Account of it But whatever Reasons can be assigned why the Creation should be described as it is in the Book of Genesis the same Reasons will prove that it was fitting it should be so performed If it be more suitable to the Capacities and Apprehensions of Men that the Creation of the World should be delivered to us as finished in six days rather than in a less or a longer time it was fit that it should have been really finished in this space of time and should be indeed so performed as might make the History the more useful to us For in respect of God it was alike to Create all things in an instant or to do it successively in a shorter or a longer time and in respect of Mankind no reason can be assigned why the History of the Creation should be delivered so as to represent it to Men as performed in this manner but the same Reason will hold why it should have been in the same manner performed God Blessed the Seventh day and Sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his Work which God Created and Made Gen. ii 3. and so Exod. xx 10 11. the Observation of the Sabbath or of one day in Seven to the Honour of God is established upon the Worlds being Created in six days and therefore if it be reasonable to keep one day in Seven Holy in Remembrance of the Creation it must be reasonable that the Creation of the World should have been performed in six days since the Obligation to observe a Seventh day in remembrance of the Creation implies that God rested on the Seventh day after he had Created the World in Six or in the same space of time which is contained in six days God saw it fitting that a day should be set apart to Commemorate the Creation and to Praise him for all his wonderful Works and that this day should return at such a distance of time and he observed such Order in the Creation that every day between these Periods of time might bring some particular work of it to Remembrance and every Seventh day might conclude in the Commemoration of the whole Creation Our Saviour answers the Pharisees when they proposed the Question to him about Divorces by putting them in Mind of the Order which God used in the Creation Have
Stars because the true were as the Sun and fix'd Stars Balaam Prophesy'd that a Star should come out of Jacob and aâ— Scepter should rise out of Israel Numb xxiv 17. and that Impostor in the time of Adrian who pretended to be the Messias called himself Barchochebas or the Son of a Star So that by the darkning of the Sun and Moon and the falling of the Stars from Heaven by an usual Metaphor was meant the failing of the Jewish State and Government This is agreeable to what (a) Quando enim vaticinatur Isaias de Gentis alicujus destructione vel de Populi alicujus magni interitu ait Stellas cecidisse coelos interiisse contremiscere solem obtenebratum terram vastatam commotam esse aliisque multis similibus locutionibus ParabolicÌ€is utitur sicut apud Arabes de eo cui singulare aliquod infortunium accidit dicitur quod coelum ipsius in terram conversum sit vel super terram ejus ceciderit Maimon More Nevoch Part. 2. c. 29. Consuevit enim de regno aliquo loqui ac si esset mundus peculiaris hoc est coelum terra Ib. Maimonides relates of the form of Speech usual with the Arabians when they would express any great Calamity into which any Man was fallen Verily I say unto you this generation shall not pass 'till all these things be fulfilled that is 'till they be accomplish'd in their first and immediate sense in the Destruction of Jerusalem which was destroy'd forty years after II. These were therefore properly the last days of the City and Government of the Jews who were wont to call the (b) Lightf Harm of the N. T. §. ix coming of the Messias the New Creation according to the Prophet Isa lxv 17. lxvi 22. and the world to come whereupon in their account the time immediately foregoing must be the last days of the former World And thus the Apostle speaks they are written for our Admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come 1 Cor. x. 11. which may be as truly rendred upon whom the ends of the Times or Ages are come for so the word there used signifies The World had now continued about four thousand years and this was the end or conclusion of the Ages when a new period of time was to begin And the same Apostle shewing that Christ is not like the Jewish High-Priests for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the World adds but now once in the end of the World hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself Heb. ix 26. where tho' in our Translation the word World be twice used yet in the Original it is exprest by two different words the first signifying the visible and material World but the latter signifying Ages to teach us that Christ appeared to suffer for us in the end of the Ages not in the end of this material World For the Apostle would have used the same word if he had meant the same thing in both places and would never haâ—â— made so sudden a change of words to no purpose The last Days which the Prophet Joel foretold and for which he is quoted by St. Peter Acts ii 16. are the last days of the Jewish State and Government which was shortly to receive its final period the Jewish Law and Power was then near its end and the days or times just before its conclusion and ultimate period was the space granted the Jews for their Conversion before the destruction of their City and Nation and these were the last days of their dispensation and the last opportunity that was to be afforded them as a distinct and peculiar People III. The Scripture speaks of the times of the Gospel as the last days which is to be understood not with respect to the duration of time but to the dispensation of the Gospel it is the last dispensation which God will vouchsafe to Mankind the last means and opportunity of Salvation which will be granted to the World and it is Prophecy'd of under the Character of the last days Isa ii 2. Micah iv 1 2. For the opportunity and time allotted for the means of Salvation is wont to be stiled the day of Salvation If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes Luke xix 42. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts Heb. iii. 7 15. iv 7. For he saith I have heard thee in a time accepted â—â—d in the day of Salvation have I succoured thâ—â— behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of Salvation 2 Cor. vi 2. Isa xlix 8. So that by Day is signified Season or Opportunity in the Language of Scripture as Night is put to signifie the contrary I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day the Night cometh when no man can work Joh. ix 4. The Scriptures herein consider the continuance and duration of the World no otherwise than with relation to the dispensations which God has been pleas'd to afford Men in order to their Salvation and in this respect the time under the Gospel is the last days tho' it be of never so long duration because the Gospel is the last dispensation The last Age of the World is the Age under the Gospel whether it be longer or shorter than the rest and the whole duration of this Age is styled the last Days since by Days is not to be understood the length or continuance of any certain time but the dispensation of the Gospel and the time under the Gospel is the last Days not because the World then began to draw towards its period or dissolution but because the Gospel offers us the last opportunity of Salvation and is the conclusion and period and the final consummation of the grace and goodness of God extended towards Mankind The Gospel being the last means of Salvation offer'd to Mankind the whole time under it is therefore sometimes stiled the last Days the last distinction of Times the last Season and Opportunity to be expected IV. The Day of Judgment being purposely conceal'd both from Men and Angels to keep us in a continual watchfulness and expectation of it the Apostle St. Paul speaks of it as that which as to the time of it is uncertain and therefore is at all times to be expected And this gave occasion to some to mistake his meaning tho there is nothing in his words which implies that the Day of Judgment was then approaching For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the Clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord 1 Thes iv 15