in a moment in the same moment that they shall be raised so that there will be no more prius posterius betwixt us than is in a moment neither can they whom that day finds alive rise at all But first in respect of them that are out of Christ as the antients generally and the best modern Expositors gloss upon these Texts Musculus Non soli resurgent qui sunt Christi resurgent omnes sed ii primi sic 1 Thes. 4. mortui in Christo resurgent primum post illas surgent reliqui Not only they that are Christs but all shall rise but they that are in Christ shall rise first and afterwards the rest as the Apostle saith St. Athanasius conceives St. Paul to give to them that are Christs both priority of time as to their Resurrection and change and of place as to their trial and receiving of sentence Oportet namque ut aliquod habeant privilegium justi vel resurgendo nam ut in aera obvià m Christo procedant rapiendi ita primi à mortuis excitantur quemadmodum contra peccatores in terra locis inferioribus hisce judicem ut damnati operiuntur Ex Christoferi translatione in 1 ep ad Corin c. 15. It is meet that the righteous should have the priviledge of rising before Infidels for as they are snatcht up into the Air to meet Christ so they also shall be first raised from the dead whereas on the contrary infidels as being damn'd already shall wait for the judge upon earth and these inferior places 5. That the Saints though they rise before the Infidels yet shall not be judged till the Devil and his Worshippers be cast into Hell is the assertion of Tertullian de Resurrectione carnis cap. 25. Hîc ordo temporum sternitur Diabolo in abyssum interim relegato primae resurrectionis praerogativa de soliis ordinetur dehinc igni data universalis Resurrectionis censuta de libris judicetur The order of time is here laid down The Devil in the mean while being sent back again into the bottomless pit the Prerogative of the first Resurrection that is their being gathered in the air to the place of Judgment shall be put into order and after that they are assembled the Fire of the last Conflagration having changed the world the sentence shall pass out of the books upon them that rose first that is the Saints by calling From these premisses it necessarily follows That all the time that Satan hath allotted him after his loosing to go out again and tempt the World to Gentilism to deceive the Nations after his old wont is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that small season that intervenes betwixt the general Resurrection of the Saints and the Condemnation of Infidels that short space wherein the Saints shall all in a body be waiting at the place of Judgment whither the Angels shall gather them for the appearance of Christ. Against which Hypothesis I cannot imagine what now can be excepted but that it seems to suppose that Infidels after their Resurrection shall be in a capacity to demerit contrary to the common and in my judgment the true Opinion that they will be then as they were since their dissolution in termino But there is no ground of such a suspicion in this case as I state it for I do not make their following Satan with their rebellious Arms a contraction of new guilt because it proceeds from that height of judicial obcecation that divine Justice inflicts upon them as their punishment but an occasion of Gods justifying himself in their condemnation as that which speaks them to have lived and died impenitent for all their willfull rebellions I do not affirm that God inflicts more punishment upon them because of this than what they had deserved before but only takes the opportunity of these Rebels being in Arms to proceed against them and to destroy them altogether as enemies I cannot express my mind in more significant terms than those of Aquinas Sum. 3. q. 90. art 7. Civcs judicabuntur ut cives in quos sine discussione meritorum sententia mortis non feretur sed infideles condemnabuntur ut hostes qui consueverunt apud homines absque meritorum audientia estimari Citizens shall be judged as Citizens against whom the sentence of death may not be pronounced without the discussion of their desert of it but Infidels shall be condemned as open enemies who use among men to be doom'd without hearing That God may not keep his Citizens in suspence and demurr the trial of their cause longer than need he will not appear in his Glory till his Rebels be all in arms that so finding them at his coming in the Field set in Battalia against his Subjects he may cut them off at once § 7. I have but one Argument more against the Chyliasts limitting the Saints Reign with Christ on Earth to a precise thousand of years to try the patience as well as Judgment of my Reader withal to wit the impertinency of the Authorities which they alledge for their Opinion Of which I shall give but two Instances because I would not quite tire my self or Reader 1. They alledge the Authority of the Jewish Doctors whereas the Millenium they speak of is the Septimum Millenarium as Carpenter observes in Plato's Alcinous pag. 322. at the beginning whereof they think God will judge all men and as Mr. Meed proves by several quotations volume 2. pag. 667. Now the seventh day thousand of years is confest by all to last to all Eternity as being the holy Sabbath wherein the Saints shall rest from their six days labour And for any day of a thousand years long before that the antient Jews are wholly strangers so they reckon the three Ages before that by two thousand of years apiece two thousand before the Law two thousand under the Law and two thousand under the Messiah before the eternal Sabbath in which compute they intend not that any of those Ages shall be of so many precise years continuance if they do they have foully mist it in the two already past neither do they mention any innovation of the World after the giving of the Law but the Age of the Messiah that is to begin with their fifth Millenium from the Creation and the Sabbath of eternal rest the seventh Millenium So that if they at any time call the day of the Messias a thousand years they mean by that number about two thousand of precise years that is an indefinite Number 2. How groundless then must be their building their Doctrine of a precise thousand upon those Texts which the Jews first and they from them alledge for first if they be sueh Texts as the Jews do ground their Millenium upon they cannot import a precise Millenium that being more than the Jews conclude from them and perhaps St. John might take up the Jewish use of that term thinking none would be so
c. What a vast distance there is betwixt these and Scripture-prophecies is discovered in my fourth Book pag. 8. 3. As it imports his working of those Miracles which God hath set as a Seal to the Gospel It has already been shew'd what attempts the Heathen made to out-vye that point of the Church's Faith and the Operations of that Spirit recorded in our Scriptures by tbe impostures and shadows of Miracles wrought amongst them To which I shall here add the confession of Celsus in Origen 2. lib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye believe he is the Son of God because he cured the lame and blind And that of Julian in Cyril lib. 6. except a man should reckon amongst great works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the curing of the lame and blind and the relieving them that were possess'd with Devils in Bethsaida and Bethanie What did Jesus do Here the most bitter Adversary of the Christian Cause bears witness that the Apostolical Church urged the World to a belief of the Gospel from the consideration of Christ's great works to wit his curing the lame blind possessed c. And makes open confession that Christ did do those great works which the Evangelists mention so that he hath nothing to say against the validity of the Churches Argument but only this That such works are not indications of a divine Power It is therefore incumbent upon him and his party to shew what other man did ever do such works or by what power less than divine they can be effected § 8. Article 9. The holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints How can you call your society Catholick either as to time since it was but erected the other day saith Celsus lib. 1. cal 19. or place seeing till of late it was shut up in Judaea a corner of Palestine lib. 4. 14. and since it peeped out into other parts of the World it s celebrated clandestinely and in holes lib. 1. cal 1. That so inconsiderable a part of Mankind as the Jews and Christians should boast themselves to be the whole Company of Mortals acceptable to the Gods is just as if a company of Bats and Emits or of Frogs and Worms should contend for preheminence in point of the Gods favour to them and say that they are the only creatures to which God vouchsafes to reveil his mind and that neglecting the whole World beside he only takes care of their welfare lib. 4. cal 11. Lastly how can your Church be Catholick in point of Doctrine seeing you dissent and rend your selves as a Sect from the Catholick Religion of the whole World lib. 8. cal 1. The truth is saith he lib. 1. 5. And are rent your selves into so many sects lib. 3. 4. We could allow your Religion to be acceptable to the God of Judaea and your Society upon that account in favour with that God But we cannot endure that pride that you will either be all or none that you applaud your selves as the All of the Universe which God respects and exclude all but your selves out of the divine favour that your Church should be the Catholick Receptacle of the whole Community of Saints and your Religion the Universal way of Soul-cure a thing never heard of before either among the Traditions of the Magi Gymnosophists or Philosophers this is that we cannot but with abhorrencie disgust That the Jews for Christian Religion is orignally Judaick that inconsiderable People and so much hated of the Gods as they cannot obtain of any of them so much room upon Earth as to dwell upon together should prescribe in matters of Religion to the whole World and not permit to other Nations their own as best for them but break the bond of universal Peace decry that National Independency which till this universal way of Salvation this common Faith was obtruded upon the whole World kept all Nations in a friendly Communion of heart in a charitable correspondency among themselves each one allowing other that Religion they esteem'd most convenient for themselves The Evangelical way of Salvation the Christian Faith and Christian Church are therefore called Common Universal and Catholick because it is that way of Salvation which God hath from the beginning propounded to all Mankind and been intirely embraced in all Ages and Places by all Persons who have preferr'd divine Revelations before their own Inventions who are therefore collectively stiled the Catholick Church 1. Celsus therefore equivocates in saying our Religion and Church were but erected the other day for though the Gospel as it is an History of the exhibition of the promised Seed could not commence before that Fulness of Time when Christ came into the World yet as it is the glad tydings of Salvation by that Seed it was preach'd in Paradise in which respect Jesus Christ is yesterday and to day the same Rock upon which the Church hath been built in all Ages 2. This Religion and Church was not shut up in Judaea a corner of the World but proclaim'd and establish'd in Eden first by God himself to and in the old World and next by Noah to and in the new World in the hearing and sight of all Mankind from whence as from the Center their Lines went to the utmost Circumference of suceeding Generations amongst whom whosoever retain'd the fear of God and wrought righteousness were accepted of God When indeed men grew weary of waiting for the Seed promis'd and became so vain in their Imaginations as to frame Gods and Saviours and Religions to themselves God preach'd the Gospel anew and repeated the old and Catholick Religion to his friend Abraham annexing thereto the Seal of Circumcision as a sign that the Seed was not yet come and that it was to come out of his Loyns by Isaac This was not only a peculiar Priviledge to his Posterity but a general advantage to the whole World For whither could men in common reason think themselves obliged to look when they found themselves at a loss in point of Religion but to Sem's Family to which they were directed by Noah's blessing the God of Sem And to which of Sem's stock could they repair but to Abraham whom Sem himself that King of Salem and Priest of the high God as some think had blessed in the name of that high God So that Abraham and his Seed by Isaac were Gods Standard bearers to lift up Christ as an Ensign to the Gentiles And to make these Standard-bearers higher by the head than all other Nations and the Ensign more conspicuous God lifted that People up above all others by signal favours while they walk'd in that way that he had appointed them punish'd them double to any other trangressors when they cast off the fear of Isaac he built his glorious Temple amongst them upon his own Hill adorn'd his Worship with such Ceremonies as at once rendred it august in the Eyes of Gentiles and instructive to their minds august as out-vying their Inventions in multitude
their own Prophets foretold they would make to that Question Listen in their Synagogues if thou canst hear the blessed Jesus named except it be in execrations spie if thou canst see the Symbol of his precious Death except it be in their barbarous representation thereof by some Crucified Christian Infant Observe if there be any Signs of their relenting for Murdering that holy and just One of their bitter mourning over their Fathers sin in choosing a Murderer before the Innocent Lamb of God If thou discernest one tear to trickle down from their eye while 't is fixt upon him except it flow from their spightful envy to see him exalted adored and worshipt of all people but themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isidor Pelus l. 4. ep 74. They are preserv'd alive that they may be vexed at the heart by beholding the glory of Christ shining every where Or be in revenge of that vengeance upon them by which Christ has paid himself for the Travel of his soul for that unthankful Nation and vindicated the honour of his Deity in the opinion of all men but themselves by which they that would not receive instruction are made an instruction to others and they who would not by all the plainest Demonstrations which Christ or his Apostle did lay before them be convinc'd are become a Demonstration to convince the World that that Jesus whom they slew and hanged upon a Tree is the very Christ For as their Fathers by condemning him so the Children of that stock of Abraham by persisting in their denial of him not knowing him nor the voyces of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath day have been and are still fulfilling those Prophets as to this Point of their Prediction that that People should reject their own Messias Act. 13. 27. § 2. A second Branch of Prophecy whose Fruit hangs yet upon it whose Effect is still permanent to be seen felt and handled is that touching Gods Rejection of the Jews for their rejecting of his Son Of the truth of which that Nation is a manifest proof and stands as a Pillar of Salt to season all Ages with the belief of the Supernaturalness of those Revelations wherein that event was foretold And of the warrantableness of the Churches Application o◠them to the Blessed Jesus whereupon Celsus having excepted against that Opinion of the Christians That the Jews had moved Gods displeasure against them for their Crucifying and disowning Christ Origen replies What Is not the dispersion of their Nation the ruine of their Temple City c. sufficient indications of Gods rejecting that people I dare say they shall never be restored Origen contra Celsum l. 3. cal 10. I hope the English Atheist is not so much a French Gentleman as to take it in Dudgeon that I lay some grains of this Salt on his Trencher or rather advise him to help himself to some now that it stands at his Elbow for I fancy him yet in Belgium taking out the first Lesson touching the Jews disowning of Christ And now that he is amongst those Keepers of our Rolls those bearers of our Books let him search whether those Prophecies which foretell that upon that Nations refusing to accept their own Messias their Fathers God should wholly disown them be the inventions of Christians the pious frauds of our Church or the Responds of their own Prophets Ask a Jew of whom that Prophet of theirs whom for honours sake they call Angel Jeremy speaks chap. 6. I will bring evil upon this people because they have rejected the word of the Lord because they said we will not walk in the good way wherein they were promised to find rest for their souls because they would not hear the sound of the Trumpet that sound which the Gentiles would hear Hearken therefore hear ye Nations hear O earth I will bring evil upon this people reprobate Silver shall men call them because God hath rejected them Can the most obstinately blinded Jew shut his Eye so close as he shall not here see the glimmerings of those unwelcome Truths 1. That this is an Evil the Effects whereof should be so palpable as all Nations should so manifestly see the Marks of Gods rejecting them as the name whereby they should in common speech be called is reprobate Silver a refuse Nation a People cast off of God a name which God was angry with the Heathen for fastning upon them in the saddest dereliction of that people formerly That 2. The word for their rejecting whereof they were rejected of God The good old way for their refusing to walk wherein they were left out of the road of Mercy can be none other but that eternal Word who proclaimed himself to be the Way and offered Soul-rest to them would come to him is manifest For 1. This is absolutely and without compare the good old Way the saving Word that was chalk'd out that was Preach'd to Abraham before he was Circumcised 400 years before the good old Way of Moses was known Nay preach'd by Noah that Preacher of Righteousness by Faith many Generations before Abraham and by God himself in Paradise tendering Life through Faith in the Blood of the Womans Seed which was the only thing saving in all the After-dispensations of that Covenant of Grace 2. This is the only Word and Way which the Jews totally rejected the Word spoken by Moses and the Prophets their Fathers in some part for some time neglected but never totally renounc'd it and the Modern Jew does too tenaciously stick to the Letter of that Word and the external Form of that Way 3. The only Sound of the Trumpet which the Gentiles hearken to in order to their finding rest to their Souls is that sound of the Apostles which from Jerusalem is gone into all the Earth and to the uttermost parts of the World the sound of that Trumpet whereby Christ is Proclaimed the Word of God the everlasting Way of Salvation § 3. Ask a Jew whether the same Prophet chap. 16 and 17. threaten not a more dreadful Judgment then impending over that Nations head than the Northern Captivity to wit a dissipation into Strange lands that neither they nor their Fathers knew whereas Chaldaea and all the Nations into which they were carried Captive before their Crucifying the Lord of Life were their door Neighbours with whom they had Commerce where God would shew them no favour as he had done in all other Captivities but take away his peace from them even loving kindness and mercy where they should be hunted from every Mountain and Hill and Hole wherein not only all the Treasures of Gods Mountain in the Field the riches of that Covenant of Grace sometimes deposited with that faithless and fruitless People should be given as a spoile to the Gentiles But the holy Mountain her self discontinue from that heritage which God had given her and he burnt up and made desolate by a fire that should be kindled in Gods anger and burn
five years of his Reign in spite of the natural dyscrasie of that Monster and the temptations to an earlier Apostasie which an absolute Sovereignty laid before him Vid. Tacit. an 15. And who was himself as much a Philosopher in the inward of his Soul as in the outward habit of his Beard and Gown as much a Moralist in practice as contemplation and precept As the great Humanist of France the Lord Nountaigne Essayes l. 1. c. 32. hath more than Essay'd to vindicate him to have been against Dion's calumniations Xiphil è Dione Nero. pag. 519. grounded upon Tigellinus and his parties reports whom to have his enemies and slanderers was Seneca's honour Tigellinus being a person of so filthy and calumniating a tongue as Dion himself but three pages before he condemns Seneca upon the suggestions of Tigellinus commends that sarcastical Apothegm as he calls it of Pythia against him who when she was urged by him to accuse her Lady Octavia Augusta of dishonesty spate in his face and said The privities of my Lady Tigellinus are more clean than thy mouth As himself demonstrated in his discourse with Nero after he was grown the object of Tigellinus's envy for his wealth and of Nero's hatred for the freedom he used in rebuking him than whom no man better knew as he told Granius Siloanus how far Seneca's genius was averse to flattery or how much his brave spirit was elevated above love to the world or fear of death And in his conference with his Wife betwixt his condemnation and death wherein he recommended to her who was most privy to what he was at home with himself the remembrance of his vertuous life in those actions of it wherein there had been least personating as the best expedient against her immoderate sorrow for his departure And lastly as the ancient Fathers of our Church implyed in their opinion that he had familiar converse with St. Paul conceiving it scarce possible that he could in Life and Doctrine hit so right upon the sence of Evangelical precepts without some such Interpreter Then lived Thrasea that Martyr under Nero for Natural Theology whom Tacitus calls the light of the Roman world and thus prefaceth his Story At last Nero covets to extirpate vertue it self in putting Thrasea to death having no other cause of displeasure against him but his going out of the Senate as refusing to give his Vote for the condemnation of Agrippina upon the barbarous motion of her unnatural Son and his not appearing at those Funeral Solemnities wherein Divine Honours were conferr'd upon that Court Drabb Poppaea A person of that Divine presence and discourse as his friends were confident he would have thunder-struck the Senate and Nero himself if they could have perswaded him to have stooped so far from the contempt of death as to plead for his life and make his defence In which point through his belief of the Souls immortality of which he was discoursing with Demetrius the Philosopher at that instant he was of so well a composed mind as he did not so much as change countenance except it were to a more chearful aspect at the news of his condemnation Tacit. l. 15. Illic à Quaestore reperitur laetitiae propior And while his life was breathing out at the veins of both his arms he spent not his breath in effeminate lamentations but in discourses upon that endless life to which he assur'd himself he was hasting and calling the Questor who was sent to see his execution Look here saith he young man we are pouring out this offerings Jovi liberatori to God Redeemer I pray God divert the Omen but verily thou livest in such times as it 's very behoofeful to get thy mind fortified against all temporal evil by such examples of constancy as thou seest me set before thee § 2. But I go about to number the Stars in attempting to reckon up all the Philosophers then flourishing when the Christian Philosophy was first commended to the world I will therefore cease the further prosecution of that point and glance at their Dogmata the Divine Axioms they deliver'd touching Divination by Auguries and prophetical Theology where that I may avoid tedious repetitions I shall in a manner confine my self to the Collector of the opinions of others Tully who though himself an Augur not only derides Divination by Birds by Dreams by Oracles c. but evinceth the vanity of them by Chrysippus his reasons affirming in general that they are the productions of superstition which dispersed through the Nations of the world taking occasion from humane imbecillity had almost opprest all mens minds and tyrannized over them Ut verè loquamur superstitio fusa per gentes oppressit omnium ferè animos atque hominum imbecillitatem occupavit de Divinat l. 2. pag. 265. 1. In particular he explodes Divination by Dreams from several instances Of one that being to run in the Olympick Games dreamed he saw himself over-night carried in a Charriot drawn with four horses which one interprets to signifie that he should win the prize because of the horses swiftness another that he should lose it because he had seen four swift Creatures before himself Of another who dreamt he saw an Eagle That portends thou shalt win quoth one Augur for that 's the swiftest bird Thou shalt lose saith another for the Eagle pursueth all other birds and is her self pursued by none therefore she 's alwayes hindmost Quae est ista ars conjectoris eludentis ingenio an quicquam significant nisi acumen hominum ex similitudine aliqua conjecturam modò huc modò illuc ducentium Pag. 2. 64. What is this else but the Art of a Guesser wittily shifting off his want of wit What do those interpretations signifie but mens quickness of wit from some resemblance or other drawing their conjecture sometimes this way sometimes that 2. Divination by Oracles he derides as fasten'd by impostures upon thë Divine Spirits motions Id certe magis est attenti animi quà m furentis hoc scriptoris est non furentis adhibentis diligentiam non insani Pag. 251. When their being most-what given in Verse speaks them to be the result of humane industry And their ambiguity fathers them upon persons providing for saving their own credit let come what will Partim falsis partim casu veris ut fit in omni oratione saepissimè partim flexiloquis obscuris ut interpres egeat interprete ipsa sors referenda sit ad sortes partim ambiguis c. p. 252. They being sometimes false sometimes true by chance as it frequently falls out in all kind of discourse sometimes so equivocal and obscure as the Interpreter needs an Interpreter and the Question what is the meaning of the Respond is harder to answer than the question which was put to the Oracle and sometimes so ambiguous c. Such as that which Herodotus reports Apollo to have given to Craesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Craesus Halym
Apostles used is not only plain in it self but acknowledged by thee and Epist. 19. Sed insinuare digneris à quibus Judaeis c. Be pleased I pray thee to tell me by what Jews this Translation could possibly be corrupted so as to disfavour the Christian Cause Not by those who before the Advent of Christ translated it for they had no temptation The Jews indeed since the propagation of Christianity may be thought to have had a good will either to substract or to adulterate those Texts in the Old Testament out of which we fetch convincing Arguments in defence of our Faith But how is it possible they could have an opportunity seeing the Translation of the Seventy is not only dispers'd through the World but by reason of Christ's and his Apostles making their quotations out of it is so tenaciously adhered to by all Christian Churches as they cannot endure to hear what recedes from it in the least tittle Of which he gives this notable Instance Epist. 10. That a certain Bishop reading out of St. Jerom's Translation in the History of Jonas haedera instead of cucurbita the people were so incens'd as they had like to have proceeded to the Deposition of their Bishop for corrupting sacred Writ By such Solidity of Arguments I say St. Austin maintains the preheminency of the Authority of the Septuagint against St. Jerom as that learned Father pleads his own old age for an excuse for his not answering them But the excellent Vossius hath lately so well managed this Province so irrefragably maintained the Authority of the Septuagint as all that can be said after him is but labour in vain Neither indeed did I intend to stand by the Seventy any longer than I might signifie to the Sheep of Christ that they may without fear graze upon it and find that pasture which greater Cattel of a far larger size than the Modern breed and whose weight would have sunk it down had it not been firm Land have found there and may chew the Cud of that Observation for the defence whereof we have made this too large Digression Were it not that the allowing the matter to have fallen out as Scaliger fancieth rather than as Josephus relateth would render the whole Story juiceless For say as he states the Case that the Jews of Egypt being brought to a necessity of disusing their own tongue and of learning Greek procured this Translation for their own use this will make little or nothing to the proof of that Position which the Patrons of the Christian Cause have with one mouth affirmed viz. That the knowledge of the Law of Moses was the forerunner of the Knowledge of Christ among the Gentiles to whom it would still have been a Book sealed up had it been confin'd to the Cabinet of the Synagogue But as Josephus tells the Story it affords a most substantial Basis to that universally receiv'd Opinion that the Day-break Glimmerings of the Law of God did out of Judea appear brighter and brighter to the Gentiles till at last the whole Body of it arose visibly in the Septuagint as the Day-star to the Sun of of Righteousness Volebat Deus gentes non multos post annos vocare per Evangelium quocirca curavit codicem sacrum maturè in vulgarem linguā converti quo legi passim posset ab omnibus per orbem gentibus Bullenger in Daniel par 2. tab 4. If God had a purpose to conveigh the knowledge of his Will to the Gentiles by that Translation would he have put that Candle under the bushel of the Jewish Synagogue and not rather have set it on the Pharos of Ptolemy's Library If the Law was to be the Gentiles Schoolmaster unto Christ where could it have set up School better than there where was the greatest frequency of learned men from all parts of the World drawn thither as soon as that Translation was finish'd by the beneficence of that Philomuse as Tertullian advers Valentin cap. 12. stiles Philadelphus in Junius his emendation of the corrupt Reading of that passage of whose bounty to proficients in Learning not only himself in his Letter to Eleazar the High Priest at his dismission of the Seventy Joseph Ant. but Aelian in his various History lib. 13. cap. 13. gives testimony affirming that though he exceedingly delighted in Converse with Learned men yet he took more pleasure in sowing his Temporals upon them than in reaping their Spirituals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And after his death by the fame of his Library where Learning kept open house for all comers Can. cron lib. 2. Communia fuerant omnibus discere volentibus c. and flourished in the days of his Son Euergetes no where in all the World more than it did there A place so beautiful saith Am. Marcell lib. 22. as it was second to none in the whole World but the Roman Capitol and its greatest Ornament being a Library of seventy thousand Volumes all preserved there entire till in the Alexandrian War in the Dictatorship of Caesar while the City was a pillaging the Temple was set on fire and the greatest part of the Books burnt Now from the beginning of Philadelphus unto our Saviour's Birth that is from the year of Rome built 469. to the year 751. were almost 300 years Bullinger in Daniel during which time the Old Testament had been communicated to the Gentiles before the coming of him to whom it pointed § 6. Lo here how candidly how open-heartedly the Blessed Jesus dealt with the World dispersing his Picture before he came to call her beloved that had not been beloved that at his congress with her there might not be error personae or that the World might not have this to plead that she had or ever she was aware or had well considered the Person suffered a surprizal upon her Affections sending the Septuagint as the Prologue to his and his Apostles Acts to communicate to the Expectants the Argument of the ensuing Poem and communicating the old Grounds of that new Ditty which was to be sung at his and their appearing on the Worlds Stage an argument it was no newly devised Fable but an old Plot and a certain Expedient whereby the mistakes of the Actors might have been discern'd had they committed any Would Christ have given the World an opportunity to take the length of his foot that was to come by the Sandal of Moses and of judging whether that Sandal fitted his foot when he was come if he had intended to delude it I appeal to all Histories for an instance of any Religion but Christ's that durst abide the Test much less appeal to the Principles of another Religion then in being when it self stood for acceptance and acknowledged by the Candidate to be in force The Roman Pagan-Religion durst not stand a trial by the Books of its Founder Numa Pompilius but cried away with them to the fire as soon as they were produc'd The Papal Church supprest her
that Age as it is limned out by the Pencils of Popish Historians as 't is measured by their own Chain Touching the Ignorance and Immorality of which Age Cent. 6. 590. Platina gives a shrewd hint in his commendation of the then Pope when the day was shutting in telling us that Gregory the great had no Peer for Learning among all the Popes which succeeded him good Literature was then on the decaying hand among the chief Bishops much more therefore among the inferiour Clergy whose preferment lay at their feet and whose highest Ambition was to bear the Image of their Ghostly Fathers If that great Luminary which God made to rule the Day as the Italian Parasite brags was eclipsed how must Darkness needs spread it self over the faces of the lesser Stars nay which of them durst shew so little obsequiousness to them of whom they borrowed light as not to chuse rather to hide that innate knowledg they had under a Bushel than set it on the Table to out-brave the Sun having so fair an Item given them that light offends weak Eyes in the immediate Successor to the learned Gregory The rude and unlearned Sabinianus Platin. Sabinianus 604. upon whom Platina's Pen le ts fall these blots that he was of so obscure Parentage as the place of his Birth could not be traced out but yet more obscure in good parts and manners burning with that spightful Envy against his learned Predecessor as he attempted to burn his Books to pull that Light the Splendour whereof dazled the Eyes of this Owl out of the Firmament This was he that instituted the burning of Lamps on the Day time in St. Peter's Church A charitable and seasonable work to furnish the Church with corporeal and typical Light when the substantial and spiritual Temple-Lamp was dwindling out and a kind of Prodigy portending the decay of Knowledg as those other did of Humanity all but the outward shape which Platina reports to have appeared in the short Span of his Papacy and than which he saith never any appeared greater A fourfooted boy and two Sea-monsters in a perfect humane Shape manifestly representing the degeneracy of that Age grown even under Gregory to a stupendious degree of Brutishness If Ulric Bishop of Auspurg be to be believed and they that doubt the validity of his Testimony may find a solid and unanswerable Vindication of it in Bishop Hall's defence of the Honour of the married Clergy lib. 5. § 1. who in his Letter to Pope Nicholas the first writing against the Decree of single life of Priests produceth the practice of Gregory the first who once condemned marriage of Priests but when at the cleansing of a Pond near his own Collegiate Church he saw cast up with the sludge above 6000. Sculls of Infants he condemned and retracted his former Decree Good God! how had this Age lost the common Sentiments of Humanity which could put this Sence upon St. Paul It is good not to marry as if he therein made the committing of Fornication and to cover the shame of that from the World the perpetration of such barbarous Murther upon so many innocent babes more eligible than to enter into that State which himself stiles honourable And if they of his own Colledg and Family that lived under his inspection commenced to such a Degree of insensate Savageness what may we think of others that had not upon them the restraint of their Bishop's eye yea what can be deemed of so brutified an Age but what Gregory himself thought of it that it was next door to that wherein Antichrist would shew himself that now the way was strawed for the coming of that Son of Perdition as he intimates in that Letter wherein he returns to the Emperour expressing how ill he took Gregory's raising of so much Dust in opposing John of Constantinople and advising him that for so frivolous a Word he would not give so great a Scandal this Answer I say boldly that whosoever desireth the Title of Universal Bishop fore-runs Antichrist in Pride and with the same Pride is brought into all Error And in his Letter to John himself who I pray saith he before you ever used this proud word but he who despising the Legions of Angels sociably joyned with him would needs burst out unto the top of singularity and be alone above all And in his Treatise on Job saying Now ere Antichrist himself come some do preach him by their manners and others by their words The Trentish Anathema would fall heavy upon me should I deny this Pope's infallibility in defining matters of Faith as this is of Antichrists coming but I fear not those Bruta fulmina those causless Curses yet am led into the belief of this his Prophecy by little less than Ocular Demonstration of the palpable Effect for within a Year after Gregory's decease next after the fore-named Sabinianus Boniface the third anno 606. is created Pope and obtains at the hand of Phocas the Emperour that Parricide that perjured Murtherer who slew his Lord Mauritius and took possession of his Crown as Baronius stiles him that red Dragon that gave the spiritual Kingdom to the Beast that the Bishop of Rome should be called Universal Bishop the very Title that Gregory affirmed to be the badg of Antichrist § 2. It was an Age we see of gross Barbarism when Mahometanism incroached upon the World and the Bishop of Rome over the Church in the claim of Supremacy over his fellow Bishops he came on the blind side of the Beast when he skipp'd up into the Saddle Let us now observe that as this Darkness grew thicker and thicker he advanced his Power higher and higher till at last he set his Foot upon the Necks of Kings and obtained a Soveraignty over Secular Princes And because it would be an endless work here to travel through the Histories of several Nations and thereout collect the Complaints and Confessions that every where occur of the Worlds general depravedness I shall consine my self to the History of the Popes those reputed lights of the Church for if I demonstrate the Eye to be dark he is a very weak Reader that cannot thence conclude the whole body to be full of Darkness Formosus saith Platina Century the ninth Platin. Formosus an 891. after he had abjured Rome and with a prophane Habit had put on prophane Manners obtained the Popedom not by Vertue but Bribery upon whose Papacy he makes this mournful Reflection I know not by what Destiny it happened that at this time the Vertue and Integrity of Popes failed most unhappy times I think they were seeing in the Opinion of Plato the Vulgar follow the Example of their Leaders Times that would have been in all respects superlatively miserable had it not been for the Vertue and Learning of one man Remigius Altisiodorensis who like Shammah one of David ' s Worthies stood it out alone against the whole Body of the Philistines A dark time it must needs
of men of whom he received that Mathematical Table which neither he nor they nor any body else understands abacum certè primus 〈◊〉 Saracenis rapiens regulas dedit quae à sudantibus Abacistis vix intelliguntur C. Malmesbur 2. 10. However the Devil was too cunning for him for Statuae capâ—t à Saracenis Hispaniensibus edoctus in oraculum sibi conflavit Silvester secundus but his Oracle deceived him by Equivocation promising he should not die till he read Mass in Jerusalem meaning a Church in Rome so called wherein he was singing Mass he died miserably C. Malmeâ—buriensis 2. 10. referente Seldeno de dâ—â—s Syriis in Teraphim But of all these Mathematicians none came near Benet 8. The rest rode the Devil during life but he after his death they curvetted upon that Beast in this World he in Purgatory The Prince of that bottomless Pit whereof they were the Clavigers held their Bridles while they rode in Procession but the gentle Elephant takes up this spiritual Porus upon his own back when death had dismounted him from his Papal Mule Some report saith Platina in â—en 8. that his ghost sitting upon a black Horse appeared to a certain Bishop who asking the reason of his being in that equippage is told that all the alms he had given before proved inavailable because they were given of goods got by Rapine and is therefore intreated by this Knight of Silvester ' s Order to bestow in alms in his name certain sums of money directing him to the place where he had bid them The Bishop did as he was bid dismounts from his Episcopal Throne and turns Monk One part of this Story that Benet was relieved in Purgatory by Alms is prest by the Papists as one of their best Arguments for Purgatory and the benefit of Suffrages have they any reason then to deny the rest of it Must they alledge it in defence of their Service for the Dead and may we not alledge it in condemnation of that Service as being instituted not by the Pope sitting in St. Peter's Chair but on the back of a Fiend let them forethink how they shall escape the Curse if they will buy and sell by different weights deliver out by strik'd and take in by heap'd measure How great was the Darkness when the great Lights that rule the day thus gave the Candle to one another which they had lighted at the Devil's fire But I must laquey it no longer at the side of this rank Rider Baronius calls me to attend on John 21. whom he affirms to be in the lowest Purgatory to have been unworthy of the Papal Dignity into which he entered by unworthy means and managed with Tyranny Of whom some reported saith Platina that he was a mere Laick before he was created Pope In whose time all affairs at Rome were managed by Enchanters and Necromancers if we may credit Gratian. But horror surprizeth me while I walk thus far after these Triple-crown'd Magicians those damps of the Infernal Pit threaten to stifle my spirits I will therefore withdraw my thoughts from these Sulphureous streams and retire to those Histories from whence we may take a less offensive prospect of that Cloud which from an handful at first did by degrees overspread the Western Hemisphere with such blackness of Darkness as the sight of it extorted from Alphonsus de Castro cont haereses lib. 1. cap. 4. edit Colonens this Confession That some Popes were such great Clerks as they had no skill at all in Grammar A Confession the Modern Papists are so ashamed of as they have expunged that Clause out of later Copies and gelt that Colen-edition anno 1541 of that sentence And from Matthew Paris in the Life of our William the Conquerour this That he was then esteemed a wondrous great Scholar that had but learn'd his Grammar stupori erat caeteris qui Grammaticam didicerat And from Theoderique Niem this That Pope Boniface could neither write nor read Mass hardly understanding the Propositions of Advocates in the Consistory in so much as ignorance did then bear away the prize in the Roman Court. And from Lupus Abbot of Ferrara this in his Letter to King Lewis That they were accounted troublesom who were desirous of knowledge and that illiterate Age gazed upon such as wonders And from Agobard in his Works of the Paris Edition anno 1605. pag. 128. this That God had made the Priests of that Age so vile as Gentlemen retain'd them not â—s their instructors but as Trencher-chaplains to wait at Table to lead Doggs to feed Horses c. In the midst of which great and mischievous ignorance saith Platina Bonifac. 9. circa finem an 1389. one happiness befel Italy by Chrysolitus Byzantius his bringing thither the Greek Letters which had not sounded there for 500 years before So childish in understanding was that Age wherein the Blasphemies of Mahomet and Popish Innovations for they commenc'd and took their degrees together like Twins were presented to the World so dark that night wherein those Tares were sown in so dead a sleep were the Centinels when the Cackling of these Geese about the Capitâ—l was esteemed meritorious So barbarous was was that World upon which Rome imposed her unsociable Paradoxes of the Pope's Supremacy over Bishops over Kings c. as that of Bernard Serm. in Concil Rhemensi may fitly be applied to this Subject I will set my seat in the North that is far from the Sun of knowledge far from the warmth of Vertue in the midst of Boreal storms of blustering winds of war and tumults Pliny did not with more hazardous difficulty travel in obtaining the knowledge of the burning of Vesuvius by ocular demonstration and approach to it while the flames flew about his ears than men could in that boysterous Age when this two-fac'd Antichrist appeared in obtaining the knowledge of worldly Affairs in informing themselves in the Natural History of those blazing Stars those burning Mountains which chose a time to break out and draw the Ages of the World after them when the smoak and sparks of War did every where fly about and threaten to stifle the approachers Whereas Christ's Star arose in the still Calm of Peace when without interruption of their course men might go or send to the place over which it stood from all parts of the World Never was the Air more clear from foggs more free feom winds than when the Gospel came flying in the midst of Heaven But I shall speak of the latter Branch of this Position after I have taken a view of the World's Complexion in point of Knowledge when Pagan Theology obtained footing § 5. If we trace the Original of Pagan Theology the Stories of those many Gods Incarnate those Thieves and Robbers as our Saviour calls them that came before him we shall find they had their Births in that rude and obscure time when by reason of the late Confounding of Languages the World was in the
Deity Yea he proves this by Induction of particulars Aug. de civ l. 8. c. 26. Thy Grandfather O Asclepius the first Inventor of Physick hath a Temple erected to him in a Mountain of Lybia near the Crocodiles shore wherein his Mundane man his Body lies interr'd And Hermes after whom I am named hath his Tomb in Hermopolis a City in Aegypt of his founding Varro in his Antiquities dedicated to Julius Caesar the great Pontiff gave so plain demonstration of this from the Rites and Solemnities used in their Divine Worship as the Senate decreed his Book to be burnt August de civit 8. 25. Valerius Maximus in his Epistle Dedicatory to Tiberius saith that all our Gods we have received of our Ancestors but the Caesars we have handed down to Posterity reliquos accepimus Caesares dedimus A manifest Confession of a Pagan and that to the face of a Pagan Emperour that the Gods they had received were of the same kind with those they gave i. e. Mortals The Roman Demosthenes in his Tusculane Questions concludes thus If I listed to ransack the Antiquities of the Greeks I should find that the same Gods whom we esteem greatest have had their Original among us Mortals For the verifying hereof do but enquire whose the Tombs are that are shewed in Greece and consider with thy self what their Ceremonies and Mysteries are for having access to them thou wilt without doubt understand far more than I averr By this means Euemerus fram'd that History which the Grecians abusively called sacred for which himself was tearmed Atheist numbred by Theodoricus Cyrenensis and Aelian with Diagoras and Theodorus and stiled by Timon in his Syllis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 insolent old Knave consisting of the Collections of the Titles and Monuments of the most ancient Temples and thereby proving Tully's Assertion wherein he had the suffrage of Pythagoras Plato Socrates and the most eminent of their Scholars yea of all persons but doting old Wives not only in that but in other points of Theology quae verò anus tam excors inveniri potest quae illa quae quondam credebantur portenta extimescat opinionum enim commenta delet dies naturae judicia confirmat Cirero de nat Deor. l. 2. p. 54. What old wife is to be found so witless as to fear such things as af ancient time were accounted portents For time saith he obliterates the devices of opinions but confirms the sentiments of Nature But the Testimonies already alledged are abundantly sufficient to evince what reason the Romans had to stile Saturn whom the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Time the father of Truth even for this cause saith Plutarch because time reveals all things To be sure in this case he brought to light those things touching the birth of Heathen Gods as gave ground enough to the Poetical Fiction of Saturn's devouring his Off-spring and to that Proverb of the Grecians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Grow sings another note than the Owl for if I may hold up my Candle to that Sun of restored Learning the great Erasmus I conceive this to be the importance of it that the after-times of mutual commerce among the Nations of the World taught the Crow to prate other stories of their feigned Gods than the Owl had whooted in that obscure and independent Age wherein those Fables were hatched when men had never gone out of sight of the Smoak of their own Chimneys and measured themselves by themselves Gorgias and Protagoras saith Aelian were the most famous men of all Greece though as far from Wisdom as Boys are from men It was only while they were caged up in their Countrey 's Knowledge that they retain'd the Note they were taught to sing Jove is a God Juno is a Goddess c. which they forgat as soon as they are turn'd loose like Annon's Birds in the same Author Briefly the day hath revealed all false Religions to be mere Impostures but that of Divine Institution professed by the Patriarchs out-lasted the old World exerted its head above that Flood which over-top'd the highest Mountains and shewed its face more bright as it grew in Years Noah illustrated Enoch Moses Noah the Prophets Moses All whose Commentaries upon that Evangelical Grain of Mustard-seed sowen by God's hand in Paradise as Science truly so called came to perfection in the Apostatized World gained repute amongst the most rational inquisitive and civilized Nations And when that Religion had attain'd its ultimate perfection by Christ's filling up the Law and Prophets though the Judaick which virtually contains the Christian hath not in its letter with the Vail upon Moses his face obtain'd one Proselyte yet the Christian which is the explanation of that and presents the Old Testament so bare-fac'd as the way-faring man though a fool cannot err in expounding Moses hath procured acceptance every where where it hath come among Men and not Brutes hath at no time in no place been under a Cloud since its first rising but when or where a Cloud hath been drawn over Mens Minds and their foolish Hearts benighted in blackness of Darkness This Wisdom hath been justifyed of Wisdom's Children and the more Trials upon the Test of right Reason it has undergon the greater Approbation it hath obtained CHAP. VIII The Apostolical Age was fortified against Surprisal by the External Advantages of Posts and Peace § 1. They find as speedy a way for conveyance of News as we Vibullius Caesar Sempronius Tiberius their incredible Posting Intelligence flew in Persia as fast as Cranes The Roman Eagle as swift of Wing as the English Unicorn is of foot § 2. That Age enjoyed so long a Peace as Intelligence might pass without Interruption Janu ' s Temple shut by Augustus a rare thing in the Roman Annals § 3. Tiberius had a peaceable Reign so had Caligula all the Warlike Marches that he made was in pursuit of the Cowardly Ocean running from him at the Tide and in lopping down the Bows of a Coppice Palsey-headed Claudius felt no shakings in his Empire no Trumpet of War then sounded but that of the Silver Triton in the Ficine Lake In Nero ' s third Year they had much ado to draw the Sword it had layen so long rusting in the Scabbard § 4. This peaceable Season was the Seed-time of Christ's Labourers wherein they dispenc'd the Gospel through the Empire § 1. WE have taken A Prospect of that Age wherein the Gospel was first brought to light and found it so well fortifyed by the inner Works of improved Reason as would have made the most daring Attempters despair to subdue it to the belief of most cunningly devised Fables and therefore that the Apostles should be so fool-hardy as to assault it with feigned Tales as to think to outvye that Sun of Knowledg then shining in the greatest Lustre by holding a Farthing Candle of Old Wive's Stories before it is a conceipt so gross as can hardly seise upon minds that
or Man thou cryest out Satan and namest him whom we call the Angel of Malice the Crafts-master of all Errour the Defacer of the whole World by whom Man at first was circumvented to break the Law of God whereby he became obnoxious to Death and drew all his Posterity into the same Condemnation Thou knowest therefore thy Destroyer and though Christians only and those Sects that depend upon the Mouth of God have learn'd to know the whole Story of him yet thou also hast some inkling of him for else thou wouldst not hate him § 2. The Soul conscious of Eternal Judgment Articl 4. There is one Article of our Religion wherein we expect thy Determination so much the rather because it respects thine own state and concernment We affirm that thou continuest in Being after thou hast paid back the debt of Life That thou expectest the Day of Judgment and to be sentenc'd to Eternal Torment or Happiness according as thy works have been in the Body of which that thou maist be capable we affirm that thou expectest the restoring to thee of thy pristine Substance the same Body the same Memory This Faith we introduc'd not but found in the World for this Principle of the Soul's Existence after death the Gallick Druides that most uncult Tribe of Divines retain'd as Caesar witnesseth in his lib. 6. de bello Gallico and Strabo in his 4. Book of the Gauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the same Opinion the same Strabo witnesseth the Indian Brachmans to be lib. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sentiments of the Souls Immortality Barbarism it self could not raze out of the minds of some Thracians saith Pompon Mela lib. 2. de Thracibus Alii redituras putant animas obeuntium alii etsi non redeant non extingui tamen sed ad beatiora transire And as to that of the Bodies Resurrection Tacitus lib. 5. hist. 5. speaking of the Jews saith that in hope of the Resurrection they as also the Egyptians used not to burn but to interr their Corps Corpora condere quà m cremare è more Aegyptio eadémque cura de inferis persuasio These as well as we think it not equal to pass a Doom without the Exhibition of the whole Man which in thy fore-past Life was at work either to bring forth death by sowing to the Flesh or life by sowing to the Spirit This Christian Doctrine though much more becoming than that of Pithagoras for it does not translate thee into Beasts though more full and plain than that of Plato for it restores to thee the dowry of thy Body which point the Platonicks waver'd in Non novi quam utilitatem ex ipsa capiamus â—â—orum enim nulla est commemoratio neque sensus esse posset si simus prorsus quae gratia hujus immortalitatis est habenda Athengus dipnos. 11. 22. though more acceptable than that of Epicurus for it defends thee against annihilation yet merely for the name we give it undergoes the Censure of being vain stupid and temerarious But we are not ashamed of it if thou beest of the same Opinion with us As thou declarest thy self to be when making mention of a wicked man departed this Life thou call'st him poor wretched man not so much for that he has lost the benefit of a temporal Life as for that he is inroll'd for punishment for others when they are deceased thou call'st happy and secure therein professing both the incommodity of Life and benefit of Death Those deceased whom thou imprecatest thou wishest to them heavy earth and to their ashes torment in the other World to them to whom thou bearest good will when they are dead thou wishest rest to their bones and ashes If there remain nothing for thee to be expected after death no sense of pain or joy nay if thou thy self shalt not then remain Why dost thou lye against thine own head Why dost thou tell thy self that something attends thee beyond the Grave Yea why dost thou at all fear death if thou hast nothing to fear after death If thou answer'st Not because it menaceth any thing that 's evil but because it deprives me of the benefit of Life I reply yea thou wilt give answer to thy self That sometimes Death quits thee of the intolerable inconveniences of Life and sure in this case the loss of good things is not to be feared that being recompensed with a greater good to wit 〈…〉 st from inconveniences That certainly is not to be feared that delivers us from all that is to be feared Whence come such amazing fears dreadful apprehensions sinking thoughts to attend guilty Conscience but from the innate Notion of Judgment to come Whence proceeds it that se judice nemo nocens absolvitur a guilty Soul arraigns it self That self-consciousness to the closest Villany binds the Malefactor over to the general Assize that the guilt of innocent Blood though never so secretly shed looks so gastly in the face of the Murderer rings so loud speaks so articulately in the ears of Conscience as some have conceived the very Birds of the Air nay the callow Sparrows in the Nest to reveal the matter as it befel to Bessus should be such a load such a weight upon the Soul as to make it melt in its own grease with struggling under it Mentem sudoribus urget What makes them most stubborn and contumeliously set against entertaining the thought of Eternal Judgment tremble at the voice of Thunder as if in that rumbling noise they heard the sound of the Judges Charriot-wheels and in the Lightning saw a resemblance of that fire shall go before him and consume round about him Caligula out-braved God and Tiberius slighted him yet ad omnia fulgura pallent when they heard his voice they were afraid Excellent is the Note that Tacitus makes upon those Passages in Tiberius his Epistle to the Senate Quid scribam vobis Patres conscripti aut quomodò soribam aut quid omnino non scribam hoc tempore Dii me Deeque pejùs perdant quà m perire quotidiè sentio si scio If I can tell Fathers what I may write or how I may write or what I may not write at this time let the Gods who I perceive are destroying me daily destroy me worse Adeò facinora flagitia sua ipsi quoque in supplicium verterant Neque frustrà Plato affirmare solitus est si recludantur trannorum mentes posse aspici laniatus ictus quando ut corpora verberibus ità saevitia libidine malis consultis animus dilaceratur So do impious men comments Tacitus torment themselves with the guilt of their own villanies as Plato had reason to say that if the Minds of Tyrants were exposed to open view they would be seen smiting and tearing themselves for as mens Bodies are with scourges so are their souls torn with the guilt of cruelty lust and ill-advised actions That is as the same Plato de republ saith when they perceive
praemio 7. 7. If the Truth dispers'd among several Persons and scatter'd among several Sects were by any man collected into one and digested into a body it would without doubt not dissent from us When Apollodorus offer'd to Socrates a precious and gorgeous Tunick and Pall to put on when he drank the poyson and to be wrapped in when he was dead Socrates turning to Crito Simacus and Phaedo what an honourable opinion saith he hath Apollodorus of me if he think to see Socrates in this Robe after I am dead if he think that that which will then lay at his feet is Socrates I know not my self who I am Aelian var. hist. 1. 16. This Socratical Aphorism Tully expresseth thus Mens cujusque is est quisque Is one Egg more like another than this of the Schools to that of the Gospel where Jesus concludes Abraham to be still living from Moses his stiling God the God of Abraham so many years after his decease That of Abraham he left behind him in his Sepulchre is not Abraham but that of him that still lives But it would require an Age to transcribe by retail those numerous Philosophical Axioms which speak the Language of Scripture so perfectly as the whole matter of controversie betwixt the Fathers Apologizing for and the Philosophers contending against our Religion was brought by mutual consent to this point Whether the wise men of the World receiv'd those Doctrines from our Scriptures or the Pen-men of the Scripture from their Schools Celsus in Origen contends earnestly that whatsoever was solid in the Christian Religion was borrowed from the Philosophers by whom it was better and clearlier delivered He instanceth in our affirming God to dwell in light inaccessible this saith he is no more than what Plato teacheth in his Epistles that the first Good is ineffable In our Saviour's commending Humility This is Plato's Doctrine saith Celsus teaching in his Book of Laws that He who would be happy must be a follower of Justice with an humble and well-composed mind In Christ's saying 'T is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven what is this saith he other than that of Plato It is not possible that a man can be very rich and very good From the fame Fountain Celsus will have Christ to draw that saying Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadunto life and few there be that find it and that our Doctrine of the fall of Angels and their being reserved in chains was derived from the Poet Pherecides and Homer vide l. 4. col 9. The Patrons of the Christian Cause on the other hand contended that the waters of the Academy were drawn from the wells of the Sanctuary that the Sun of knowledg arose in the East and thence displayed its Beams over the World St. Ambrose proves that Plato borrowed of David in Psalm 35. And upon that in Isaiah 40. For she hath received at the Lords hand double to her iniquity saith he Plato eruditionis gratiâ in Aegyptum profectus ut Mosis gesta Legis praecepta Prophetarum dicteria cognosceret c. in psalm 118. serm 18. St. Austin quotes St. Ambrose proving from Chronology that the Grecians borrowed of the Jews not è contrà and thence commends the reading of Secular History de Christiana Doct. lib. 2. cap. 28. and in his Epistle to Polinus and Therasias writes thus Libros Ambrosii multùm desidero quos adversùs nonnullos imperitissimos superbissimos qui de Platonis libris Dominum profecisse contendunt dilligentissimè copios ssimè scripsit Aug. Epist. 34. And not barely affirm'd it but brought in evidence for the proof of it either from common Principles of Reason or the Authority of heathen Chronologers St. Origen thus Contra Cels. lib. 6. cal 1 2 3 c. Moses was long before the most ancient of your Philosophers and therefore they must borrow light from him but it was impossible he could light his Candle at theirs before they were lighted and the Apostles were the unlikeliest men in the World to understand your Philosophers The same Father Origen contrà Celsum lib. 1. cal 13. in answer to Celsus objecting Moses his Juniority to the Heathen Theologues saith that Hermippus in his first Book of Lawgivers declared how Pythagoras translated his Discipline from the Jews into Greece and that there was extant a Book of Haecateus in which he so approves of the Jewish Philosophy as Herennus Philo in his Commentar de Judaeis questions whether it be the genuine Book of Haecateus whose name it bears it seeming to him improbable that an Heathen Philologer would write so much in their commendation St. Austin in his eighteenth Book de Civitate from Chap. 2. to the end of that Book demonstrates by Chronology that our Prophets were elder than their Philosophers And in his 8. 11. de Civitate Dei affirms Plato to have transcribed the description of the first matter in his Timaeus mentioned also by Cicero and thus translated Mundum efficere volens Deus terram primo ignemque jungebat When God was about to frame the World he first joyntly made the matter of Fire and Earth from that of Moses In the beginning God made the Heaven and Earth Gen. 1. 1. Plato by Fire understanding Heaven And his notion of the Air upon the Water to have been Plato's mis-conception of that of Moses The Spirit moved upon the Waters And his Dogma in Phaedone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Every right Philosopher is a lover of God to have been derived from the sacred Fountains where nothing flows more plentifully than such like Doctrine But that which made this most learned Father almost believe altogether that Plato had read Moses was his observing Plato to have been the first Philosopher who called God by that name which God reveal'd himself by to Moses in his Embassy to Pharaoh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am that I am or That that is A name appropriated to God by Plato in his Timeus calling God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ever-being and so familiar with the Platonicks as in their Master's stile they superscribed their Treatises concerning God with this Title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of him that is A name saith St. Austin I find in no Books before Plato save in those where it is said I am that I am This was modestly said of that cautious Divine for the truth is Alcimus writes to Amynthas that some Philosophers had got that Notion by the end before Plato naming Epicharmus and quoting those words of his at which Plato lighted his Candle and Plato himself in his Sophista confesseth little less But it comes all to one as to our Argument for Epicharmus was a Pythagorian and that Pythagoras the circumcised Philosopher received that and all his other refined Notions from Moses his Writings or by discourse from the Jewish
inflam'd with desire to understand how he may be happy in this Life and the future As to the Third Principle he saith he knows not what Name to give it except he should call it the Soul of the World because it gives Life and Being to all Creatures And in his Epistle to Dionysius he tells him that he writes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Trine Divinity that is as Porphyry alledged by St. Cyril against Julian expounds him Three Subsistances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Essence of the Divinity Consonant to which Platonick Dictate is that Respond which the Oracle of Serapis gave to Thales King of Aegypt at the time of the Trojan War inquiring who was happier than he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus Macrobius stiles the First Person The truly chief God the Second the Mind or Thinking of that God the Third The Soul or Spirit proceeding from that Mind Anima ex Mente processerat Mens ex Deo procreata est Macrob. in som. Scip. 1. 17. These Allegations bid fair for the proof of this Opinion That the Philosophers were not wholly strangers to the Mystery of the Trinity And in the last of them Macrobius makes confession of the Trinity in as plain terms as we Christians do and of the Order and Manner of the Procedure of the divine Persons plainer than the Grecian Church would yield or the Latin Church could prove the sacred Scriptures to declare I appeal to their Contests about the word Proceeding and the Clause de Filióque And to Macrobius a Greco-latin Platonick his so clearly asserting That the Mind was begotten of God the First Person and the Spirit proceeded from the Mind But that 's more than I do or need to produce them for the use that I have for them is only to give testimony that the Platonicks vouchsafed the name of a Principle to nothing but God the Father God the Word and God the Spirit and therefore it is not even by their Principles in the power of any other God by his Mediation to bring the Soul by Purgation into Conformity to or Communion with God nothing but a Principle can effect that and there are but three Principles Father Son and Spirit say the Platonicks To this Platonick Notion of a Principle our Saviour seems to allude John 8. 25. where to the Jews asking who he was he answers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. in St. Austin's de Civitate 10. 24. and others St. Ambros. Hexameron lib. 1. cap. 4. of the Fathers judgment That he was the Beginning respondit se esse Principium To be sure the Platonicks did in a peculiar Notion denominate God the Word the Principle Which made Amelius when he read the Beginning of St. John's Gospel In the beginning was the Word apud Deum esse Deum esse per ipsum omnia facta esse the Word was with God and was God and by him were all things made cry out Per Jovem barbarus iste cum nostro Platone sentit Verbum Dei in ordine Principii esse This Barbarian is of our Plato ' s Opinion that the Word of God is in the rank of Principles c. And that other Philosopher whom Simplicianus B. of Millain informs St. Austin of de civitate 10. 29. to protest Those words of St. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deserved to be writ in Letters of Gold and to he hung up in the most conspicuous places in all Churches and St. Austin in his Confessions say that he had read the beginning of St. John's Gospel in the Platonick Books in sence though not in the very same words lib. Confess 7. cap. 9. procurasti mihi quosdam Platonicorum libros ibi legi non quidem his verbis sed hoc idem omninò There I read saith he and found proved by various Reasons That in the beginnning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God that by it all things were made Multis multiplicibus suaderi rationibus quòd in principio erat Verbum Verbum erat apud Deum There in the Platonick Writings I read That the Soul of man though it bear testimony of the Light is not the Light but God the Word of God is that true Light that Et quòd hominis anima quamvis testimonium perhibeat de lumine non est tamen ipsa lumen sed Verbum Dei Deus est lumen verum quod illuminat omnem hominem And that he was in this World and the World was made by him and that the World knew him not quia in hoc mundo erat mundus per eum factus est mundus eum non cognovit But that he came unto his own and his own received him not I did not read there Quià verò in suos venit sui eum non reciperunt quotquot autem receperunt eum dedit illis potestatem filios Dei non legi ibi There also I read that God the Word was not born of flesh or blood nor of the will of man or the will of the flesh but of God Item ibi legi quià Deus Verbum non ex carne non ex sanguine non ex voluntate viri neque ex voluntate carnis sed ex Deo natus est But that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us I did not read there Sed quià Verbum caro factus est habitavit in nobis non ibi legi In those Platonick Writings I found it said in various and many forms of speech That the Word the Son is in the form of the Father counting it no robbery to be equal to God because he is by nature God Indagavi quippe in illis Platonicis literis variè dictum multis modis quòd sit Filius in forma Patris non rapinam arbitratus esse aequalis Deo quià naturaliter id ipsum est But that he emptied himself taking the form of a servant to the death of the Cross is not mentioned in those Books Sed quià seipsum exinanivit formam servi accipiens in similitudinem hominum factus c. non habent illi libri Indeed that before and beyond all thine only begotten Son incommutably continueth coeternal with thy self and that mens Souls do out of his fulness receive what makes them happy and by participation of that wisdom that rests in him are made wise is affirmed in those Platonick Books Quòd enim ante omnia tempora suprà omnia tempora incommutabiliter manet unigenitus Filius tuus coaeternus tibi quia de plenitudine ejus accipiunt animae ut beatae sint quia participatione manentis in se sapientiae renovantur ut Sapientes sint est ibi c. This is a Testimony so weighty as we cannot question the truth of it being given in his Confessions made to God and so full as it not only proves this Particular That the Platonicks conceived
to be not of God's Will as St. Austin de haeresibus affirms Hermes to have thought the ineffable Word to be Filius benedicti Dei bonae voluntatis The Son of the blessed God and his good Will upon which St. Austin thus flouts the Pagan Quaerebas Pagane conjugem Dei audi Mercurium Abjiciatur quaeso ex corde tuo impura pravitas Conjux Dei bona voluntas est Thou demandest of what Wife God begat his Son Let Mercury answer thee Cast I pray thee impure pravity out of thine heart The wife of God is his own good Will of that he begat his Son In the expressing of whose Eternal Generation though the Gentiles spake not by Rule as we do yet they blunder'd out our sence and communicated the Reliques of the Old Tradition of the eldest Nations in such Terms as they could Trismegistus referente Lactantio de vera Religione 4. 6. in his Book entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfect Word The Lord and Creator of all things whom we usually call God begat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the second Person visible and sensible I call him sensible not saith Trismegistus because he hath sence that 's not our business now to resolve but because the Father sends him to reveal himself to the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 parallel to St. Paul's God manifest in the flesh to our Saviours He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also and to St. John's No man hath seen God at any time but the only begotten son who is in the bosom of God he hath reveil'd him Hermes proceeds because therefore he produced him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first and one and alone and because he was pleasing in his sight and full of Grace of all truly good things he sanctified him and loved him exceedingly as his own proper Son Upon which St. Austin hath this Observation Quem primò factum dixit poste à unigenitum appellavit Augustin de 5. haeresibus him whom before he said God made he afterwards calls his Son and begotten This Son of God Trismegistus as he is there quoted by Lactantius de vera Religione l. 4. c. 6. stiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's Workman and Sibyl 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Counceller because by his Councel and Hand he fram'd the World These passages in truth as well in the judgement of Lactantius and St. Austin for he makes the same both quotations and applications of Hermes and the Sibyllines tom 6. de quinque haeresibus are a Transcript of that divine Discourse of Solomon touching Wisdom Prov. 8. 22. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old when he prepared the heavens I was there then was I by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight Trismegistus referent Lactant. l. 4. c. 7. affirms That the Cause of this Cause is the Will of the sacred Goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which produced that God God the Son whose name it is not possible for humane mouth to express and a little after speaking to his Son saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is a certain ineffable word of Wisdom of that Lord of all of whom we have preoccupations or preconceptions which to expressis above the power of man This ineffable word Zeno asserts to be the Maker and Governour of the whole World Id. ib. cap. 9. item Tertual apolog contragentes cap. 21. Apud vestros quoque sapientes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est sermonem atque rationem constat artificem videri universitatis Hunc enim Zeno determinat factorem qui cuncta in dispositione formaverit c. § 3. Now that he who is this Light of Light this God-born of the Essence of his Father before all Worlds was in the opinion of the wisest Heathens to become Man for the Redemption of the World to become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mortal in regard of his assumed humane Nature as the Milesian Oracle answered those that enquired whether he were God or man may be evident from the Testimony of the Sibyls and indeed was from thence so clearly evinc'd by the Patriarchs of the Christian Cause as the Adversaries had no place of refuge left but this sorry one That the Verses alledged were not Sibylline but forged by the Christians as long since complain'd St. Austin Quod à sanctis Angelis vel ab ipsis Prophetis nostris habere poterunt quae cùm proferimus à nostris ficta esse contendunt August de consens Evangel lib. 1. c. 20. Tom. 4. pag. 164. b. That which the Sibyls sing touching Christ They might learn either of the holy Angels or the Writings of the Prophets but when we urge Pagans with their Verses they contend that we Christians forged them And before him Constantine in his Oration cap. 19. where he mentions and answers that Calumny In which way of calumniating that most immaculate Spouse of Christ the Primitive Church with a suspicion of the most damnable Adulterations that any Society can be guilty of some of our Modern Criticks have not been afraid nor asham'd to run with the Pagan Wits but with far more excess of impious scorn and to the utter subversion of all rational Belief for if that Church was so far deserted not only of Grace but common Honesty as to forge Sibylline what assurance can we have that she did not forge Divine Oracles I shall therefore first for the preventing of an inundation of Irreligion make up the Bank that has been cut by those too sharp Wits to whom nothing was wanting to render them absolutely and without exception judicious save the learning of the first Lesson in that Science To be wise with Sobriety 1. Lactanctius de vera sapientia 4. 15. would tell these Calumniators that were they as well read as they pretend themselves to be they would never have made this Objection Quod profectò non putabit qui Ciceronem Varronémque legerint aliósque veteres qui Erythraeam Sibyllam caeterásque commemorant quarum exempla proferrimus qui Authores autè obierunt quà m Christus secundùm carnem nasceretur The Verses of the Sibyls which the Church alledged she found quoted in the writings of Tully Varro and other old Writers who were in their Graves before the blessed Babe lay in the Manger Touching Varro the same Father de falsa Relig. l. 1. c. 6. gives us this account and therein resolves the Question of Tacitus whether there were more Sibyls than one Annal. 6. An una seu plures fuerint Sibyllae M. Varro than whom never man was more learned either among the Greeks or Latins in those Books which he writ to Caesar the Great Pontiff speaking of the Quindecimviri saith that the Sibylline Books were not the Works of any one Sibyl though they were all called Sibylline because all Women-prophetesses were of the ancients called Sibyls either from the Delphick Prophetess of that name or from their
kind of purgation for that part of man that Porphyry calls intellectual another for that he calls spiritual and another for the Body therefore hath our most faithful and powerful Purifier and Saviour taken whole Man In which Point the Heathen World saw itself labour under that great disadvantage as at the first starting of the Question the Roman Empire would by an Edict prohibiting humane Sacrifices have wiped her mouth with Solomon's Whore and denied the Fact had not the Patrons of the Christian Cause made palpable Demonstration of it by pointing to those Humane Victims to the Latian Jove that were openly sacrificed in Rome it self and to other Deities through the whole body of the Empire Tertul Apol. 8. Upon which disappointment those Philosophers which enter'd the lists against the Church or wrote in defence of Natural Theology not daring for very shame to deny the fact turn it into all imaginable shapes but of its natural Form that it might not serve the Christian's turn Hence Plutarch decries humane Sacrifices as barbarous and well he might for so they were Porphyry explodes the Vulgar Opinon that the blood and steam of sacrificed Animals was the food of the Gods affirming that none but Cacodaemons can delight in such food wherein the Christian does more cordially concurr with him than Jamblicus his Fellow-philosopher for he though he give him his say in gross yet takes it away by retail or rather consents to him in general words but opposeth him in deed and in particular Conclusions Jamblicus de mysteriis tit De sacrificiis unde vim habeant quid conferant tit Quae ratio sacrificiorum quae utilitas In all which windings and turnings more than I am willing to follow them in they did but seek Subterfuges from the dint of the Christians Plea from uuniversal Practice by perverting the state of the Question which was not Whether humane Sacrifices were of any efficacy towards the averting of evil or the obtaining of good in deed and reality but Whether in the World's Opinion they were not of that tendency nor whether they were justifiable in Morality But whether they were practised or no as propitiations in Divinity which Jamblicus himself is forc'd to confess more than once Good men saith he being expiated by Sacrifices receive good things from the Gods and have evil things driven away tit Chaldeor mysteria And again The Prophets foretold impending judgments and admonish'd People by Sacrifices to appease the Divine Nemesis tit Inspiratus vacat ab actione And lastly having assigned the cause of the wonderful efficacy of Sacrifices to be a certain friendship accommodation and habitude inclining the Workman to respect his Workmanship he concludes thus When we take and sacrifice any thing living that hath sincerely and exactly observed the Will and Decree of its Maker by such a Sacrifice we properly move causam opificiam the working cause to do us good and bring us releif tit Quae ratio sacrific quae utilitas How much more moving must the Oblation of Christs blood be who exactly fulfill'd the Will of God not only by a passive kind of Obedience such as Vegitatives and Animals yeild to the Law of Creation such as Fire and Hail Snow and Vapour fulfilling his word Psal. 148. 8. nor by a bare not actually sinning such as Infants yield but by an every way compleat fulfilling all Righteousness and who was made a Victim not by force and compulsion but by his own free oblation of himself It is St. Jerom's observation upon Daniel's seventh Vision That when ever Expiation was to be made Michael was sent from God with instructions to Israel whose name signifies who like the Lord. God by this intending to teach us that none can make expiation but God alone ut scilicet intelligatur quia propitiationem vel expiationem nullus possit offere nisi deus And Philo Judaeus his upon Levit. 4. 3. that Moses does as good as affirm the true High-Priest to be without sin tantum non dicens verum Pontificem expertem peccati esse de victimis pag. 528. The Jewel I have been all this while raking for in the Dunghil of Heathen Philosophy § 7. The second Branch of the last general Hypothesis common to us and Philosophers viz. That God-saviour incarnate must work Man's restauration into Communion with God by communicating divine Oracles to the World lies more bare-fac'd in their Writings and that it does so is not disputed by any that I have met with and therefore I shall quickly dispatch that point Jamblicus affirms that the Law of Religion was given by divine inspiration from the first Father of the World from whom were all Symbols in Sacrifices signifying some invisible thing Quae lex data est divinitùs à primo patre mundi a quo omnia symbola in sacrificiis significantia aliquid occultissimum Jambl. de myster tit de providentia pag. 31. that is from the supream God by the middle Deities for the same Jamblicus speaking of the Rites used in the Worship of the Gods de myst tit quae ratio sacrific pag. 135. lays this down as the common Opinion of all their Theologues That these Ceremonies are not the Inventions of Men nor obtain'd Authority by Custom and Prescription but were divine Revelations communicated to the several Nations by those Deities to whom God had committed the care of those Nations these are those local God-Man-Saviours concerning whom we have spoke already Of the same tendency is that fore-quoted Clause out of Celsus where he saith that these Presidents did appoint the several Religions that obtain'd place in their respective Cures congruously to the Tempers of the Climes and People committed to their trust and that therefore those Religions were all good and that the very best quoad hic and nunc for every particular Nation which their local Praesidents had instituted And that of Tully Mercurius tertius quem colunt Phenentae quem tradunt Aegyptiis leges literas tradidisse Apollinem Arcades Nomionem appellant quòd ab eo se Leges ferunt accepisse Cicero de natura deorum lib. 3. pag. 133. 134. With which concurrs that Testimony of Plato in his Symposium those Semidei that mediate and keep up a correspondency betwixt the Gods and us do bring to us the injunctions of the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apuleius de daemonio Socratis calls them Interpreters on both sides and bearers of Salutations St. Austin has a whole Chapter upon this Subject an daemonibus nunciis interpretibus dii utantur de Civitate lib. 8. cap. 21. And that of Jamblicus de mysteriis titulo de ordine superiorum quaesunt in diis c. quae sunt in diis ineffabilia occulta daemones exprimunt atque patefaciunt Those things that are ineffable in the Gods the Demons declare and reveal to us Hence we find this clause he gave Laws inserted in the Histories of all the Heroes vide Lact. de fal rel
Doctrines For the Gentile was grafted in not only upon the cutting off of the Jews but upon the raising up of those Foundation-truths which not only among the Jews but the many Generations of the Heathens had been buried under the rubbish of humane Vanities built upon them This interpretation induc'd the Apostolical Synod to reestablish the Precepts of Noah as an Expedient to gain upon the Gentiles The Platonicks conceived all knowledg to be nothing else but reminiscentia an awakening of the mind to see innate Notions The Notions of the Gospel were not innate yet so imprest by Tradition upon all mens minds as the embracing of it is call'd a man's coming to himself Psal. 22. 27. All the ends of the world shall remember themselves and turn to the Lord. And therefore true Philosophy is so far from being a Prejudice against as it is an Introduction to a Preparation for the Gospel When the Philosophers saith Isidore Pelusiota saw in that grain of Mustard-seed all that Truth Vertually laying which they had been seeking for how many of them bidding adiew to their own Opinions betook themselves to the shady Branches of the Tree of life and there found rest how many Pythagoreans formerly the Masters of pride and disdain became the Scholars of our meek Jesus How many Platonicks letting fall their Crests proudly lifted up through an opinion that they excell'd all men in the Art of Discourse sat down at Christ's feet under the shade of the Mustard-tree How many Aristotelians how many Stoicks scorning that Wisdom whereof they had made greatest boast thought themselves happy if they could be enter'd among those Disciples of Christ who observe his word Isidor Pelusiota lib. 4. ep 76. Our Religion is nothing else but the last and best Edition of that which was either writ on mens Hearts or promulg'd in Paradise to the old and by Noah to the new World who is therefore stil'd the Treacher of Righteousness which being Pentheus like pull'd Limb from Limb by the several Sects each party getting some relicks and scraps of it the Apostles gather'd up its scatter'd Limbs and fram'd them into a perfect and compleat Body of Divinity again clothing its Bones with the Flesh 〈…〉 lling its Veins with the Blood not of slaughter'd Beasts but of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World and presented it to the World wherein there was no Nation so barbarous but if they came near and felt it they might find something in it of which they might say This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone whatever I retain either of right Reason or solid Religion is comprehended in this This is that express Image of the Father of which I had the rough-draught All the Wisdom I have retain'd or learn'd I meet with in this foolishness of Preaching of this the Apostle was so confident as to the Jew he became a Jew to the Gentile a gentile 1 Cor. 9. 20 22. not by a sycophantick and temporizing compliance with the least of their Errours but by taking advantage of the truths they held as Mediums by which he argued them into an assent to the Gospel dealing with every man at his own suresby-weapon and upon his own sound Principles He did not flatter them as Clisophus did King Philip who when the King's Eye was wounded bound up his and when the King had received a hurt on the shin that made him halt halted with him as if he had been lame and never saw the King make sower faces but he look'd as if he were eating the same sharp sawce Nor conform to them as the Arabians did to their King who if he were lame of any Limb they mutilate that Limb of their Bodies Or the Dionisiocolaces to that Tyrant who because he was purblind groped about for the Dishes that were set before them till he had got his hand into his Athen. dipnosoph 6. 6. But St. Paul conform'd to Jew and Gentile in their seeing Eye and soundest Limbs Pleading with the Jew from old Testament-texts With the Gentile from the Law of Nature and the common Traditional Religion that in the Jews mouth and heart before the giving of the Law by Moses that Word whose sound went into all the World by oral preaching the seed of the Christian faith Rom. 10. With the Philosopher from his most sublime Verities Such as the several Sects with whom the Apostle had to do could not deny without contradicting those Notions they were most assured of the truth of and yet were not able to defend against the assaults which their other erronious Opinions made upon them upon any other but Gospel-grounds the only Sanctuary and City of Refuge for all divine Truth in seperation from which like a Beam cut off from the Sun a Stream from the Fountain a Branch from the Tree a Limb from the Body it cannot subsist This Tent-maker so contriv'd his Tabernacle wherein he plac'd the Sun of Righteousness his Gospel wherein he exhibited Christ give me lieve to lisp and stutter now with those I am opposing who speak of the Gospel as the device of men for I shall hereafter demonstrate it to be the Contrivement of God as it excludes all bad Airs takes in all the Light that was before scatter'd among several Sects So as Christ keeps open house in it for all comers the way-faring man though a fool may turn in hither and find lodging where his Soul may be at rest a Table furnish'd with plain Cates suting his Countrey-palate The wise man may here be entertain'd in as much state as heart can wish In the Muse's Chamber in Apollo's Dining-room his vast Soul cannot have that room to expatiate her self in as in Solomon's Curtains in Sarah's Tent nor find that satisfaction in Plato's Academy in Zeno's Porch in Aristotle's Walk as in our King's Galleries in the Prophets Schools in Christ's upper Chamber nor meet with that abstruce Learning in the Egyptian Hierogliphicks as in the embroidered hangings of Christ's Presence-chamber Now how men of crazy Intellects could frame so excellent a Model of Wisdom so perfect a Mirrour of all Metaphisical Science truly so called we may sooner strain our Brains out of joynt by stretching our mind to imagine then imagine with the least shew of probability To which labour in vain I leave the Sceptick while I lead the Christian Reader to the Law and Prophets and shew him what Ammoniâ—s St. Origen's Master of old urged the Philosophers with Euseh Eccl. 6. 13. viz. That the Gospel is calculated exactly to the Meridian of the old Testament in whose Types Precepts and Predictions there is not one imaginary Line but hath its paralel in that CHAP. VIII The Gospel calculated to the Meridian of the Old Testament § 1. In its Types § 2. Its Ceremonials fall at Christs feet with their own weight The Nest of Ceremonies pull'd down That Law not practicable § 3. Moses his Morals improved by Christ by better Motives
Moses faithful Christ no austere Master Laws for Children for Men for the Humane Court for Conscience Christ clears Moses from false Glosses § 4 It was fit that Christ should demand a greater Rent having improved the Farm St. Mat. 5. 17. explain'd Christian Virtue a Mirrour of God's admired by Angels St. Mat. 7. 26. urged The Sanction of the Royal Law § 5. St. Paul ' s Notion of Justification by Faith only explain'd it implies more and better work than Justification by the works of the Law Judaism hath lost its Salvifick Power Much given much required The Equity and Easiness of Christ's Yoak Discord in the Academy none in Christs School § 1. THe Gospel is so fram'd as it exhibits to us the Substance of the Law 's Types wherein the things pertaining to the Person Office and Kingdom of the Messias were umbrated without reference to which most of them are such childish and beggerly Toys as the instituting of them is manifestly unworthy of infinite Wisdom and that solemn pomp of signs and wonders that went before them as inducements to the Israelites to receive them with due reverence would be in the most candid Interpretation of impartial Reason no better than the Mountains swelling and going in hard labour to bring forth a ridiculous Mouse From which imputation of folly observed and objected by the Heathens against their Lawgiver the most learned Mythologist Philo Judaeus though he attempt to vindicate Moses yet missing Moses his Scope and not looking to the end of his Law he falls far short of his purpose and makes worse work of it than a Novice-Christian would that has but learn'd this Principle the Law was a shaddow of good things to come but the body that casts those shadows is Christ A Tast whereof he gives us in his Treatise of Circumcision wherein having premis'd how unlikely it is that so severe a Ceremony should be taken up upon weak Grounds he lays down these wise reasons for it 1. The prevention of the growing of the Carbuncle in that part Just as if a man should advise to have the Head chop'd off to prevent the aching of it 2. That that Membrane might not be a receptacle of uncleanness upon the same reason they must not only with the Egyptian Priests shave off their hair which he grounds upon the same reason but slit their Noses and crop their Ears and dismember themselves of other Vessels receptory of Excrements 3. For the procuring of Foecundity of which he saith it is a necessary Cause aiunt enim ità semen rectà ejaculari integrum nec diffluit per sinus preputii As if Nature could not frame her own Tools in a form fittest for the use she intends them And yet these Grounds of Circumcision he saith came to his ears by the Tradition of divine men his Ancestors who most diligently expounded Moses Of the like grain are the Reasons he gives why God prohibited the planting of Groves about the Tabernacle because it was not meet to bring man's or beast's Dung near the Tabernacle to manure the Trees and make them flourish Philo de monarchia 2. Of Gods commanding the Priests to wear linnen while they officiated Because such garments are not made of a matter proceeding from mortal Creatures as woollen are Eadem cum ratione insanit with the same kind of reasons he plays the fool in making the High Priests Apparel a resemblance of the World his Jacinth colour'd Vest tipifies the Sublunary his Pectoral the Celestial Region the two Emeralds on either Shoulder the two Haemispheres the twelve Stones therein the twelve Signs of the Zodiack Its name Rationale does denote that all things comprehended by the Heavens were made and adorn'd upon Principles of the best Reason Thummim or Verity does denote that no lye can come into Heaven Urim or Clarity that all the light which is in the sub-celestial flows from the celestial Bodies The Flowers on the Fringe do tipifie the Earth whence they spring the Pomgranates Water called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for their fluidness the Bells the Harmony and Concent of the Parts of the World among themselves Philo de monarch 2. With how much more credit do the Evangelists bring off Moses when they present Christ as the substance of that Mannah that Bread of Heaven that Angel's Food wherewith the Jews were sustained in the Wilderness of that Rock of which they all drank of that brazen Serpent lifted up to heal those who were stung of fiery Serpents of that Pascal Lamb by the sprinkling of whose Blood they were preserved from the stroak of the destroying Angel a Lamb of the Flock without blemish a perfect man of the stock of Abraham and without sin and taken up carried in procession into Jerusalem on the same day whereon their Paschal Lamb was seperated from the Flock his Blood the thing signified by the Blood of Bulls and Goats his Divine Nature by the Goat that was dismist the Scape-goat his human by the Goat that was sacrificed his Body the substance of Tabernacle and Temple wherein the God-head dwelt bodily his Priest-hood as to the offering of the great Propitiatory typified by Aaron's Priesthood as to his Blessing in the vertue of that Sacrifice by Melchisedech's Time would fail me to enumerate particulars See more of them in St. Jerome's Preface to his Exposition of Hosea Velum Templi scissum est ominum Judaeorum secreta patuerunt Verus Helizaeus aquas steriles atque mortiferas sapientiae suae condivit sale fecit esse vitales Marath aqua legis ligno patibuli dulcorata est The Veil of the Temple was rent in twain from top to bottom to signifie that all the Jews Mysteries were by Christ laid open He being that true Elisha who with the salt of his Wisdom season'd those steril and mortiferous Waters of the Sanctuary and made them healthful It was by the wood of his Cross that the bitter water of the Law was sweetned The Apostles setting the Watch of the Gospel so exactly to the Dial of the Ceremonial Law as to keep touch with all its Minute-shadows their drawing the features and proportion of Christs Face so as to resemble that Image which the glassy Sea of Mosaical Rites reflects So as in those Draughts we see his glory as the glory of the only begotten Son of God full of Grace as to himself full of truth as to them and thereby also rendring the Law it self full of Grace and worthy to be esteem'd the progeny of the Divine Mind speaks them to have had their wits about them § 2. The Gospel is perfectly consonant to the Old Testament in respect of its Precepts and Ordinances It hath indeed abolished the Ceremonial Law but without clashing with the Sanction of that Law and upon clear and indubitable Old Testament-principles where we hear God saying he would make a new Covenant with them not according to the Covenant he made with their Fathers when he
by tearing off ten of its Skirts But to return As I have been forc'd to prove that before our Saviour the Scepter was not departed and therefore this Prophecy of Jacob is not applicable to any before him So I shall now shew it is not applicable to any since by demonstrating the Scepter to have departed at that time by such Effects of its departure as are acknowledged for such by the Jew himself and pointed to as such by his own Scriptures and invelop that Nation in a Darkness that may be felt and far exceeds the blackest Darkness which befel that State in its greatest Eclipses The Sanctuary half Shekel paid to the Capitol It is Doctor Lightfoot's Observation out of Xiphilinus apud Dionem in the Place fore-cited that in acknowledgment of their Subjection to the Emperour the Jews were enjoyn'd by Vespasian to pay to the Capitol that Didrachma or Half-shekel that they usually paid to the Temple for their Lives A ransom for their souls unto the Lord Exodus 30. 12 13. The mony of the soul's estimation of every one that passeth the account 2 Reg. 12. 4. for I take both these places to speak of one and the same Shekel though Master Weems makes them two calling this latter Argentum transeuntis that is the Half-shekel which they paid to the Lord when they were numbred by head making a distinction where there is no difference for in that Text which he quotes for the first Ex. 30. 12. there is mention made that that was to be payed when they were numbred three times in two verses When thou takest the sum of the Children of Israel after their number then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord when thou numbrest them ver 12. and ver 13. this they shall give every one that passeth among them that are numbred Xiphilinus indeed does not expresly say it was that Half-shekel that was paid to the Temple that Vespasian appointed every Jew to pay to the Capitol but Josephus speaks home Bel. Judaic 7. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The Emperour Vespasian laid this Tribute upon the Jews wheresoever they lived that they should pay to the Capitol that Didrachma which thitherto they had paid to the Temple 1. That this was the Half-shekel which they paid to the Lord for their Lives as his Tribute is manifest from both those fore-quoted Texts for Moses Exod. 30. orders the high Priest to imploy it in the service of the Tabernacle and Jehoash appoints the Priests to repair the Temple with it 2. Reg. 12. as also from another passage in Josephus Antiqu. Judaic 14. 12. where he calls it sacred mony because every Jew yearly paid it for his Life to God and sent it to the Temple from all parts of the World where they were dispersed from whose numerousness he saith it came to pass that Crassus found such vast summs in the Treasury of the Temple when he plunder'd it and that Mithridates surprized eight hundred Talents at Cons which the Jews of the lesser Asia had deposited there during those Wars not daring to send them to Jerusalem lest they might be snap'd up in the passage 2. And that this Shekel was never by any Conqueror before Vespasian required as Tribute is manifest from Josephus affirming that till then it had been used to be paid to the Temple from Pompeius reputing it so sacred as he durst not lay hands on it when he enter'd into the Temple from men's imputing Crassus his overthrow to God's avenging himself upon him for robbing the sacred Treasury where these Half-shekels were deposited that it was paid to the Temple in Caligula's Reign is manifest from that place of Josephus Ant. 18. 12 16. where he writes that the Jews of the Province of Babylon made choice of Neerda because of the strength and inaccessibleness of that place for their sacred Treasury where they deposited the sacred Didrachma till at certain Seasons they could send it to Jerusalem which they used to do with a Convoy of many thousands both for the greatness of the charge and danger of being robb'd by the way by the Parthians But this is most clearly evinc'd from the sacred Gospels informing us that the Tribute-money St. Mat. 22. 18. 19. St. Mar. 12. imposed upon the Jews by the precedent Emperours had Caesar's Image and Superscription upon it and was a Roman Coin hence stiled both in St. Matthew and St. Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a Latine name and the Tribute it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 census in all printed Copies and Manuscripts that I have seen or heard of save that old Greek and Latine M S. which Beza sent to the University of Cambridge where it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pole-mony a word coin'd at the fingers end of the Scribe for the Tribute laid upon them by Augustus or Pompey and taken off by Agrippa was not paid by the head but by the house as Josephus expresly affirmeth Josoph Jud. Ant. 19. 5. Remisso ei tributo quod soliti erant in singulas aedes solvere 2. And upon this very account our Saviour determin'd it to be Caesar's due in which determination he proceeded according to their own Concessions as Lightfoot observes Harmony Sect. 77. quoting the Jerusalem Talmud bringing in David and Abigail talking thus Abigail said What evil have I or my Children done David answereth Thy Husband vilified the Kingdom of David She saith Art thou a King then He saith to her Did not Samuel anoint me King She saith to him The Coin of our Lord Saul is yet current And again in Sanhedr A King whose Coin is current in those Countreys the men of the Countrey do thereby evidence that they acknowledge him for their Lord but if his Coin be not current he is a Robber And that with as much advantage as could be desired in order to his convincing them that the Tribute of that Denarium was due to Caesar but the Tribute of the Didrachma due to God that bearing Caesar's Picture with this Inscription say Antiquaries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caesar August such a year after the taking of Judea Hammond ann c. in Mat. 22. But this if it were the Kings or common Shekel being stamped on one side with a Tower standing betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole Inscription with that which was written beneath amounting to this Motto Jerusalem the holy City the rundle being fill'd with this David King and his Son Solomon King or if it were the Sanctuary-shekel having on one side the Pot of Mannah or Aaron's Censer with this Inscription The Shekel of Israel on the Reverse side Aaron's Rod budding with this Motto in the Rundle Jerusalem the Holy City that is Jerusalem the Royal City of the great King Goodwin antiq lib. 6. cap. 10. Beza on Mat. 17. 24. makes the same Description of that Shekel which was given
to defend me from mine enemies as to repress their boldness who with impious tongue have boasted against thy Power This Prayer God heard and that night the Parthian Arms are diverted from him to the defence of their own Country of the Invasion whereof Vologesus received the News as Izates was at Prayer so that it is most apparent that Izates was preserved by divine Providence saith Josephus Jud. Anti. l. 20. c. 2. Israel's God was not asleep to any that invoked him but his own Rebels For the Date of these Contingencies see the Story of Vologesus in Tacitus Annal. lib. 15. § 5. Their own Doctors observe that the Psalmist in his Repetition of God's Title and the Churches Imprecation Psal. 94. 1 2 3. O Lord God of revenges O God of revenges shew thy self how long Lord how long shall the wicked triumph hath reference to the destroyers of the First and Second Temple to the Chaldean and the Roman Captivities and so doubtless he hath But what then is become of the answer there given to that Imprecation vers 23. The Lord shall bring upon them their own Iniquity and shall cut them off in their own wickedness for what Nation hath incurr'd excision for its violence against the Captives of the Second Temple Nay their own Prophets wholly overthrow the Foundation of that Fifth Monarchy which they erect the Model of in their Fancy and some Judaising Mungrilchristians help them to daub it but with untempered Mortar in their presenting the Roman Empire by which their second Temple was destroyed with Iron-soles and therefore to stand as long as the World lasts see Sleidan's Reflections upon Daniel's four Beasts in the third Book of his Clavis and Tertullian's Apology contrà gentes cap. 32. Sleidan's discourse I commend to my Reader for its strength of Reason but Tertullian's for its Authority for he lays it down not as his private Opinion but as the Belief of the Universal Church in those primitive and purest Times Upon which was grounded the Custom of praying for the Prosperity of the Roman Empire though then Pagan Est alia major necessitas nobis orandi pro Imperatoribus etiam pro omni statu Imperii rebúsque Romanis quòd vim maximam universo orbi imminentem ipsámque clausulam seculi acerbitates horrendas comminantem Romani Imperii comeatu scimus retardari Itaque nolumus experiri dum praecamur differri Romanae diuturnitati favemus Besides the Obligation that the Command of praying even for our Enemies of putting up Supplications for Kings and all that are in Authority hath laid upon us we have a greater engagement even that of necessity to pray for the Emperours and the whole estate and prosperity of the Empire of Rome because by the interposition of the Roman Empire we know is retarded that greatest Calamity impending over the whole World and the end it self of the World threatning most dreadful veâ—ations and such as we would not live to see while therefore we pray for the delay of those Calamities which shall attend the last Fate of the World we favour the Diuturnity of the Empire So wide do the Fools Bolts of Euthusiasticks fall of the primitive Mark as they curse the world in praying for the erecting of a Monarchy after the Roman and call for that Fire from Heaven which will consume not only their Hay and Stubble but the whole Fabrick of this inferiour World And no less wide of the Prophets sence falls the Jews Application of these Menacies to the destroyers of their second material Temple which manifestly belong to their own Nation for destroying that Temple wherein the Godhead dwelt bodily and which was raised up in three days for their gathering together against the soul of the righteous and condemning innocent blood Psal. 94. 21. This cannot with the least shadow of Reason be charged upon the Romans for their Eagles in the Jewish Wars gather'd together to the Carcase to a People whose high provocatious and rebellious attempts render'd them fit to be a Prey to publick Justice deservedly the Objects of the Revenger's Sword Never was War more just than that of the Empire undertaken for the chastising of most sturdy Rebels and in the necessary defence of that power that God had set over them as not only Josephus and the sober Party of the Jews then confessed but the thing it self and state of the Case speaks Non equidem recusabo dicere quae dolor jubet Puto si Romani contra noxios venire tardassent aut hiatus terrae devorandam fuisse civitatem aut diluvio perituram aut fulminum ac Sodomae incendium passuram multò enim magis impiam progeniem tulit quà m quae illa pertulerat Joseph Bel. Jud. l. 6. c. 16. I will not refuse to speak what grief compels I think verily if the Romans had not come against those guilty Varlets that Jerusalem would either have been swallowed up off the gaping Earth or overwhelm'd with a Flood or destroyed with Fire and Brimstone as Sodom was for it harbour'd a Generation of men far more wicked than the Sodomites Briefly the Romans were neither unrighteous in the vengeance which their Sword of Justice brought upon that Place and Nation Neither hath God or will God cut off that Empire as long as the World stands But in the mean time we have seen the Jews gathering together against the soul of the righteous against the life of the Lord Jehovah their Righteousness while they were in the Bond of the Covenant and we have seen the Lord cut them off yea the Lord sometimes their God cut them off in and for this their wickedness It is not therefore to be thought strange that they should thus long without audience bellow out their second quousque how long that hitherto they have had no return of their Prayer to the God of Revenges for while they stir him up to revenge his People to render a reward to the proud they do but mind him of their own sin and demerits and solicit him to prolong their just sufferings and never restore to them the departed Scepter § 6. Of the departure whereof as God hath given them all these Demonstrations So almost immediately before its removal he gave them so fair a warning as not only their own but Gentile-historians took notice thereof in that voice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us depart hence which was heard in their Temple not as St. Jerom mistakes palpably in contradiction to that Text of Josephus which himself quotes as Scaliger observes and proves by undeniable Arguments at Christ's Passion but at Pentecost Joseph Bel. Jud. l. 7. c. 12. before the desolation of the Temple of which Tacitus in the Pagan Style thus writes hist. l. 5. Expassae repentè delubri fores audita major humanâ vox excedere Deos the doors of the Temple open'd of their own accord and a voice more than humane was heard signifying that the Gods of that
to have a new birth as the same Isidore saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. After such ploughing the Jew hath no ground to hope for such a Crop for the Prophets stile this the last and that which is to continue for ever that is the ever of their Law and that wherein the Sons of Aarou shall stand ministring during the limited Eternity of Mosaical Ceremonies till Messiah comes and renews all things makes all old things pass away introduces a new World a new Heaven and new Earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is. Pel. lib. 4. ep 17. And therefore Vespasian's Reply to the Jewish Priests suing for their Lives after their Temple was sack'd was more pertinent and pat to the Idiom of the Old Testament than I believe he was aware of when he told them that now their Temple was gone it was fit they should perish with it as being become wholly useless Creatures that being destroyed for whose sake only they could desire to live Joseph Bel. Jud. 7. 13. § 7. The Conclusion of this Book These Arguments are commonly urged to prove the Divinity of our Religion and they might pass for good Mediums still in that Question were not our modern Atheists grown to that degree of Ingenuity in contriving their own everlasting perdition as to put in all Exceptions imaginable against the Evidences brought for the Probate of the Common Salvation and the Way to it the Common Faith I have therefore so far gratified the delicate Scepticism the versatile Wit of these Pretenses as to draw no other Conclusion from these Premisses but this That the Apostles were men of sound Intellects and not such silly Animals as they deem them And seriously if they deny me the Validity of this Argument they will very much impair the Repute the World hath of themselves as men of Reason and dis-enable themselves of all possibility of making Indication of their own Wit For if the Apostles notwithstanding their contriving the Gospel in such an admirable Compliance with whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest venerable as the Philosophers esteemed Virtue whatsoever things are just pure lovely of good report whatsoever things can be thought on as praise-worthy Phil. 4. 8 9. all which the Apostle affirms the Philippians had learned and received and heard and seen in him must still pass for Fools do they not teach the World to think themselves such for all their witty contrived Plays and Romances Sophocles was accused by his Children to have been grown into Dotage but absolved by the Judges when he produc'd a Tragedy which he then made saying Is this the work of a man besides himself Good God! must he that can make five Acts of a Comedy hang together and yet not all out so exactly but that he is forc'd ever and anon to call down some God upon the Stage to help his Invention at a dead lift be writ A WITT With a double W and double T and a great A and those men presented as Fools that acted upon the Stage of the great World that have made Mercy and Truth meet together Righteousness and Peace kiss each other that have made all the Results of true Reason and Religion that were in the World before them scrape acquaintance with and take knowledg of one another and by joynt consent do obeysance to Christian Philosophy Shall the Fame of those Scavinger-inventions go rumbling like a Wheel-barrow that can scrape together the Obscenities of Aristophanes the Impieties of Lucian and lay their Dung on orderly heaps before the Noses of their applauding Spectators who as also Alcaeus writ their Poems when they were drunk saith Athenaeus in his Dipnosoph lib. 9. And the memories of these be turned into the silent Grave with the Burial of an Ass who have gather'd all the Daisies and Lillies of the Vallies the natural Emanations of every vulgar Soul all the rarer Flowers of the best cultivated Gardens of the most refined and abstruse Philosophy and bound them into one Posie a Nosegay for the Bride of the King of Kings Shall the more civilized Atheist for the Steam of that Augean Stable where those neighing Stone-horse-men stand of that Hog-sty where Epicurus his Herd wallow does almost stifle me and I hasten out of it be stroak'd upon the head as a person of a deep reach who can frame his maximes of State sutable to theirs in St. Austin Nolunt stare rempublicam firmitate virtutum sed impuritate vitiorum August Volusiano ep 3. to the humours of the half-witted Vulgar of one Age of one Province and by temporizing therewith keep the Cart on Wheels for a while that is till the Team find the Reins loose upon their Necks and an opportunity of bringing the Wheel over their ungodly Drivers for when the Horse comes to find his own strength and he will quickly learn that if he be not kept in with Bit and Bridle off goes his Rider and give me leave to give our modern Statists this Item that there are a Generation of men in the World that are subject not for Conscience sake but Fear and with these no Governour shall be longer good than he has power over them and they awed from calling him all to nought Shall then I say these Tinker-Machiavilians who in stopping one hole make two pass for great Head-pieces And the Apostles be reputed to have had heads no better than that which the Monkey played with in the Carver's Shop who have laid down such an absolute Model of Polity so fitted to the universal eternal Rules of Reason so perfectly complacential to the Dictates of all men so exactly limitting Superiours and Inferiours in all Ranks of all sorts to their proper Bounds and Vocations as it is impossible for any State Kingdome Empire Corporation Family not to prosper and flourish under the due observation of it or to subsist under the neglect of it execpt it be in judgment to themselves or others Advertit Plato in omni sermone suo de reipublicae institutione proposito infundendum animis justitiae amorem sine qua non solum Respublica sed nec exiguus hominum caetus nec domus quidem parva constabit Macrobius in Som. Scipionis lib. 1. cap. 1. where he gives that as the reason why Plato and Cicero preface their Treatises of the Commonwealth with the discourse of the Soul's Immortality and eternal Rewards Shortly say the Gospel be a Fable it is the most profitable one that ever was devised and the most cunningly devised that ever was shown to the World and shown to the World at its Age of best Discretion Let the whole College of Atheists frame such another piece of Workmanship a piece made up of the Perfections of all other Writings as the Painters Venus of all other Beauties in so perfect a Symetry of parts as they cohere better in this Copy than they did in their several Originals Celsus indeed made a faint offer to shew many things in
's put to no expence but what he may well disburse out of that Lordship and for the future he is in a more promising way to Happiness than any other course he can stere can bring him to Hereto assents to that of divine Plato Phaedone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If these things touching the happiness of the Soul in a state of seperation which I say be true we shall do our selves a pleasure by believing them but if there remain nothing either of a man or for a man when he is dead yet however the Contemplation of these things will make my present life more comfortable To which is a kin that of Cicero Tusculan preclarum autem nescio quid adepti sunt quod didicerunt se cùm tempus mortis venisset totos esse perituros quod ut it à sit nihil enim pugno quid habet ista res aut laetabile aut gloriosum They think they have obtain'd an excellent point when they have learn'd that by death they will be wholly dissolved say it were so what is there in this thing either joyous os glorious All the danger here lies on the other hand in not believing hereby we may possibly incur the pain threatned to be sure lose the reward promised but what detriment can we sustain by embracing the Gospel save of a little beastly Pleasure of Sin for a season What danger can we become obnoxious to but a little suffering for as short a season which yet will be recompenced an hundred fold even in this Life not only with the Hope of the Recompence of Reward which made the Martyrs rejoyce more when they were condemned than when absolved Magis damnati quà m absoluti gaudemus Tert. ad scapul cap. 1. Nay such were the expressions of the Märtyrs Joys under the most painful sufferings as made whole multitudes of Christians offer themselves without summons to Pagan Tribunals there to receive the sentence of Death insomuch as Tertullian urgeth Scapula to forethink what he would do with so many thousands of Men Women and Children as in Carthage profess'd the Gospel if they should offer themselves to him to be crowned with Martyrdom as the Christians in Asia had done to Arrius Antoninus Id. Ib. Sufferings I say for righteousness sake will be counterballanced not only by the Contemplation of future Glory but with the peace of Conscience and the calm quiet of a Mind not conscious to its self of any base Act or Disposition unworthy of Man And when we die suppose the Gospel should prove a Fable as that Pope unworthy of name stiled it quantum nobis profuit haec de Christo fabula yet our having observed the Rules of it will put us into a fairer capacity of Happiness in the other World than the Rules of any other Religion than our following the conduct of our bruitish Lusts and untamed Passions can in common sence be presumed to do For certainly if Man exist after death his having habituated himself to the life of Man to intellectual Pleasure on this side of it must render the Life of Reason and that 's the lowest degree of life we can be imagin'd there to live more familiar more complacential and satisfactory on that side of it If Man's proper and peculiar Felicity stand in his enjoyment of Communion with God as it must do if there be a God for to desire the possession of the very best is a Quality radically adhering to an humane Soul certainly our inuring our selves to Acquaintance with him and Conformity to him here must make way for our more clear beatifical Vision of him and Converse with him hereafter Should then our Christian Faith prove Credulity yet that Credulity will prove our Wisdom our way to Happiness and therefore is not so much to be feared in our case as the Objection implies Be it an Error 't is the happiest and most profitable Error that Mankind can possibly fall into though many men saith Origen against Celsus are set free from the slavery of their own Passions from the Colluvies and filthy slud of beastly Vices how many have got their savage Manners tamed and charmed upon occasion of hearing the Gospel preach'd which if we were wise we would with all thankfulness embrace were it but for this that it is so soveraign and compendious a Remedy of all Vice we should give it our grace and approbation to pass if not as true yet as most advantageous to humane kind lib. 1. cal 30. Et probanda si non ut vera certè ut humano generi utilissima The truth is all the hurt that the VVorld has received by Christian Religion is the turning of Beasts into Men and Men into Heroes and petty Gods and all the benefit it reaps by rejecting the Precepts of it and sipping the Circean cup of Atheism is the transmuting of Men into Lyons Tigers VVolves Hoggs Harpies Ravens and as many kinds of wilde Beasts and unclean Birds as enterd Noah's Ark Iniquity and injustice towards Man hath ever attended Impiety towards God Dionisius the Atheist after he had rob'd Jupiter of his golden Robe as being too heavy for Summer too cold for VVinter Aesculapius of his golden Beard as not becoming the Son to wear while his Father was beardless and spoil'd the Temples of what was worth taking away and made sale of his sacrilegious Booties commanded those that bought them to restore every man the things he had bought within a set day to the Temples whence they were stoln ità ad impietatem in Deos in homines adjunxit injuriam Haud unquam tulit documenta sors majora Never was more feeling Proofs given of this sad Truth than this Age hath produced nor can a clearer demonstration be made of any thing than the Primitive Times made of the Truth of the former Branch when the Discipline of Christianity bound its Professors to the keeping of the Peace to a modest meek and good behaviour of Heart Tongue and Hand towards all men under the greatest temptation to the contrary that the bloodiest Persecution could suggest though the sufferers were the more numerous party almost in every City Ex disciplina patientiae divinae agere nos satis manifestum esse vobis potest cùm tanta hominum multitudo pars penè major civitatis cujusque in silentio modestiâ agimus When Christians were not otherwise discernable from other Sects but by the badge of emendation of Manners Nec aliundè noscibiles quà m de emendatione vitiorum pristinorum Tert. ad Scap. cap. 2. Nor could be branded with any vice but that supposed one in the name of Christian. Bonus vir Cajus Seius sed malus tantùm quòd Christianus Tert. apol cap. 3. When they durst challenge the Adversaries to shew if they could among all the Christians which their Prisons were thronged with one High-way-man one Cut-purse one Robber of Temples one Cheater Tertul. apol 44. De vestris semper aestuat carcer de
as Actions that have past over the Stage of the World and as such the Spectators are as competent Judges of them as of any that are brought before them All that is demanded of Tradition is whether it saw Christ and his Apostles doing such things whether it heard them deliver such Doctrines or what it ever heard or saw tending to the disproof of that Relation we call her not to pass judgement upon the Nature or Quality of either Words or Works we summon her to do the part of an Historian not Commentator And what hinders but that she may gratifie us in this as well as in any other Case were not Christs Actions as visible as Caesar's his Words as audible as Cicero's § 4. Having thus stated the Question and assigned to the Witnesses what we expect from them as to the Resolution of it we will call them in and take their depositions 1. Had we nothing to produce but those almost numberless Copies and Translations of the Text into most of the Languages of the anciently-known World those Cart-loads of Commentators Paraphrasts c. upon the Text all agreeing in substance and out of which we may with facility gather not only the Matter but the very Words and every Word of the Gospels this would be a full-measure Proof that the Books of the New Testament as they stand now in the sacred Canon are as faithful a Repository of the Actions and Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles as any Writings whatsoever can be of the Subjects contain'd in them This would be a better Evidence for instance that the History and Doctrine therein contain'd is the genuine Off-spring of those whose Names they bear than any man living can produce to prove that the Books going under the Names of Virgil Horace Cicero are those mens Works whose Names they bear That the Deeds and Conveighances whereby he holds his Estate are those mens Deeds whose Names and Seals are affixt to them or that he is that Man's Child whom he calls Father This comes near enough to the state of the Question and one would think it concern'd the VVorld to repute that Generation of men the bane of Mankind who with their insociable infusions of Suspitions into mens Heads that possible it might be otherwise deprive all men Princes and Peasants of power to make a rational Proof of their Title to what they hold from their Ancestors as their Heirs at Law And the Sceptick cannot in reason expect a more satisfactory Answer to his Misprisions than such like as Plutarch in his Apothegms reports Cicero to have given his Nephew Metellus to whom demanding of Cicero to tell who was his Father it was replyed thus It would be a far harder thing to tell who was thy Father for thy Mother was accounted an errant Strumpet and mine an honest Matron The truth is all the claim that any body can make to him whom he calls Father depends wholly upon the single twine of one VVomans Honesty which be it never so apparent is not to be cast in the Scales with the Fidelity of the immaculate Virgin-spouse of Christ the Apostolical Church But I will wave this odious Comparison partly because I would not create jealousies of this Nature in the Ranters Head to harden him against his poor Mother to whom it is affliction enough to have been the Parent of such a Son and partly that I may not cast the least suspition of dishonour upon our Female-Gentry whose inconquerable Vertue necessitates our Goatish Males to turn Channel-rakers and to scrape off Dung-hills fuel for their Lusts the scum and off-spring of the fordid and Rascal vulgar the scrapings and garbish of the Body Politick such as that Nobleman of the East would hardly have set before the Dogs of the Flock How many courses of Purification must such Lumps of Dirt mixt with the Dregs of English Blood undergo before he that values the Nobility of his own can think them fit for his touch even by the proxy of a pair of Tonges The Bawd washes the Cats face pares her Claws by the transforming power of the exchange dubs her a Gentlewoman and then though all the Castle-sope in Christendom cannot wash out Pusse's stains contracted in the Chimney-corner nor all the perfumers Shops in Level-land take away the Nautious scent of her rank Blood presents her as the great Beauty of the Land an Helen a Venus a Peer for a Prince a Bed-companion for a Peer Issa est purior osculo columbae Issa est blandior omnibus puellis Issa est carior Indicis lapillis Issa est deliciae catella Publii If there be no difference of Blood why do we boast of Nobility If there be why does it not recoil even in spight of the most lustful Titillations into those Vessels we extracted from our noble Progenitors or at least for shame into our Faces fitter Receptacles of it than such common Jakes such unequal mixtures are a kind of Buggery For though in Religion there 's none yet in Nature there 's as great and in Politicks a greater distance between the Cream of Nobility and the Sediments of Vulgar Baseness than there is betwixt this and some ingenious Animals And in Ethicks 't is a less Indecorum to see a Ladies Dog in bed with her than her Groom Publius commits a less Solecism in dallying with his Bitch than with his Laundress Catullus may with less Absurdity bill with his Sparrow than his Maid That our delicate and spruce Gallants who cannot relish Prayer and Fasting which would cure them of this Canine Appetite after strange Flesh of this Orexis after dirty Puddings should be brought to this necessity of feeding their Wolf with such course fare at such three-penny Ordinaries That they who will not lose so much of their height as the bending of their Knees to him who has promised to give his holy Spirit to them that ask would put them to the expence of should by an unclean Spirit be precipitated from the top of Honour's Scale to the foot of the Hangman's Ladder with that Wanton in Petronius Vsque ab Orchestria quatuordecim transilit ut in extrema Plebe quaerat quod diligat amplexus in crucem mittat He leaps down at least fourteen steps from the top of the stairs of Nobility that he may seek a Mistress amongst the basest of the Vulgar and obtain the Embraces of one of Mal-Cutpurse Nymphs who last Assizes held up her hand at the Bar and hardly escap'd the Gallows That our fine-nosed Gentry who can smell State-plots and humane Inventions in the most sacred Religion should not smell the Plot which their own lusts have upon their Honour nor how rank their Mistresses smell of the Dunghill can proceed from nothing but their habituating themselves to such Carrion for want of better fare And that they are fain to feed the Flame of their Green-sickness-lusts with Coal and Cinders must with all thankfulness be ascribed to the Chastity
our Bodies should rise glorious Bodies Hitherto appertains that place of Ruffin expl symbol Infideles reclamant dicunt quomodò potest caro quae putrefacta dissolvitur aut in pulverem vertitur aut in mari profundo solvitur fluctibùsque dispergitur recolligi rursùm reintegrari in unum corpus ex eâ hominis reparari Resp. quod in seminibus quae tu in terra jacis per annos singulos fieri vides hoc de tua carne quae Dei lege seminatur in terra futurum esse non credis Cur quaeso te nunc tam angustus invalidus divinae potentiae existmator es ut dispersum uniuscujusque carnis pulverem in suam rationem colligi reparari posse non censeas cùm videas quòd etiam mortale ingenium demersas in profundum terrae metallorum venas rimatur artificis oculus aurum videt in quo imperitus terram putet nec tantum quidem concedimus ei qui fecit hominem quantum homo qui ab ipso factus est consequi potest cum auri esse propriam venam argenti aliam aeris quoque longè disparem ferri quoque plumbi diversas in terra species latere terrae mortale deprehendat ingenium divina virtus invenire posse ac discernere non putabitur uniuscujusque carnis proprium sensum etiam si videatur esse dispersum Against this Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body the Lufidels exclaim and say How can the Flesh after it is dissolv'd and turn'd into dust or mouldered away in the bottom of the Sea and scatter'd with the waves be again gather'd up and reunited into one and the body of a man be made up of it I answer That which thou seest every year done in the seed that thou casts into the ground dost thou not believe this may be done in thy flesh which by the Law of God is sown in the earth Why I pray thee now hast thou so low an esteem of the divine Power that thou caust not conceive how the scatter'd dust of every mans body can be collected and set in its own rank when thou seest that even humane Wit searcheth out of the depth of the earth divers Veins of Metals And that the Artificers eye discerns that to be Gold wherein the unskilful perceive nothing but earth And shall we not ascribe so much to God who made man as we see man can attain to who is but Gods Creature Or shall not the divine Power be thought able to find out and discern the proper rank to which every crum of dust of every mans appertains seeing the Ingenuity of Mortals extends it self to the discerning of the Veins of Gold Silver Brass Iron and Lead asunder But we shall meet with more upon this subject while we present the Animadversions of Pagans upon the next and last Article Article 12. And life everlasting If when you speak of eternal Life saith Celsus lib. 8. 18. you meant no more than that you hope your Soul shall live for ever I should cordially assent to you as rightly thinking that they shall be happy that have lived well and the unrighteous held in everlasting misery From this Opinion neither the Christian nor any body else can recede But to think that the Body shall be made immortal is a Conceit that cannot enter but into rustick impure and brutish Animals Why then did Plato think that Souls separate have a kind of Body wherein they appeared about Sepulchres Orig. cont Cels. 2. 41. why did he assign certain fortunate Islands for the habitation of fortunate Souls if he had not some gimmering of the Resurrection What need a place so large as in comparison of that this habitable Earth is but an Ant-hill if it be not intended for glorified Bodies as well as Souls lib. 7. cal 9. as St. Origen reasons Lastly why does this fleering Epicure deride the Church for believing the everlasting Life of the Body as a thing impossible Seeing the Philosophers are of Opinion that the whole world is an Animal a living Creature consisting of Soul and Body and yet an Animal most blest and sempiternal And that the Sun and the rest of the Planets have not only bodies as every man's Eye may inform him but Bodies animated and with these bodies of theirs sempiternal why cannot he who hath given so bright and everlasting a Body to the Sun cloath our Souls with Bodies that shall shine as the Sun for ever as St. Austin argues de civitat 10. 29. expostulating with the Philosopers for that they are forc'd to recede from their own Placits while they argue against the Articles of our Faith Quid ergò est quòd cùm vobis fides Christiana suadetur tunc obliviscemini aut ignorare vos fingitis quòd disputare aut docere soleatis quid causae est quod propter opiniones vestras quas ipsi oppugnatis Christiani esse nolitis What 's the matter that while we argue with you to imbrace the Christian Faith ye either forget or feign your selves ignorant of such things as you use to defend and teach what 's the matter that for the sake of those opinions of yours which your selves oppose you refuse to bocome Christans Can a fuller demonstration be required than this that Christian Religion was deliver'd at first in that very Form wherein it is now profes'd by the Church and delineated in the Gospel That the Rose of Sharon the Lilly of the Vallies which now sticks on the Churches bosome is that which was planted by the hand of the Apostles sixteen hundred years ago may be evidenc'd beyond all possibility of doubt by comparing it with that which grows among these Thorns with the cuts and prints of it in those Herbals that were drawn on purpose to decry the Virtue of it I put it here to the Scepticks Conscience whether he would not esteem him a sleepy or bribed Judge who would not give sentence of his Legitimacie would not pronounce him the Son of that Woman he calls Mother after he had heard the Adversaries and those that would have his Inheritance to be theirs in their pleadings against him describe the Child that was then born of that Woman in all points so like the defendant as the Pagan Adversaries of our Religion describe that Religion which Christ and his Apostles publish'd to be like that is now contain'd in our Scriptures Briefly to rally up the strength of this first Argument for the credibleness of that Testimony which commends the Gospel to us we have heard the Witnesses on both sides examin'd and those â—gainst our cause give as full evidence for us as to Matter of Fact as those of our own party we have heard the Plaintiff declare and his Declaration is a pleading of our Cause VVe alledge that Christ was born crucified rose again c. we can make proof of all this by thousands of Evidences in our custody but to spare the labour of
only an enrolling of Persons but a laying of a Tax upon their Estates administer'd occasion to turbulent over-holy Hypocrites to make head against that Roman Power which God had set over them which I therefore mention the story of from the mouths and pens of persons of the Jewish Religion to evince that St. Luke hath the approbation of foreign Testimony to the validity of that distinction which he makes of Taxes when he saith the first taxing As for Theudas who as Gamaliel saith made an insurrection before Judas he must be another Theudas than he of whom Josephus gives the story Antiq. l. 20. c. 5. under the Regencie of Fadus long after the discourse of Gamaliel For it is not to be imagin'd that either Josephus or Gamaliel should be so far out in a story so modern to them as one of them must be if they speak of one and the same person But I am less careful to reconcile this Text to Josephus because the Controversie which it adminsters is not betwixt Josephus and St. Luke but Gamaliel whose saying St. Luke only records as an Historian but undertakes not to justifie it So that if their be any error therein in point of Chronology let the Scribes of the Law look to it and study Arguments to perswade intelligent persons that the Dictates of their Master are in this case to be preferr'd before the judgement of so exact both Historian and Chronologer Who though he may perhaps disagree with Gamaliel yet we have found him and other secular Authors so unanimously agree with St. Luke in those grand Synchronisms As if the question be Whether in the Reign of Tiberius while Pilat was Governour of Judea Herod Tetrarch of Galilee his Brother Philip Tetrarch of Ituraea Lysanius Tetrarch of Abilene and Caiaphas the High Priest Jesus Christ shewed himself to Israel and during all their continuance in their respective Offices perform'd miraculous works preach'd the Evangelical Doctrine suffer'd death rose again c If the Question be Whether this Jesus had for his Fore-runner the Baptist who preach'd repentance to all that came to his Baptism rebuked Herod for Herodias for which he was beheaded And lastly if the Question be Whether at that time when the Evangelists date the Birth of Christ there was not a Taxing in all points as St. Luke describes c He that will not acquiess in the Testimony of the Evangelists may hear all these Questions determin'd affirmatively by strangers to our Religion and so suitable in every punctilio to our sacred History as if they had laid the Gospel and not only common fame before them to shape their Histories and Chronologies after they could hardly have come nearer to the Evangelists than they do CHAP. VII Josephus his Suffrage to the Evangelists in the Substance of their History of Christ. § 1. He appropriates the Compellation Christ to our Jesus speaks of the Churches growth in a Gospel-stile § 2. Describes Christs Disciples by Evangelical Characters gives the Evangelists Reasons why others did not embrace the Gospel § 3. He peremptorily asserts Christ's Miracles how he came to a certain information thereof Appion and Justus would have found it out if he had proceeded here upon presumptions and uncertainties § 4. He describes Christ's Miracles after the Evangelical Model § 5. And affirms them to have been such as the Prophets had foretold The Touch-stone of canonical History § 6. He asserts Christ's Resurrection with all its Circumstances § 1. JOsephus keeps time with the Evangelists in the date of Christs History And if we lay our sound-trying ear to the History it self we shall find that therein he keeps tune with them 1. He giveth him the Name by which he was in common speech distinguished from others Jesus Christ What will you saith Pilate I shall do unto Jesus who is called Christ Insomuch as his compellations from the place of his education and converse Jesus of Nazareth Jesus of Galilee grew so far out of use as his Disciples ceas'd to be stiled Galileans and Nazarites except by the Jewish or Pagan enemies to the Name of Christ when they would either cast scorn upon them or calumny as denominated from a place of which they had this Proverb Can any good come out of Nazareth Whence our Saviour inferrs to the man that called him good that thereby he confes'd he was God and something more than came out of Nazareth that he had another Birth before and beside that he had in Nazareth for the Jews thought he was born there or from a place whence the common opinion was that no Prophet was to come Search and see for out of Galilee ariseth no Prophet These denominations I say except in such mens mouths quickly grew out of use that of Christian being entail'd upon them by consent of Nations for which Names sake they were called before Kings and Governours persecuted hated of all men Christiani not Galilaei ad leones was the common acclamation of the whole World of Heathens negato te esse Christianum was the advice which was given to the Disciples of the blessed Jesus when they were following him either to or under his bloody Cross by all that cruelly pittied them that apishly loved them and would have killed them with kindness have had them lose eternal by saving a temporal Life Christianum se negat was the Court-form of acquitting of suspending proceedings against those unhappy men who apostatized from the Faith and withered for want of root and depth of earth when the Sun cast its scorching Beams upon them Christianus sum was the Catholick Form wherein all Martyrs made a good Confession before their Persecutors With what face can the Jesuits and their fruitful Spawn of Sectaries who suffer under other names than that of Christian challenge the Crown of Martyrdom or lay the odious Crime of persecution to the charge of Gods Ministers while they suffer as evil doers Is this the silence of the Sheep before the Shearer the voyce of the dumb Lamb under the hands of the Butcher and not rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jude 16. the murmuring of sturdy Malefactors while they are whipt deservedly for their faults the grunting of Hoggs ut porcus saginatus Aret. who derives that word from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to grunt better fed than taught against their Keeper or the cry of Swine while they are a ringing to prevent their rooting up the Vineyard of Christ yea the Field of the VVorld and thereby so tainting it with their earth-poysoning Snout as nothing but Soul-poysoning VVeeds grows after such ploughing I have stept out of my way to turn this devouring and make-spoil Herd out of the Corn. The good Shepherds Flock suffer'd under another Name were known as by other properties so by another compellation even this of Christian imposed upon them at Antioch and derived to them from Jesus his compellation Christ as Josephus here testifieth therein agreeing with the Evangelical History
particulars as Symmachus in that conference tell Lamprius that he had transcribed all those things out of the Mysteries of the Hebrews § 7. The same Author de solertia animalium interweaves the Story of Deucalion with the mention of a Dove which being sent out of the Ark by her returning gave notice that the Flood was not yet allay'd and by her not returning when she was sent out the second time signified that the Waters were abated This Story of Noah's Ark and the Flood saith Josephus antiq lib. 1. all Gentile Writers mention Berosus the Caldaean Hieronimus the Egyptian Muaseus also and many more and Nicholas Damascenus lib. 96. The History of Eden's Apples and the Serpent is manifestly recorded by Hyginus in his Poeticon astronomic titulo serpens That of Balaams Ass is plainly couch'd in his Story of that Ass which Bacchus rode upon to the Oracle of Dodona which spake with Man's voyce and disputed with Priapus about Nature titulo Aselli And that of Sampson's conquering the Philistines with the Jaw-bone of an Ass which God shewed him as plainly in his relation how that Hercules being opprest with multitudes of Barbarians and having spent all his Arrows Jove taking pitty of him procured a great many Stones to lay at his feet wherewith he defended himself and put the Barbarians to flight titulo Ergonasia Menander in the Gests of Ithobal King of Tyre Ahabs Contemporary speaks of that Drought that happened in Ahab's Reign Joseph antiquit l. 8. cap. 7. The same Author contrà Appionem lib. 1. sheweth how the Truth of the Jewish Histories was attested to by forreign Writers even of such Nations as most hated and emulated the Jews and produceth the Tyrian Annals in confirmation of Solomon's building the Temple of his being aided therein by Hiram of his wise Questions and Answers there being then when Josephus wrote in the Tyrians hands many Letters which Solomon and Hiram wrote one to another for which also he alledgeth the History of Dius concerning the Phenicians But I refer my Reader for fuller satisfaction in this point to that excellent Defender of the Jewish Antiquities Josephus himself who not only in his Discourse against Appron but in his Jewish Antiquities lib. 1. prosecutes this Argument quoting Abydenus writing the same Story that Moses doth touching the Flood And Marethus Berosus Molus Hestiaeus Hieronimus Egyptius the Phenician Chronicles Hesiod Hecataeus Elaricus Acasilaùs Ephorus and Nicholas affirming that the Ancient Heroes lived 1000 years for that they being the friends of God and using a more wholesome Diet than could he had after the Flood must in Reason be supposed to live longer than their Successors and besides that they might find out Arts profitable for future Generations as Astrology Geometry c. they had a longer life bestowed upon them seeing it was not possible that they could observe the several Faces of the Stars in less than six hundred years which space is therefore called the great year of Revolution And Abydenus for the proof of Moses his History of the building of the Tower of Babel And Sibyl for the Confusion of Languages thus speaking When men were all of one Language they attempted to build a Tower that might reach up to Heaven but the Gods beat down the Tower with Tempests which from the wonderful Confusion of Tongues was called Babel And Hestiaeus making this mention of the Plain of Sinar The Priest who escaped sacrificed to Jove in the Vale of Sinar and the Language of men being confounded they began to inhabit divers parts of the World But I am weary of transcribing consult Josephus and Eusebius de praeparatione Evangelica lib. 9. cap. 1. whose title is that many forreign Writers have admired the Jewish Nation Cap. 2. The Testimony of Haecateus Cap. 3. The Testimony of Clearchus to Jewish Antiquities Cap. 4. That many forinsick Authors agree with the Truth of the Hebrew History CHAP. X. The Adversaries forced upon very great Disadvantages to their own Cause by reason that they could not for very shame resist the Evidences brought in defence of sacred History § 1. Christ accused of working by the Prince of Devils that Accusation withdrawn in open Court and this Plea put in against him that he made himself a King and therefore was an Enemy to Caesar. § 2. Petty Exceptions rebound upon the heads of their Framers § 3. The Modern Scepticks half-reasons too young to grapple with old Prescription § 4. Christ's Works God's Seal to his Mission § 5. The present Age as able to judge of the Nature of those Works as that was wherein they were done § 6. Aheistical exceptions against particular points of Religion an Hydra's head yet they all stand upon one neck and may be cut off at one blow by proving the Divine original of Religion § 1. THese are all the kinds of Testimonies that Matters of Fact are capable off and so full and impartial as I am sure our Modern Disputers cannot produce the like for the probat of any Matters of Fact except those which we have account of in the Gospel I might therefore here conclude But that I may leave the Sceptick without not only all possibility of Reply but of Excuse for his Pertinacy if he hath the face to question the validity of this Argument I shall add this weighty Consideration That the Adversaries of the Christian Religion in their discoursing upon that Subject were put upon exceeding great inconveniencies meerly upon this Reason because they could not for very shame resist those Evidences were brought in defence of the Evangelical History To begin with the Jewish we find the chief of them consulting what they should do to hinder the Progress of the Gospel when they saw such notable Miracles effected by Christ and his Disciples as could not be denyed and fore saw that the whole World would run after them if some stop were not put to this rowling Stone The first Obstacle they lay in its way was the calumniation of those great Works as being done not by the Finger of God but the Hand of Beelzebub But whatever Prestigiator was read of in any History so qualified as Christ was the Institutor of a Society accomplish'd with all Gravity and Virtue a Praeceptor of most sincere and true Doctrine as Eusebius challengeth the Pagan Objectors Demonst. Evang. 3. 8. The only colour of a proof they bring for this for their Fables of Christ's going into Aegypt to learn Magick of his having the Tetragrammaton sown in his Thigh have not the least shew of Probability was the seeming Contradiction betwixt the Law of Moses and of Christ it being on all hands confess'd that Moses was sent of God and assisted in the Wonders he wrought in confirmation of his Mission by a Divine Power and therefore what Christ did in proof of his Doctrine must needs be as they blasphem'd by a Diabolical But when he attempts at the araignment of our Saviour and
after Aarons order made upon the Altar of his Cross by the oblation of himself a full and perfect Propitiation for the sins of the whole World and was then actually inflicted when in the virtue of that Attonement God sent him as a Priest after the Order of Melchisedech to bless the Nations by turning them from their sins If this God of Israel hath where he is invocated any Priests taken from among the Gentiles but those of Christs Institution that call themselves and are called that is known by the name of the Priests of the Lord. He may find this name scorned by such punie Antichrists as the Gospel tells us have ever been and foretells us will ever be in the Church but not of the Church who being under a Form of Godliness deny the Power and either out of a blind zeal or for a cloak of Covetousness decry the Evangelical Priest-hood casting contempt upon and practising to abolish that Name which the God of Israel hath said the Evangelical Ministers should be called by doing what in them lay to overturn the Foundation of Christian Faith For if there be not an order of Men taken out from the rest from among the people called the Priests of the Lord the Gentiles are not yet called nor that God whom we invocate the God of Israel nor that Jesus whom we worship the Christ the promised Messiah for of the days of Messias it is prophesied Is. 66. 8. I will gather all Nations and Tongues and they shall come and see my glory and this I will do by setting a Sign amongst them by erecting the Standard of the Cross For those that escape those of the Jews that save themselves from the untoward Generation by embracing Christ I will send to the Nations disperse them over the World to Tarshish Pul and Lud to Tubal and Javan to the Isles afar off that have not heard my fame neither have seen my Glory and they shall declare my Glory Preach Christ the Brightness of my Glory Heb. 1. 3. among the Gentiles And they shall bring all your Brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all Nations and of them that shall be converted out of all Nations I will take for Priests and Levites For as the new Heavens that I create remain before me so shall your Seed and your Name remain for ever And again Isa. 61. 6. Ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord men shall call you the Ministers of our God See here what tender Consciences those tender ear'd men have and how well those Laodicean Church-men consult the promoting of the honour of Christ and the salvation of Souls through his Blood that rather than we should offend the itching ears of those white Devils would have us wave the use of so harsh a word so grating a name as that of Priests though it be of the mouth of the Lords naming and the bearing of it among the Gentiles one of those Demonstrations of the Spirit of Prophesie that Christ is come and that he whose Priests we are is the God that made Heaven and Earth Not but that the Romish Sacrificers have Sacrilegiously abused this name to the abetting their Sacrifice of the Mass or as if names or things whose use is not necessary may not be laid aside when abused as God took the name of Baal out of his peoples mouth after it had been appropriated to Idols and Hezechiah broke the Brazen Serpent after the Idolatrous use of it Yet he that upon that pretence would banish the name of Jehovah or other Names of God out of Christian use would leave us never a Name to call him by for all his Names that the Gentiles could get at the Tongues end they applied to their Idols and should we exterminate every Word or Thing that has been made an evil use of we must speak by Signs renounce our Creed our Meat Drink and Sleep How much more cautious should we be of entertaining those Principles of a squeasie and mis-inform'd Conscience as induce us to a disuse of that Name which God himself hath stampt upon the Ministers of the Gospel as their Memorial for ever But Odi prophanum vulgus arceo I should blame my self for making this excursion before the Atheist if it were not to inform him that in case while he is seeking for the accomplishment of this Prophesie he meet with such as disclaim this and call themselves by another Name and thereby be confirm'd in his Atheism the Church is free of his blood for there never hath been any Christian Church upon Earth whose Ministers are not known and called by the name of the Priests of Israel's God § 3. Let him enquire what Sacrifices and Oblations have been offered him since his Name was Great in all the World but that commemorative one of the great Propitiation which our high Priest made once for all That Thanksgiving-Sacrifice of the Eucharist that well-pleasing Sacrifice of a sweet odour we tender him in our Works of Charity in our honouring him with our substance that living and reasonable Service wherein we offer up our selves Souls Bodies and Spirits to the disposal of his Royal Law What Incense hath been burnt before him but Prayer from a Devout and flaming Heart What Libations have been powred out in his presence but penitential Tears flowing from a contrite spirit Let him travel Aegypt through and through he will find no Altar there erected to the God of Israel but that Table-throne of Grace whereon we offer to him his Creatures of Bread and Wine and make a Commemoration of his Son's Death No Pillar there set up to the Lord but the eternal Monument of his dear Love the Triumphant Standard of the blessed Cross. He will find the Jew the Assyrian the Aegyptian serving the God of Israel joyntly in the practise of no Religion but the Christian. And then I leave it to the Atheists Discretion to judge whether it be conceivable that that God who was so wise as to foresee and so powerful as to effect this great Change we see wrought in the World by the Gospel should be so far wanting to himself and those of Mankind that most sincerely love him as to have none to worship him in a way of his own Institution this sixteen hundred years ever since he by his Providence hath made it impossible to tender him that Worship himself had formerly commanded the place being destroyed where God will only accept of such like services and the Jews having been terrified from rebuilding it under Julian so as they never since durst reattempt it The Story of which their Consternation is thus reported by Greg. Nazianzen Oratione 48. in Julianum 2. Julian invited the Jews to return into Judaea and rebuild their Temple whereupon multitudes of them repair thither and busie themselves in that work with as much zeal as our City-Matrons exprest When those Forts and Lines of Communication were cast up whereby they
excluded themselves from the Protection of the best of Kings and cooped up themselves to be a prey to the worst of Tyrants for as ours then so the Jewish Matrons now spared neither their tender Limbs nor fine Cloaths nor richest Jewels but as they expended their Treasures in hiring Labourers so they themselves did not disdain to serve the Workmen by carrying Baskets of Rubbish till both Masons and Servitours were forc'd from their work by Balls of Fire issuing from the trembling and gaping Earth by which they that were not kill'd had their Garments or Bodies inured with the Sign of the Cross by which Marks of God's displeasure many of them were so far convinc'd that no other Religion was acceptable to God but the Christian as they with one voyce invocate the help of Christ and were by Baptism initiated in the Christian Faith The substance of this Story I have elsewhere alledged out of Ammianus Marcellinus one of Julian's Captains And Nazianzen affirms that when he wrote this Oration these Prints and Marks upon their Cloaths were still to be seen Is 't then I say imaginable in reason that ever since the disannulling of the Mosaical Service of Legal Sacrifices God has been no where worship'd in a way of his own institution Or is it possible to point out any People upon Earth save the Christian Church that worship him in that way which God himself foretold he would erect at the vacateing of the old § 4. The fourth and last instance I shall give of Prophecies touching meer Contingencies that have been so palpably fulfill'd as the Effect of the accomplishment is now existing is of those which foretold That after Israel had cast off their Messiah and their God cast off them and taken the Gentiles to be his People Those Gentiles as they came into Christ should cast a way all their former Idol-Gods so as never again to return to them Of which Tenour are those Texts Isa. 2. 18. 20 21. The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day and the Idols shall he utterly abolish and they shall go into the holes of the Rocks and into the Caves of the Earth for fear of the Lord and for the Glory of his Majesty when he ariseth terribly to shake the earth In that day shall a man cast his Idols of Silver and Gold which they made each one for himself to worship to the moles and to the batts This day is that when all Nations shall flow unto the Mountain of the Lords House c. ver 1. The same Prophecy is repeated Is. 31. 7. and the Effect of it dated when the Lord the Shepherd of Israel shall rise up against the multitude of Shepherds called forth against him the whole Crew of Idols erected by the Gentile world to affront the Majesty of Heaven and make no more of them than a Lyon doth of unarmed Shepherds who would scare him away with their voyce when he comes to take their Flock from them and when those Flocks shall be turned unto that God from whom the Children of Israel have deeply revolted In that day shall every man cast away his Idols c. And Isa. 45. and 46. Chapters When all the ends of the Earth shall look unto God when to him every Knee shall bow every Tongue shall swear c. Then Bel boweth down Nebo stoopeth their Idols were upon the Beasts your carriages were heavy laden they are a burden to the weary Beasts they stoop they bow down together they could not deliver the burden but themselves are gone into Captivity That is the Heathen Great Pontiffs and Philosophers shall not be able to maintain the Cause of those false Gods whom by office and inducement of State they are bound to support but shall fall down under the weight of that Vanity and Impiety the Gospel shall charge them with and throw off their load and themselves become Christs Captives so mighty were the Weapons of the Apostles Warfare to cast down those vain Imaginations that had exalted themselves against the knowledge of the true God and to bring into obedience to Christ the strongest holds that Satan by his Deputies held in the Heathen World And Zech. 13. 2. In that day when a Fountain should be open'd to those Inhabitants of Jerusalem to that House of David that should mourn every Family apart over him whom they had pierced which cannot be meant of the Jews after the Flesh for it was the Gentiles that pierced Christ it was the Roman Soldiers that platted the Crown of Thorns and set it upon Christs Head that Nailed his Hands and Feet to the Cross that peirced his Side with a Spear to which external peircing of Christs Body and not to that Sword which the unthankful Jew ran through his Soul the Evangelist applies this Text John 19. 37. The Spirit of Grace and Supplication is not promised to the breakers of his Heart but Bones the Gentiles Heart that broke his Bones shall be broken when the spirit convinceth them of that sin but the Jews generally lost under Judicial blindness in that day I say that the spiritual Judah shall repent and be baptized St. Jerom expounds this Fountain to be Christian Baptism that Laver of Regeneration It shall come to pass saith the Lord of Hosts that I will cut off the names of the Idols out of the Land c. and cause the unclean spirits to pass out of the Land Was ever any thing foretold with more plainness and perspicuity most of those Oracles and a great many more which for brevity sake I omit are as transparent as if they had been writ with a Sun-beam in this copious variety of expressions there is not one ambiguous Word not one dark Syllable a Child may run and read these Visions Would then such eminent Persons as their Prophets were in their several Generations have run the hazard of having their Memories traduc'd in after-ages by such plain speaking having no imaginable Secular Temptation to it but against it had they not been beyond all possibility of mistake assured of the Infallibility of that Spirit by which they were moved Now the same Degree of Assurance which they had à priori from the Cause we may have à posteriori from the Effect they could not by that more then Scientifical Vision of those things in the Divine Mind that essential Cognition that simple Contact and Feeling of God's Will Tactus quidam divinitatis notitiâ melior essentialis cognitio divinorum contactus quidam essentialis simplex Jamblicus de cognit divinorum be more certain that this would be than we may that it is come to pass by observing the Event For never were any Predictions more manifestly fulfill'd than these not one title of them is faln to the Earth There is not now nor has not been in any part of the World since Christian Religion was planted in it the least Relique of those numberless Pagan Gods it swarmed with before that
Gratian That if Gratian had not had the heart to throw down that Altar but had left it standing yet he would advise Valentinian to overthrow it seeing the Pagan party both in the Senate and among the Vulgar was less formidable then than it was at that time when his Brother had the courage to demolish it for they that prefer that request saith he do abuse the name of the Senate while they present that Petition to you in its name who are only a few Pagan Senators Pauci Gentiles communi utantur nomine As I remember when about two years ago the like Petition was preferred with the like subscription Damasus Bishop of Rome sent me a Libel which the Christian Senators far more numerous than the Pagan gave out wherein they declared their disowning of that Petition Ambros. lib. 5. Epist. 30. A manifest Argument that those first Christian Emperours could not be more rigorous against Paganism than they were without hazarding the publick Peace and danger of turning all into confusion by a precocious Zeal by reason of the numerousness of those that then profest it which as it decreas'd the severity of their Decrees against it increased Princes must do as they can when they cannot do as they should in which case they do what they should when they do what they can God accepting the Will for the Deed. It will be an harder task to free them from guilt in their retaining the office of Great Pontiffs and being present at the Pagan Altar c. but for the last it may be pleaded for the extenuation at least of their Crime That they had the Example of Jacob's taking an Oath of Laban in this form The God of Nahor judge betwixt us meaning that God of the Caldees which Nahor and Abraham and their Forefathers worship'd before Abraham's Call and eating with him upon the same heap whereon he had Sacrificed to that God Calvin in locum nec dubium est quin jurandi formae responderit sacrificium Jacob himself sacrificing to the true God and swearing by him whom to distinguish him from that God which Laban sacrificed to and sware by he calls the Fear of his Father Isaac not Abraham because Abrahams Fear for some time had been the God of the Caldees but Isaac being born after his Father had left his Country and Country Gods and entred into Covenant with the only true God never had any other God for his Fear but the eternal God Gen 31. That Isaac was in presence while Abimelech sacrificed to a false God and heard him swear by the name of that God at such time as he made a Covenant with him Gen. 26. 28. Percutiamus faedus tecum Let us make a Covenant with thee by Sacrifice and ratifie it by Oath the antient Use being to slay Victims at their making of Covenants whence the Phrase of Icere percutere ferire faedus Vossius Etym. betwixt the parts whereof he that swore passed as he pronounc'd his assent to the Covenant ratifying that assent with such like execrations ità me Dii mactent si sciens fallo Let God mangle me as I have mangled this Victim if I wilfully break this Covenant Livii lib. 1. lib. 21. This ceremony God observed in his entring into Covenant with Abraham Gen. 15. 9. 17. by the deputation of that smoaking Furnace and burning Lamp that passed between the pieces on that same day wherein the Lord made a Covenant with Abraham Excellently has the imcomparable Grotius determined this case of Conscience Se tamen si quibuscum negotium erat adduci non possent ut aliter jurarent contraxisse cum eis Idololatris ipsos quidem ut opportebat jurantes ab illis autem juramentum accipientes quale haberi poterat Grotii de Jure Bel. lib. 2. cap. 13. 12. If those with whom the Patriarchs had to do in the point of mutual swearing could not be induc'd to use another Form than in the names of their Country Gods they used to contract with them though they were Idolaters they swearing as they should and taking such an Oath from those as they could possibly obtain I might also alledge the example of Naaman who according to the best Expositors putting this Case to the Prophet whether he declaring openly that he believed there was no God but the God of Israel and yet bearing that Office under the King as the King at times leaned upon his shoulder when he went abroad for greater State if the King should go unto the house of Rimmon while it was Naaman's Office to wait upon him and Naaman should there bow not in reverence to the Idol but in a civill respect to his Master who could not bow if Naaman upon whose shoulder he lean'd did not bow whether I say in this Case he should sin against God in committing Idolatry was the Question he put to Elisha And the Prophet in his answer to it assures him he may go in peace that is his doing thus in such circumstances would be no occasion of breach of peace betwixt the God of Israel and him Upon this example the Protestant Divines assured the Elector of Saxony whose Office it was to bear the Sword before the Emperour and to whom the Emperor had sent a Command to attend upon him in the performance of that Office while he went to Mass that he might lawfully observe that Imperial Injunction because ad suum officium esset evocatus he was called to the performance of his duty whereupon the Elector accompanied Caesar to the Mass non vel ut ad cultum divinum ad Missam accedens not addressing himself to the Mass as a Religious duty but to the performance of the Civil Duties of his Calling Sleidan Comment lib. 7. And Lastly I might urge that the Pagans themselves forc'd by the Arguments of our men and their own Mythologists were at that time brought to an open and avowed confession that the Gods of the Gentiles were not Gods properly called but either Created Spirits in the invisible or infused Properties into the several Species of things in the visible World So as Jupiter signified no more then even in the Gentile Dialect than the Heat and Juno no more than the Moisture of the Air And that their erecting Altars to them was no more but an acknowlegement in particular of the Favours bestowed upon Mankind by the one Eternall God by their hands as his Instruments The change of the propriety of those Heathenish names must needs mitigate the harshness of their sound even in Christian ears if not make them as little offensive then as the names of Saturn Sol Luna Jupiter Mercury Mars and Venus are at this day when for distinction sake we apply them to the Days of the Week and as that Verse of St. Austin contrà Academicos tom 1. p. 197. Sic pater ille Deùm faciat sic magnus Apollo with that Comment which himself makes of it or that of the Flocena Oratour
man upon Earth that sinneth not and whoever saith he hath no sin he sins in saying so So that the old Serpent when he shall be let loose again will find wicked instruments of his malice against the Church his own evil Seed among the Wheat where-ever that is sown and therefore the Millenaries in confining him to the lower Hemisphere to gather his Army in by which he is to assault the Holy City not only contradict their own Texts which assigns him the four corners the four Quarters of the Earth the whole breadth of the earth the whole compass of the Globe from East West North and South which I could bear with them in knowing that the Prophets have a peculiar language by themselves in their Proverbials and Hyperbolics but the whole current of sacred Scriptures commented upon by the uninterrupted series of Providence in all ages § 5. Second Nay that at the approaching of the general Judgement when that War of Gog and Magog shall commence The Churches most eminent Seat and the most glorious entertainment of the Gospel will be in those Chambers of the South in that new discover'd World to which it is hasting apace from our Hemisphere The far greatest part thereof all the West of Asia the East West and South of Affrica and the sometimes most flourishing and best peopled parts of Europe being already over-run with Mahometan Barbarousness and the remaining parts of it by our great provocations and impieties against God and by our dissentions and discord among our selves hasting to open a way for the Turk to enter the City of God through the breaches we dayly make and widen in the Walls of Sion We sin and he wins we contend and he conquers we presume that because we are the Temple of the Lord the City of God we are inconquerable and in the mean while he takes our Forts and batters our Walls about our ears our ears which we stop and will not hear the voyce of the Charmer charm he never so wisely and therefore I fear I should but spill my Ink in bestowing it in recording the Turks dayly encroachment upon the Christian Pale his making Conquests by inches over the Western as he did by Ells over the Eastern Church or in describing those Marks of future bane those Prints of divine displeasure and certain forerunners of Gods rejection of a people as deeply imprest upon the Western as they were upon the Eastern and Southern Patriarchates when God deliver'd those Churches into his and their enemies hands If we go to his place at Shilo where once he put his Name enquire for what wickedness he made his Glory depart from Jerusalem Ephesus Antioch Alexandria Constantinople we shall find the very same provocations reigning in these parts of Europe the same infatuation of Counsels the same strong delusions the same debaucheries and abominations and our selves as ripe for excision looking as white for harvest as they did when the Mahometans Sickle reaped those goodly Fields Suppose ye that they were greater sinners I tell you nay but except we repent we shall all likewise perish But I look too long upon the dark side of that cloudy Pillar that has been passing from the East the place where the Gospel first set out towards the West and as it moves deprives the Church of her Head attire Christian Princes of those her dry Nurses and Guardians yet not of her wet Nurses or the inward Glory of her Garments for she shall reign still with Christ even upon this Earth in those remnants of her seed dispersed over the face of it The Sun of a Christian Magistracy shall not be seen where this Night hath or shall encroach upon the Church but her eyes shall see her Teachers still and her ears hear This is the good old way walk in it and find rest the Stars will appear behind the Cloud as they did in the Primitive Church before Princes became her Nurses and as they do now within the Turks Dominions where Princes have ceas'd to be her Nurses And when Mercy triumphing over Judgement shall have left us such a Nail such a stump of the Tree of Life in our Hemisphere The Covenant that God has made with the Christian World being like that he hath made with day and night of which he saith if those ordinances shall depart from me then shall the whole seed of Israel be cast off the Covenant he made with the Ordinances he gave to the Carnal Seed were but Temporary and therefore that seed was wholly cast off but the Covenant he made with the Spiritual Seed is an everlasting Covenant and therefore that Seed of Gentile Believers shall never be wholly cast off The new Israelites in shew and profession only when this Sun of persecution for the Gospel ariseth when the Temptations of the World shall be laid before them when none shall live under the benign influence of their Mahometan Rulers but those that wheel about with them to the embracing of that Brutish Religion shall forsake Christ and embrace the present World But the Israelites indeed in Faith and Practice shall never be prevail'd with to renounce Christ but that poor and peeled People shall bear up his Name in all Nations upon whom it hath been called to the end and consummation of the World When I say the infiniteness of the divine compassion shall be so bounded and streightned by the circumjacent Guilt of our multiplyed and crying sins and by the innate veracity of divine Menacies as all it can obtain for us against the pleas of both is no more then this when our golden Dreams of glorious days end in this God will provide Kings and Queens to be Nursing Fathers c. to the American Churches who shall dandle them upon their knees and that perhaps for as many ages as we have been dandled I say perhaps because I would not pry into Gods secret Purposes nor limit the holy One in that point wherein I cannot observe him to walk by any Rule but that of his own good pleasure whereby both to Persons and Nations he lengthens or shortens their day of Grace so as the Sun hath been set near a 1000. years ago upon most of Asia and yet shines upon us in the West of Europe upon whom it rose before it did upon them I mean the cherishing Light of a Christian Magistracy for we had our Lucius before they had their Constantine However this is certain that how long or short soever God hath in his eternal Counsel determin'd that space that they shall have their time of Grace as well as we and we shall have no more than our time and therefore as the night shall grow upon us that had day before them the day shall grow upon them and when the Sun is farthest from our Horizon it will be highest in theirs § 6. And this affords us another Argument against those who limit the Millenium to a precise number of years and yet
will have it commence at Constantine's Reign not considering that though the Revelation-prophecies have the Roman Empire for their Stage and therefore we cannot pitch upon a fitter time for the beginning of the Millenium than when the Laws of that Empire bound up Satan from cheating the World with Paganism it being the common notion of the World then when St. John gave out his Revelations that the bounds of the Empire were coincident with those of the habitable Earth Yet now the bounds of the Earth being found to be of a far larger extent we ought to stretch our conceptions touching the matters of those Prophesies that are yet infieri and current as the Reign of the Saints with Christ on the Earth is and shall be as long as the Earth is inhabited and as far as the earth is or shall be inhabited to an extent answerable to that of the things themselves And therefore are not to limit the Time of this Reign to any narrower compass of years than will be sufficient for the perfecting of the Call of that whole new-found World inhabited by the seed of Adam and within the bounds of that inheritance which was promis'd to Christ which as it cannot in reason be conceived to take up less time than will make the years since Satans binding so many more than a thousand as a child may count them to exceed that precise number so we cannot cast the call of those Nations into any other Epocha but that of St. John's thousand years for nothing is to intervene the expiring of that propheticall Millenium and the Day of general Judgment but that little space wherein Satan shall be let loose to deceive the Nations a very unmeet season for such a work and therefore I wonder that some very Learned and Judicious Persons should so soundly nap it here as to dream that Satan hath been let loose ever since the Turks took Constantinople when on the contrary God is making his Chain shorter than it was and not allowing him to Reign all over America as he did before Neither is he permitted so much as to tempt this upper Hemisphere to lick up its vomit of old Gentilism which is the only thing he is during the Millenium restrained from as Dr. Lightfoot well observes and the sad experience of all Ages demonstrates wherein he has been is and will be Persecuting the Womans Seed as far as his Instruments dare sowing his Tares among the good Seed deluding those that receive not the love of the Truth with as monstrous and damnable Errors as the Pagan Ages were given up to and tempting them to all the old Debaucheries and unnatural sins of that and the new invented ones of this Age which were not named among the Gentiles soliciting the Saints themselves and sometimes leading them captive to those sins they feel the bitterness of as long as they live Briefly he is bound up from being the God of the World as he was while he and his Angels were Worship'd as Gods but he is permitted still to play all other parts of a Devil in the World and will be till the Church exchanges the Armour of God for the Garment of Immortality so long as she stands having her Ioines girt about with Truth having on the Breast-plate of Righteousness and her feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace while she wears the Shield of Faith the Helmet of Salvation and the Sword of the Spirit while shee 's arm'd on the right hand and left while she stands thus in praecinctu upon her guard and is bid to stand so by the Captain of her Salvation which word of command she must be under till both Christ's and his Apostles Precepts be out of door we may be sure she has not only Flesh and Blood to wrestle with but Principalities and Powers the Rulers of the Darkness of this World and spiritual wickednesses in the Etherial places Besides that it will be unseasonable to assign that time for a season of grace to one half of the World wherein Satan is let loose to reinforce Paganism the shortness of that space of his loosing will not give room enough for the preaching of the Gospel to such multitudes of Nations and Languages It is an old Tradition of the Jews quoted by Dr. Lightfoot upon Rev. 20. That in the day when Judgment is upon the World and the holy blessed God sits upon the Throne of Judgment Satan who deceives high and low shall be found destroying high and low and taking away souls Methinks St. John in this Vision speaks to the heart of those Jews and Tertullian expounds this Text of the Revelation by that Tradition in his Treatises against the Manichees cap. 24. and de Anima cap. 35. and 38. where he hath this passage Post cujus regni mille annos intrà quam aetatem concluditur sanctorum resurrectio c. after the thousand years of which Reign of Christ within which age is included the Resurrection of the Saints c. I know Mr. Meed would have him to speak here of a Resurrection that shall be at the beginning of the Millenium but his prefixing before the mention of this Resurrection post cujus Regâ—i annos after the 1000. years of whose Reign seems to assign it to the latter end of the Millenium And Lactantius dates the loosing of Satan when the Millenium shall begin to end cùm caeperit terminari that is upon its expiring but within the compass of it at which time saith he the last wrath of God shall fall upon the Nations and when the 1000 years are fully compleat the World shall be renewed and the Heavens shall be rolled up and the Face of the Earth shall be changed at the very same time shall be the second and publick Resurrection of all men even of the unjust to eternal torments to wit such as have worship'd Gods made with hands and have either not known or denied the Lord of the World they and their Lord and his Angels and Ministers shall be apprehended and adjudged to punishment in the sight of the Holy Angels and just men Lactande divino praemio lib. 7. cap. 26. Having therefore these Authorities before me I hope the ingenious Reader will not reckon this Problem either a novelty or singularity CHAP. VIII That Satans loosing will not be till the Dawning of the day of Judgment Problematically discu'd § 1. Elect gather'd into the Air over the Valley of Jehoshaphat Chancells not all Eastward but all toward that Valley § 2. The Elect secur'd Satan re-enters and drives his old Demesne The wicked destroyed as Rebels actually in armes Believers tried as Citizens by the Books of Conscience and Book of Royal Law § 3. Gogg Rev. 20. a greater multitude than will meet before the day of Judgment When Prophesies are to be expounded Literally when Figuratively § 4. The Ottoman Army is not this Gogick § 5. The Fire of the last Conflagration carrieth
observ'd manifest Testimonies of the Divine presence in the constitution of Monarchies because it was impossible they could be erected or continued by Humane strength and were to that end appointed by God that they might be keepers of humane Society the Umpirers of Difference among the Nations of the World the preservers of the Laws Judgments and Peace c. The truth is it is a Miracle of it self that wheresoevet the Order of ruling and obeying hath once been received it remains for ever that some or other form of Government should be embraced all the World over That some Forms should last so many Ages in some certain Countries as the Regal among the Assyrians Aegyptians Francks c. This would not be if God had not a peculiar care of them and gave manifest tokens of that his care by his wonderful erecting of them by mean persons in respect of such undertakings such as Cyrus Alexander Julius Caesar made famous by nothing but Gods signal owning of them in his giving them success beyond their own expectation and the natural accomplishments of Unity Power and Policy and by his furbishing and setting a new gloss upon the splendour of his own Creature when at any time through length of time it was grown obsolete and in some places fixing a standing badge of an honourable discrimination of them from others upon the persons of the chief Governours as that wonderful gift of healing otherwise incurable Maladies by a touch intail'd upon our Kings Instances of that other way of Gods setting occasional Remarks upon his own great Ordinance when it grows into contempt occur every where in History God choosing rather to work Miracles and permit the Devil for the present to carry away the honour of them than to let the Grandeur fall of that Order which he had set in the World He the God of Order as St. Paul calls him that supreme God who rules the World to whom there is nothing upon earth more acceptable than Councils and Societies of men rightly associate Cicero som. Scipion. whose Providence is as much seen in the erecting of Empires as in framing the World Itaque praesens disputatio Romae magnam suspiciendamque conciliabit dignitatem si de ea id quod de terra mari caelo siderihus solet fieri disquirimus fortunam ne an providentiam authorem habeat Plut. de for Ro. God erected the Roman Empire saith Plutarch de for Rom. Ut omnibus hominibus conâ—ceret vestam re vera sacram beneficam ac stabile retinaculum elementum sempiternum quod rebus fluctuantibus atque sublabentibus anchora esset ut cum Democrito loquar Alexander's Empire being faln into pieces the fragments of it like the first Qualities in the Chaos never ceas'd clashing and putting the World into combustions and continual changings while each of his Successors sought to be that which not any one of them was Lord Paramount like the Cyclops in Euripides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A confused rout where none minded nothing that no body said till the Majesty of Empire becken'd to them to keep silence till Rome having attain'd to a Consistency and constringing in it self as well the neighbouring as foraign and transmarine Kingdoms the great affairs of the World obtain'd a firm basis whereon to lean and rest and were laid to sleep in the bosom of that Empire For the erecting of the Roman Empire Polib l. 1. It was a wonder to see how Fortune made all the Affairs of the whole World lead one way and incline to that one point 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Hebrews had a Proverb Nisi potestas publica esset alter alterum virum deglutiret Chrysâ—stom de statuis 6. If it were not for Governours we should lead a more wild life than wild Beasts not only biting but devouring one another Livii l. 26. Respublica incolumis privatas res salvas facile praestat publica prodeundo tua nequicquam serves It is not at all strange then that that God whose Philanthropie is so apparent should for the maintenance of this common good do such strange things as made the Gentiles conclude the persons of Princes to be Sacred regium nomen gentes quae sub regibus sunt pro deo colunt Q. Curtius Artabanus Persa apud Plutar. in Themistocl 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Among our many and good Laws this is the best That we reverence and honour the King as the Image of God who preserves all things in safety Though Gods using a standing Miracle to convince us hereof who have the Example of the blessed Jesus and the Injunctions of his holy Apostles to revere our Supream Governours seems to be an upbraiding us with that Proverb The King of England is King of Devils and speaks them to be right Devils incarnate to have their Intellects blinded with malice who when the divine Clemency doth thus superâ—rogate in affording us means of knowledge yet cannot will not see the Majesty of the Lord visibly sitting upon his own Ordinance Yet how the Rabble of Gentiles who had not Reason enough to see every mans private weal was imbark'd in the publick nor Religion enough to teach them that the powers that are are ordain'd of God those waves of the Sea should be kept in order and within their own bounds is hardly conceivable If he that rules the raging of the Sea and the madness of the people had not set them bounds beyond which they must not pass had not rayled in the Mount the Majesty of Supream Authority so as to make it unapproachable by the Thunder and Lightning the stupendious manifestations of Divine Power exerted for the common behoof of Mankind to beget and uphold in the vulgar an awe and reverence of that Order under which they were Marshal'd And therefore whatever miraculous events of that tendency fell out in the Age of Paganism were not the operations of Pagan Gods among whom there was not one but he was a profest enemy to Mankind but of Israels God the Creator and Conserver of the Universe and upon that account are to be taken into the Christians bill of miracles CHAP. XI The Deficiency of false the Characters of true Miracles § 1. Heathen Wonders unprofitable § 2. Of an impious Tendency § 3. Not above the power of Nature § 4. Moses and the Magicians Rods into Serpents § 5. The Suns standingstill and going back The Persian Triplesia § 6. Darkness at our Saviours Passion § 7. Christs Resurrection the Broad-seal set to the Gospel § 1. ANd for the rest of the reputed Miracles that come not within the compass of these Rules that will not come over to us as 1. being such as the Pagan Gods Genius was against 2. Or such as the God of Israel rewarded the Morality of Heathens with 3. Or such as he foretold he would do in Heathen Nations for the Discipline of his own people 4. Or such as he wrought for the punishment of those
the Illumination of Faith could not understand what Christ meant when he spake to them of his Resurrection and were ready to give up their hopes that he was he that should redeem Israel when they saw him giving up the Ghost and hanging down his Head upon the Cross as St. Thomas though he had seen Lazarus rais'd from the dead and heard it reported by credible Witnesses that Christ was risen would not believe it As Celsus Orig. cont Cels. l. 2. cal 41. rather than grant the Truth of the Christian Hypothesis denied the possibility of it As it seemed good to the holy Ghost to confirm the report of Christs Resurrection by all those Signs which the Apostles wrought after his Ascension by the name of the Holy Child Jesus while with great power they gave witness of his Resurrection Acts 4. 33. Yea so much did divine Goodness condescend to Humane imbecility as to give a fuller proof of that point so far above Reasons comprehension and much more out of the Sphere of Natural Power than the report of Eye-witnesses than the Confession of Adversaries than the Seal of those Miracles afforded by that Grace that was upon all the Publishers and fell upon all the Receivers of that Doctrine a Grace enabling them to live up to the Gospel and to bring forth those Fruits of Holiness Righteousness Temperance Meekness as sufficiently commended to the morallized part of the World that Root of Faith from whence they issued as far outstript the most glorious glittering productions of the Moral Philosophers as infinitely transcended the results of fantastick Credulty and put all other Religions to the blush at the sight of their own impotency CHAP. XII The Supernatural Power of Salvifick Grace § 1. The Church triumphs over the Schools § 2. Christianity layes the Axe to the Root § 3. The Rule imperfect before Christ. § 4. The Discipline of the Schools was without Life and Power § 5. Real exornations before Verbal Encomiums § 1. HEre Christian Reader I must crave thy help and beg thy aid towards the convincing the World of the Divine Original of Christian Religion which though it apparently bear the stamps of heavenly Wisdome in its Prophecies of in finite Power in its Miracles commends it self more to the Consciences of men by engaging its Fautors to a Conversation answerable to its Sacred Rules than by affording the most substantial Grounds of discoursing in its Defence by any other Arguments Religion is better maintain'd by Living than Disputing A Gospel-becoming Converse falls under the Observation and speaks to the Hearts of all men even of those who are not able to fathom the depth nor feel the ground of the most rational verbal Discourse well exprest by the Apostle of the Circumcision 1 Pet. 3. 1. Dr. Hammond annot in the Argument whereby he perswades Christian Matrons to be in subjection to their own though Gentile Husbands that if any obeyed not the Word submitted not to the Gospel upon the Demonstration of the Spirit and of Power they also without the Word which the Apostles preach'd in confirmation of the Resurrection of Christ might be won by the Conversation of their Wives while they beheld their chaste Conversation that Modesly which the true fear of God Christian Religion which alone rightly Disciplines persons in that fear taught them In his motive 1 Pet. 2. 12 13. to Christian Subjects to yield obedient subjection to their Heathen Magistrates and in that point particularly to lead an honest life among the Gentiles that whereas they were evil spoken of as Jews by reason of the turbulency and frequent rebellions of their Countrymen the Gentiles might see that Christian-Jews were of another spirit than the rest of that Nation and upon that account might revere them for their good works and glorifie God the Author of a Religion that had made them so much more meek regular and quiet under the Heathen Government which was over them than the other Jews were when the Proconsuls should be sent to make enquiry of the Commotions made by the unbelieving Party of that Nation It was by this Argument that the old Laic-Confessor silenc'd convinc'd and converted that proud and subtile Philosopher who bore up himself against all the Reasonings of the Learned Teachers of the Nicence Council Crab. tom 1. pag. 249. In the name of Jesus Christ saith he O Philosopher hear the Dictates of Truth There is one God Maker of Heaven and Earth who Created all things visible and invisible by the power of his Word and confirm'd them by the Sanctity of his Spirit This Word therefore which we call the Son of God having mercy on Mankind vouchsafed to be born of a VVoman to converse with Men and die for them and will come again to give sentence upon the Lives of all men By the belief of those things we Christians are freed from Error and from that Religion wherein Men live like Beasts into a state of living like Men. Upon this the Philosopher cries out that he is a Christian and assures his Fellows he was drawn to it not upon light grounds but by that ineffable Vertue which attended the embracing of Christianity In this Argument the ancient Patrons of the Christian Cause triumph'd over all other Religions and Disciplines The Christian Churches saith Origen contr Cels. lib. 3. cal 8. compared with other Societies are really the Lights of the VVorld who is there that must not confess if he make an impartial collation of them that the worst part of the Church excells vulgar assemblies for the Church of God at Athens for instance is meek and quiet c. the Pagan Assemblies seditious turbulent c. And to that Calumny of Celsus that the Christians invited the worst of sinners Origen makes this Reply that the Christian Philosophy did dayly reform the most degenerate Natures not by converting one or two in so many Ages as Phaedo who coming Piping hot out of the Stewes into Plato's School took those impresses from his Doctrine as Plato in his Dialogues brings Phaedo in discoursing of the Immortality of the Soul Or Palemon who by attending to Philosophical Discipline became of a Ruffian so temperate as he succeeded Xenocrates in his School but great multitudes Christs Fishers of men caught them by whole shoales when these Philosophical Anglers drew them up by unites Tertullian apolog 46. outvies the greatest Philosophers with common Christians Thales one of the seven VVisemen could not satisfie Craesus when he askt him what God was but required time for the return of an answer and the more he thought upon it was further off from finding a solution when every Mechanick Christian hath found and can shew all that can be askt concerning God though Plato says the framer of the Universe is neither easie to be found out nor to be exprest If we compare them in point of Chastity we read that one part of the Attick sentence against Socrates condemn'd him of Sodomy
the holiness of that Society whereof they are no Members nor the Efficacy of that Religion they either never came under the power of or have rejected the yoak of what must it be presum'd that the Sun shines not that its beams warm not because those men see not its Light are not refresh'd and vegetated with its Warmth who either shut their eyes or remove into a Clime it never visits Dr. Hammond An. in Heb. 4. 2. But the word that was heard did not profit those who were not by Faith joyned to them that obeyed it Shall we condemn the Seed because it thrives not to maturity of Fruit in the ground of a dishonest heart where either the fowles of the Air pick it up or it wants depth of earth or is choak'd with Thorns and Weeds Shall we question whether Christ be risen because men whose affections are so strongly set upon the earth as they cannot elevate them towards Heaven are not risen with him when we see such palpable Effects and Demonstrations of it in his raising those to a newness of Life who do not resist grieve or quench his Spirit but with an humble teachableness follow its conduct in that way of holiness his Word hath chalk'd out before us In order to our perseverance in this way and confirmation in our assurance that it will infallibly lead us to Peace here and eternal Glory hereafter I have undertaken this vindication of the Christian Faith against the prejudices which our modern either Scepticks or Atheists have taken up against it which as they took their rise from the Scandals which have been cast upon Religion by the woful miscarriages of men professing it in guile and hypocrisie so they must fall before a Spirit of Grace and Glory resting upon the embracers of it in Truth and Sincerity and shining out upon the World in their so peaceable humble meek and every way Christian deportment and men seeing their good works may glorifie their Father who is in Heaven and revere that Discipline as proceeding from that Father of Lights by whose influence the wildness of common Nature is abated and its vertuous Seeds so improved as to bring forth Fruit chearing the heart both of God and Man To which if thou beest instigated Christian Reader to aspire by the perusal of this Discourse and so become one of Christs Witnesses by sealing to the Truth of the Gospel by a Life answerable to its most holy just and yet easie Precepts thou wilt lay up for thy self a good Foundation for time to come and contribute towards the conviction of the Adversaries of the Christian Faith by an Argument so familiar as it incurrs into every mans sense and so strenuous as the most stubborn Atheist will not be able to resist it but be forc'd to confess the unreasonableness of his own Exceptions against a Religion that brings forth such Divine Effects Would we all study thus to adorn the Doctrine of God our Saviour in all things such real exornations would render Religion more venerable in the eyes of the VVorld than all verbal Encomiums those whom the close fist of the most Logical Arguings cannot force the commanding beck of that open-handed Eloquence would allure to a silent admiring of that sacred Fountain whence they see such healing VVaters flow That this my Request to my Readers may take effect I shall back it with that Request to God which my Dear Mother the Holy Church of England hath put into her Childrens mouth More especially we pray for the good estate of the Catholick Church that it may be so guided and govern'd by thy good Spirit that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of Truth and hold the Faith in Unity of Spirit in the Bond of Peace and in Righteousness of Life And this we beg for Jesus Christ his Sake To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory world without end Amen FINIS To their old Cells and Altars the whole crew Of Guardian Gods Troy falling bid adieu While impious Caesar and his Godded rout Spurn Phoebus Tripos with insulting foot The learned Varro useth to expend So many hours in reading as we deem A winged minutes scantling can scarce lend It self unto his pen yet that doth seem To trust more notions to his sweating Page Than quickest eye can run o're in an Age. To my dark Cabin in the Stygean strand Dismiss me or if that be too much ease Send me to Phlegethon where I may stand Rather than here chin-high in fiery seas Haled from Styx to Thebes my ancient seat Had I my choice hard choice I would retreat If Heaven the fire and Earth the dam of things Had been from Ever whence is 't no Poet sings Of Wars more old than Troy of Floods than Noah Of Rapes than Jove and thousand wonders moe Had men nor hands to act nor hands to write During the seculum Prae-Adamite Had Nile for ages numberless no Reed Nor Bees Wax nor Trees Bark nor Hills a breed of Sheep nor Sheep a Skin nor Goose a Quill Nor Polypus his native Ink distil Or Man the Goose of all not wit to learn To make a Pen much less to guide a Stern Or build a Ship or break a Horse or bring The Oxe to th' yoke the Hawk to lure or string The warbling Lute or count the Stars by name Or other Arts whose birth we know by fame Whose growth we see come on with age We owe to thee great Caesar Triumphs many More Temples built and Temples that lay waste Repair'd more Cities Gods and Shews than any But most that thou hast taught Rome to be chaste Whom we invoke for Gods 't is Jove's decree Were Men of Bounty once and Gallantry But now with highest Deities attend On our affairs and us toth ' Gods commend The Father Word and Spirit God alone That Cotternal Three in one Thy will Theodames for Hecate Forc'd by thy charms dares not say nay Your Charms from me against my will commands These Responds I have said now loose my bands Judea worshippeth alone The God elsewhere unknown Him Pan men call Because he succours all They lay on tepid Altars Babes not born Of Mothers Wombs but from their Bellies torn Issa Bills sweeter than a Dove Issa's more blith than Mal or Siss No Pearls equal Issa's love What Issa's this Publius his Bitch Thus against Hercules vext the field to lose From wounded Hydra heads more fierce arose Who outstript all the Sophs in this Essay Quenching their Star-light with his Solar Ray.