were written by any of them it is not much material so it were written by some of them and that it was so is very evident from Clemens his Epistle who has borrowed divers passages out of it word for word And to the same purpose is the Controversie concerning the Revelations all allowing it to have been of Apostolical Antiquity onely some will have it to have been written by Saint John the Apostle others by Saint Mark sirnamed John others by Saint John call'd the Elder but whosoever it was that wrote it it was written in the Apostolical Age and that is enough Though it is moreover sufficiently attested that Saint John the Apostle was the Authour of it both by the Testimony of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus who lived very near the time of its writing Lastly Those that were at first doubted of were not afterwards rashly admitted into the Canon but were admitted upon carefull enquiry mature deliberation and unexceptionable Testimony For as they were at first own'd by some and disputed by others this became a matter of debate in the Church and that obliged them to make farther enquiry after the evidence of their Authority and by that means the whole Church was at last satisfied of that which at first onely a part of it was able to prove And this might come to pass after this manner the Apostles directed many of their Epistles to particular Churches so that it is possible that some of them might be known to some Churches and not to others who therefore doubting of them put those who asserted them to have been true Apostolical Writings to prove their Assertion and they it seems brought such evident proof of their Tradition as gain'd the consent of the whole Church to their Authority And this probably they did by producing the Originals written under the Apostles own hands and reserved in the Archives of the several Churches For that many such there were Tertullian informs us even in his time and to them refers the Men of his own Age for their full satisfaction § X. And therefore it is but a very slender Witticism of Mr. Hobbs in derogation of the Authority of the holy Scripture when he has acknowledg'd that the Writers of the New Testament lived all in less than an Age after Christ's Ascension and had all of them seen our Saviour or been his Disciples except Saint Paul and Saint Luke and consequently that whatsoever was written by them is as ancient as the time of the Apostles yet were they made canonical Scripture onely by the Authority of the Church that is the Council of Laodicea which first collected the Canon of the Scriptures and recommended them to us as the Writings of those Apostles and Disciples under whose Names they go hereby wittily intimating or rather broadly asserting that these Writings were not canonical Scripture till that Council that is till the year 364. But first Supposing that it is not the Authour but the Authority of the Church that makes a Book Canonical then were the Books of the New Testament made so long before the Council of Laodicea in that we find them enumerated in the Apostolical Canons which though they were not compil'd by Clement as was vulgarly supposed yet were they the Decrees of Councils in the first and second Ages succeeding the Apostles So that upon this account they were stamp't Canonical almost as soon as they were written Secondly The Testimony of the Church neither is nor can be any more than a proof or an argument of the Original and Divine Authority of the canonical Books as any other Testimony is or may be Thus when we cite Clement of Rome Ignatius Policarp Justin Martyr Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus yes and Celsus himself that lived either in or near the Apostles times as giving in Testimony to their Writings no Man can without very wilfull impertinence thence infer that it is they that give the Books their Divine Authority when it is so evident that they are onely made use of as competent Witnesses to attest that they were no forged Writings but were pen'd by those very Persons under whose Names they go and if they are then they themselves make good their own Authority For Authority is nothing else but the right or power of binding our Assent which unless it be done by the Authour himself it is impossible to be done by any other and all the Councils in the World can never give Divine Authority to any Book if it had it not before All their Office is to bear testimony to their Authenticalness and it is no inconsiderable Evidence of it when so many grave and learned Men of the first Ages of Christianity upon mature deliberation of the whole matter in Council declare that upon the strictest enquiry they are fully satisfied that those Books were written by those very Authours whose Names they bear But from hence to infer as the Leviathan does that their canonical Authority that is their being the Law of God depends entirely upon the Decree of the Church as if it could give or take it away at pleasure onely becomes Mr. Hobbs's Logick and Modesty and them it becomes equally for it is very hard to determine whether the Conclusion be more impudent or more impertinent § XI And now beside this direct demonstrative proof of the Apostolical Antiquity and Authority of the holy Scriptures which alone is a full demonstration of the Divinity of the Christian Institution there is another more remote way of proving the truth of the History insisted upon by learned Men that is by the concurrent Testimony of foreign Writers Jews or Heathens who lived in or about the same time but this Evidence is so weak in comparison of that which I have already produced that I shall not prosecute it as an Argument in my Cause but rather consider it as an Objection against it viz. That if the History of our Saviour were so known and notorious as is pretended how comes it to pass that so little notice is taken of it by any Authours but onely such as were his own Disciples There were many other excellent Writers especially Historians about that time so that if his Actions had been so great and remarkable as his Disciples tell us they were it is scarce credible that they should pass him over with so slender a regard and scarce any mention of him In answer to this I shall in the sequel of this Discourse give a satisfactory and rational account of the Infidelity both of Jews and Heathens notwithstanding Christianity brought along with it all that Evidence that we pretend it did But beside this I shall here shew that the best Writers of that time concur with and so confirm the main strokes of our Saviour's History and by consequence all the rest that is interwoven with them especially when what they write is purely to deliver matter of Fact without any design to serve the cause of Christianity For when all things
same time and laid down their Lives out of that undoubted assurance they had of its truth and certainty We may now with much more reason doubt of what was done to his late Majesty in January 1648. than they could at that time of the Testimony of the Apostles concerning the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Neither did the current of this Tradition stop here in the Corinthian Church but as it came down from the first Witnesses so it descended in the same chanel to after-times for as the Apostolical Writings are own'd by this Epistle so is this Epistle by those who could not but be certain of its Authority especially Dionysius Bishop of that Church to whom it was written for as Saint Clement's Epistle was written not long after the time of the Apostles probably in the Reign of Domitian so was that of Dionysius written not at a greater distance from Saint Clemens for he flourished in the time of M. Aurelius and had full assurance of its being authentick from its having been constantly read in the Corinthian Church So that the Tradition of the Apostles Testimony was as certain in that Church in the time of that Emperour who began his Reign about the year 161. as it was in their own time so that if the Corinthians who lived in the time of Dionisius had been contemporary to the Apostles themselves they could not have had a more satisfactory and unquestionable information of the truth of those things that they preached than was given them from so clear and uninterrupted a Tradition for that being so entirely free from all manner of doubt and suspicion the distance of time made no alteration as to the certainty of the thing § XXX To the Testimony of this Apostolical Man we may joyn that of Ignatius Policarp Papias and Quadratus as having all conversed with the followers and familiars of our Saviour And first as for Ignatius he was educated under the Apostles themselves and by them constituted Bishop of the great City of Antioch where he sate many years and govern'd his charge with extraordinary zeal and prudence and at last with infinite courage and alacrity suffer'd Martyrdom for the Testimony of his Faith There have been great Controversies of late in the Christian World concerning his Epistles though with how little reason on their side that oppose them I have accounted elsewhere and though I shall by and by make use of their Authority and make it good too yet our present Argument is not concern'd in that dispute for whether these Epistles that at this time pass under his name be genuine or counterfeit it is certain that there was such a Man and that he wrote such Epistles and if so then he is another competent Witness of the truth of the Apostolical Testimony and his great sense of Immortality and earnest desire of Martyrdom shew his great assurance of our Saviour's Resurrection upon which they were founded so that he is another undoubted Witness of the Apostolical Tradition viz. That the Christian Faith descended from the Apostles and that they gave that proof of their Testimony that is recorded of them in the holy Scriptures And by his Testimony of the truth of all that Christianity pretends to is the Tradition of the Apostles connected with the certain History of after-times so as to leave no dark and unknown Interval wherein the Story pretended to have been formerly acted by the Apostles might have been first obtruded upon the World but on the contrary to make it undeniably evident that there could never have been any such Story had it not first descended from the Apostles But though this be enough to my purpose for attesting the truth of the Apostolical History by such a near and immediate Witness to make the Tradition of the Church certain and uninterrupted yet I will not wave that advantage that I have from this glorious Martyr's Epistles because they breathe so much the genuine spirit of the ancient Christianity especially as to the undoubted assurance of a future Immortality which shews what mighty satisfaction they had of the reality of the thing that they so firmly believed and so vehemently desired And as for the Epistles themselves they are so strongly and unanimously attested by the Records of the ancient Church that they had never been so much as question'd but for their resolute Opposition to some Mens Prejudices for they being resolved in their own Innovation of Church-government contrary to that of the Apostolical and primitive Constitution which these Epistles so zealously assert and that as establisht by the command of God and thereby made necessary to the peace of the Christian Church they had no way left but stubbornly I ought to have said impudently to reject their Authority But alas that is so admirably vouched as if the Providence of God had purposely design'd to secure their credit for ever And particularly in the first place by his Friend Policarp who sent a Copy of them to the Church of Philippi with a Letter of his own now Policarp's Epistle was never question'd nay it was for some hundred years after publickly read in the Churches of Asia how then is it possible to avoid so clear and certain a Testimony as this they have no other way but onely by saying that this particular passage was foisted in without any shadow of ground for the surmise nay contrary to the common sense of Mankind that an Epistle so universally known to the learned and the unlearned should be so easily corrupted and the corruption never taken notice of and when this counterfeit passage was thrust into it contrary to the faith of all the publick Books it should pass down uncontroul'd and unquestion'd to all after-ages Nay farther if it were forged it must have been before the time of Eusebius who gives an account of it and believes it genuine and yet himself affirms that it was at his time publickly read in Churches as Saint Jerome afterwards that it was in his now it is a very probable thing that Eusebius would be imposed upon by one private Copy contrary to the faith of all the publick Books or that he should impose the mistake upon all that followed him when the same Books were preserved in the same publick manner till the time of Saint Jerome But beside this they have another shift altogether as groundless and not less bold viz. That it is true that there had been such Epistles of Ignatius that Policarp speaks of but that a little before Eusebius his time the true ones were lost and a counterfeit Copy put upon the World which as it is nothing but meer conjecture for the sake of a desperate cause and void of all pretence of probability so it is incredible in it self and not possible in the course of humane Affairs that such a famous Writing of such an ancient and apostolical Bishop of such an eminent and glorious Martyr written at such a time at the
met with many Bishops and found them all of one Mind and teaching the same Doctrine and having given some account of Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians he adds that the Church remain'd after that in the pure and right Doctrine untill the time of Primus Bishop there with whom sayling to Rome I conferred and abode many days being come to Rome I stayed there till the time of Anicetus whose Deacon was Eleutherius whom Soter succeeded and after him Eleutherius In all their Succession and in every one of their Cities it is no otherways taught than as the Law and the Prophets and the Lord himself preached This is a singular Testimony of the sincere Tradition not onely of one or two or a few Churches but of the Catholick Church And as he described the Ecclesiastical Succession every where so has he the rise and birth of Heresies and particularly in the Church of Jerusalem After that James sirnamed the Just had suffer'd Martyrdom his Uncle Simeon the Son of Cleophas was chosen Bishop being preferred by the unanimous Vote of all because he was the Lord's Kinsman And hitherto that Church was call'd a pure Virgin because as yet it had not been deflour'd with any false Doctrines But Thebalis being displeased that he was not chosen Bishop secretly endeavour'd to debauch it from whom sprang those many Heresies that he afterward reckons up and so having elsewhere described the Martyrdom of Saint Simeon he adds untill those times the Church of God remain'd a pure and undefiled Virgin For such as endeavour'd to corrupt the perfect Rule and the sincere delivery of the Faith hid themselves till that time in secret and obscure places but after that the sacred Company of the Apostles was worn out and that generation was wholly spent that by special favour had heard with their Ears the heavenly Wisedom of the Son of God then the conspiracy of wicked and detestable Heresies through the fraud and imposture of such as affected to be masters of new and strange Doctrines took rooting And because none of the Apostles were then surviving they published with all imaginable confidence and boldness their false conceits and impugned the old plain certain and known truth At these passages I must stop a little because though they are a great Testimony of the purity of the primitive Church yet I find them very confidently made use of by Innovatours as unanswerable Arguments for rejecting its Authority Thus Gittichius an eager Socinian contending with Ruarus both concerning Grotius his way of writing in making so much use of citations out of the ancient Fathers in his Commentaries and withall concerning the primitive Fasts of the Church which Schliclingius and some of that party began to imitate condemns it not onely as altogether useless but dangerous De antiquitate in Religionis negotio statuo extra ipsas sacras novi foederis literas in iis exempla Apostolorum nullius omnino antiquitatis habendam cuiquam Christiano ullam rationem And then proves his Assertion from this passage of Hegesippus and the more ancient he says the Tradition is after the time of the Apostles so much the worse it is because from the very time of their dissolution the Church was overrun with Heresie and Superstition So peevish are Men against the honour and authority of the ancient Church when they are sensible of their own Apostasie from it And the truth is all our Innovatours agree in this one principle and that for this one very good reason because the ancient Church if it were permitted to give judgment upon them condemns them all For these Men finding errours and corruptions in the Church of Rome instead of reforming them as they ought to have done according to the Constitution of the primitive Church they fall to contriving new Models and Bodies of Divinity out of their own brains And among others Socinus disliking the Calvinian Theology as contrary not onely to the holy Scriptures but to the first principles of natural Religion sets up a new Divinity of his own contrivance without ever enquiring into the Doctrine and Discipline of the ancient Church and being advised of his flying so wide of it he together with his followers rather than part with their own fine new Notions of which they had the honour to be the first Authours and Abettours will by no means allow of any such thing as a true and uncorrupted Church ever since the time of the Apostles But with what vanity and arrogance it is none of my present task to enquire onely in answer to this Objection I must reply that it is a very wide and I am sure very far from a civil Inference to conclude that because there were Heresies in the primitive Church there was nothing else And they might with as much reason have applied the Objection against the Apostolical Church it self because then as the Apostles themselves complain the Tares were sowing though it seems not so openly and so impudently as afterwards Nay upon these terms it is impossible their should ever be any such thing as a true Church in the World for as long as there are such things as Pride and Vanity among Mankind there will be such Men in all Societies as will be tainted with their own idle dreams and conceits and then rub their itch upon the common People But though there were Heresies in the primitive Church which I say was not to be avoided as long as it consisted of Men yet they were never able to prevail but after some struggling for admittance were sooner or later utterly stifled And we have as certain a Tradition of the Birth Growth and Death of Heresies as we have of the true Doctrines of the Church and it is very considerable that all the ancient Doctours of the Church overwhelm the Hereticks with this one Argument by convicting them of apparent Innovation and deriving down their own Doctrines from the Apostles themselves So that though there were Heresies in the primitive Church yet its Apostolical Tradition was never mixt or tainted with them but run down in a pure and clear chanel by it self And therefore it is a very childish as well as disingenuous Objection against its Authority that there were some Men in it that would have been corrupting the purity of its Doctrine but were never able to compass their design especially when they were so far from passing undiscover'd or uncontroul'd that we have as certain an account both of the Men and of their Opinions and their inconsistency with the Apostolical Tradition as we have of the new fangled conceits of our own present Innovatours And therefore there is no more danger of our swallowing down old Heresies together with the Tradition of the Church than there is of sucking in their new ones whilst we adhere faithfully to that And thus having upon occasion of this particular passage of this ancient Authour cleared the Authority of the ancient Church in
when they are quoted as such by those Persons that lived next and immediately after them and have passed from the very first Age through all Ages downward with an unquestionable Authority there is no possible account to be given how they should first come by it and then for ever after retain it unless they were for certain the Works of those Men whose names they bear Thus particularly Saint Matthew's Gospel is quoted by Clemens of Rome a Familiar of Saint Paul by Ignatius by Policarp by Papias the Disciples of Saint John not to mention Justin Martyr Athenagoras Irenaeus and all the other Writers of the Age next after the Apostles Now if this be so Then first Either this Gospel was written in the Apostles time or it was not If not how could it be cited by those that were their Contemporaries Secondly The things reported in it were either true or false if true then so is the Gospel too if false then it had destroyed its own credit by publishing known falshoods For though it is easie to forge a Story acted in former times without discovery and contradiction yet to make a Forgery of so wonderfull a transaction as was the History of Jesus of Nazareth so near the time in which it was pretended to have been acted and that without controll or contradiction nay with full credit and undoubted Authority as appears by these Apostolical Mens unanimous Testimony is if any thing in the World absurd and incredible enough to make up another Article of Infidelity Thirdly Either this Book was written by Saint Matthew or it was not If it was then it was the Testimony of an eye Witness that converst with our Saviour both before and after his Resurrection If it was not then how could it be thrust upon him in his own Age and gain so unquestionable an Authority with those Men that conversed either with him or with his Companions And now if we gain the Authority of this one Gospel that alone is a sufficient proof of the Divine Authority of the Christian Faith in that the main Foundations of it are here recorded viz. The Life Death and Resurrection of our Saviour which being believed as they are here recorded are an infallible demonstration of his Divinity The same account I might give of almost all the other Books of the New Testament in that they were received from the beginning as the most unquestionable Records of the Apostles But that were onely to repeat the same Argument so many times over and therefore supposing the same ancient Testimony concerning them as we have concerning Saint Matthew I shall leave the Reader to apply the same Argument that I have urged concerning him Neither do I this onely to avoid needless Repetition but because it has been often done by other hands particularly by Eusebius of old and Huetius of late who have vouched every Book by it self from the Testimony of the earliest Antiquity And therefore as for the truth of the matter of Fact I had rather refer to them than transcribe them though that being supposed the Argument is of the same force in every one as it is in Saint Matthew's Gospel § IX It is true that some few Books were for a good time doubted of as the Epistle to the Hebrews the Second of Saint Peter the Second and Third of Saint John and the Apocalypse But then first Suppose their Authority was still questionable the Christian Faith can subsist very well without them by the remaining Authority of those that were never questioned And though they are very usefull and excellent Discourses yet have they little peculiar in them that is not to be found in the other Apostolical Writings And if we understand the matter aright though they are written by Divine Inspiration yet are they not of the Foundation of the Christian Faith but onely pious Discourses proceeding upon the supposition of it Being written occasionally either to exhort us to an effectual belief of those things that are recorded in the Gospels or to encourage us against Tryals and Persecutions or to allay Schisms and Contentions or to confute Errours and Heresies or to reform Abuses and Corruptions so that though they had never been written the Foundations of our Faith were before firmly laid in the History of our Saviour's Life Doctrine Passion and Resurrection And therefore the Authority of all the rest is at last resolved into that of the historical Books that is the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles which being supposed true they warrant both the Reason and Authority of the Apostolical Epistles that onely deduce those proper and natural Conclusions that flow from their Premises Nay farther 't is not primarily necessary to Christianity to believe that the Books of the New Testament were dictated by an infallible Spirit but it is sufficient that the historical Books are good and authentick Records of the Life of our Saviour and the design of his Errand into the World and that the Writings of the Apostles are pious Discourses consonant with and conducing to the Ends of Christianity The Foundation whereof seems to lie in this one thing that Jesus Christ was sent into the World for the Work he pretended to come about by Divine Commission For God having set several Hypotheses of Providence on work in the World to bring all things to their end and perfection at last design'd this as the most compleat model of all Vertue Goodness and Morality So that if the History of those things which Jesus both did and taught be truly recorded by the Evangelists that is a sufficient evidence of his own Divine Authority But as for his Historians that comes in upon another score in that we know that the Authours of all those Writings were inspired and directed by the Holy Ghost but then that we know onely from the Writings themselves and therefore their Truth must be supposed antecedent to their Divine Authority and that being supposed our Saviour's Divine Authority is thereby proved and that being proved that alone is a full demonstration of the Divinity of the Christian Religion But secondly If those few Books were so long debated before they were admitted into the Canon that is an Argument of the great care and caution of the Church in its belief in that it would not lightly receive any Book till it was fully satisfied of its being Authentick and therefore its long doubtfulness and disputation about these Books clears it from all suspicion of rashness and credulity as to those that she always own'd with a full and unanimous Approbation Thirdly The Controversie concerning the disputed Books relates not so much to their Antiquity as their Authour and they are not brought in question because they were not written in the Apostolical Age but because it seemed uncertain by whom they were then written Thus the Epistle to the Hebrews some attribute to Saint Paul some to Saint Luke some to Barnabas some to Clemens but if it
those things that were reported concerning Jesus and if they did so we have in the Premises sufficiently proved the validity of their Testimony And that is all the use that we can pretend to make of these foreign Witnesses to evidence that there was such Testimony then given and if there was then its being given in such circumstances as it was is more than enough to maintain it self without their farther assistance Now this being premised in vain does Tanaquil Faber insist upon it that the most zealous Christian could not speak more magnificently of Christ than this unbelieving Jew For what wonder is that when the unbelieving Jew onely reports the sense of the zealous Christian In vain does he urge that Josephus was of the Sect of the Pharisees which Sect of all others bore most spleen and hatred to our Saviour For of what Sect soever he was he was far from being any of the greatest Zealots and as far from being a serious Jew as a good Christian how else could he have been so prophane as to apply all the Prophesies of the Old Testament concerning the Messias to the Person of Vespasian an Heathen and an Idolater But beside this our Authour forgets himself in objecting Josephus his being a Pharisee when a little after he informs us out of Josephus himself that he had passed through all the Sects of the Jews and had at last enter'd himself into the Discipline of Banus a Disciple and Successour of John the Baptist. And it is no wonder that a Disciple of that Institution should speak favourably of Jesus so that if we should suppose him in good earnest in his Character of our Saviour it would be no very hard supposition but that he should describe him by those Titles that his own Disciples gave him he could not avoid it of what Sect soever he were as he would quit himself like a faithfull Historian And though after his entring himself into the Discipline of Banus he join'd as himself informs us with the Sect of the Pharisees yet that was onely in outward shew and upon a political account they being then the most powerfull Party among the Jews so that by their assistance he first prefer'd himself to publick Employment and at last obtain'd the Government of all Galilee which he was so far from ruling like a Jewish Zealot that in all things he behaved himself like a Roman Gentleman and the main thing objected to him by his Enemies was his indifferency and unconcernedness as to the Ceremonies of their Religion Again in vain does our learned Critick aggravate that Jesephus should give our Saviour the Title of God when that is more than the Jews themselves believed of their Messias For it is evident that he onely uses a very common and almost proverbial form of speech nothing being more frequent with the Greek and Latin Writers whose schemes of speech Josephus every where endeavours to imitate than to give the Title of Gods to all Great and extraordinary Persons so that when Josephus gives our Saviour this Title it is the same thing as if he had styl'd him Hero or something that though a Man yet by his miraculous works seem'd greater than a Man Lastly in vain does he urge that if Josephus had believed our Saviour to be the Messias he would have explain'd to the Greeks for whose sake he wrote in their Language what was the Nature and the Office of the Messias So probably he would if he had been an Apostle and designed to convert the World to Christianity but when he writes of him onely as an Historian what concernment had he upon that occasion to run into so great a digression He told the plain Story as he had it from the Disciples of Jesus and left it to the Reader to judge of its truth or falsehood But still our Critick is much more severe in his next Injunction when he requires of the Historian that if he believed Jesus to be the Messias to have given an account of John the Baptist's being his Forerunner For whether he believed it or not I cannot see what reason or obligation he had for so doing unless it is not possible to give a compendious Character of a Person without setting down every particular circumstance of his Life and Actions But now our learned Authour advances from his Arguments to his Authorities And first of all Origen expresly asserts that Josephus did not believe Jesus to be the Christ. And I know no body that affirms he did but yet could he not give him that Title that was so familiarly given him unless too he asserted the justice of the Title All that he affirms is onely that this was the Man that was at that time call'd the Christ though he happens to express it by saying this was the Christ a very common form of speech among the Greeks to put 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was for was called And if so I hope an Historian might relate the Opinion that was had of him without declaring his own In the next place Justin Martyr and Tertullian says our Authour wrote against the Jews and if this passage had been extant in Josephus in their times it is searce credible that they should altogether overlook so remarkable a Testimony This is the hard condition that our Criticks have of late put upon all Authours to quote all that ever they reade and to think of every thing that is pertinent to their Cause but this seems too severe an imposition upon the memories of Mankind And yet supposing these Fathers were not ignorant of this passage of Josephus to what purpose should they have alledged it when it is their evident design to dispute against the Jews purely out of the writings of the Prophets and by them alone to prove Jesus to be the Christ. And if so what does the Testimony of Josephus signifie to confirm the truth of that which they had already proved by the Testimony of God himself So that these Authours were so far from being obliged by their Cause to hale in this passage that they could not but have brought it in very impertinently In short it is enough that in those Writings they appeal onely to Divine Authority and then it is no particular neglect of Josephus if he be past by as well as all other Authours of his rank and condition And thus have I given a full and exact account of all those weighty Objections that have been levied against this passage of Josephus and so leave it to all wise Men to judge whether our learned Criticks might not have better employed themselves than to raise so much noise against it to so little purpose And now having dispatch't this great Testimony of Josephus I might add to him Suetonius Tacitus the younger Pliny Seneca who give us the same relation of the great pretences of Jesus and the greater prevalency of his Religion But their Testimonies have been
with all the opposition that Mankind could make it it was forced to encounter the Fury of the Multitude the Zeal of Superstition the Hatred of the Jews the Contempt of the Greeks the Power of the Romans the Pride of Philosophers and the Policy of Statesmen and by all these together that is by all means possible was it every-where harrassed with all the outrage and cruelty of Persecution No other party of Men in the World were ever hunted with that keenness of Malice or sacrifised with that cheapness and contempt of humane Bloud and as the Enemies to Christianity supposed it to be a new thing in the World they resolved its Punishments should be so too invented new methods of Torment studied all the arts of Pain and were not satisfied with the death of Christians unless they might tire them out of their Lives with length and variety of Tortures In short it wanted not the utmost opposition that could be made against it by Men or Devils if we suppose as we may for argument sake that there are any such malignant Beings And yet notwithstanding all disadvantages it grew and flourished after such a rate all the World over as if it had met with all the contrary ways and methods of encouragement Now what could be the reason of all this There is no other imaginable account to be given of it but that irresistible force of evidence that it gave of its Truth and Divine Authority For when every thing else was against it and yet notwithstanding it prevailed so wonderfully by the power of its own truth it must be clear of all doubt and suspicion that could bear away the Minds of Men with so great a force against all Arguments and Motives in the World beside For I do not urge this at present as an argument of God's Providence being concern'd in its propagation but for the reasonableness of the thing it self viz. that a Doctrine labouring under all these mighty and unparallel'd disadvantages should ever have prevaild with such suddain and admirable success had it not come attested with the clearest and most irresistible Proofs For is it not utterly incredible that an Institution so destitute of secular Power and Interest so uncouth to the Principles and Prejudices of Education so contrary to the Vices and Inclinations of Men so contradictory to the settled Laws and what was much more considerable to the establisht Religions of Common-wealths so much opposed by all the Power all the Wit and all the Zeal in the World should yet so effectually bear away all resistence and force the strugling World in spite of all their opposition to yield up all that was dear to them to the evidence of its Divine Authority For seeing it could have nothing else to recommend it to the World nay seeing it had all other things to oppose it and yet found such strange and otherwise unaccountable entertainment that alone I say is a demonstrative proof of its infinite evidence and certainty Neither am I ignorant that learned Men both Ancient and Modern usually ascribe it to the Almighty and miraculous Power of God overruling the Minds of Men And the truth is the thing was so prodigious that it is scarce accountable how it could be done without a Miracle But though I do not doubt of the secret and inward workings of the Spirit of God upon the Minds of Men yet I can by no means allow the reason of any thing to be resolved into that alone for if that be the onely reason of any Man's assent then his assent is unreasonable and all the account he can give of his Faith is that he finds himself vehemently inclined to believe he knows not why But that is not a proper way of determining rational Creatures and therefore we cannot suppose that God would force the Minds of Men to a stronger assent than the evidence of the thing assented to requires for that instead of helping the Understandings of Men would utterly destroy them And therefore how strong soever the influences of the Spirit of God were upon the Minds of the Primitive Christians as no doubt they were very extraordinary yet the outward and rational evidence that he gave them of the truth of Christianity was still proportionable to that inward confidence that he wrought upon their Minds otherwise they had more confidence than they had reason for and then all that they had over and above was unreasonable Seeing therefore their Faith was so infinitely confident I shall demonstrate that the grounds and motives that they had for it were equal to their greatest assurance and they were chiefly these two undeniable Miracles and undoubted Tradition from both which they had so great an assurance of the Christian Faith that it was not possible for them to be deceived and if they had so much they had as much as can be desired because no Man can have more § XXIII I have already shewn in the beginning of this Discourse the great and unparallel'd credibility of the Apostles Testimony taken by it self as it stands upon their own naked Reputation in that we have all the evidence in the World that they were sincere and serious in their Design so that meerly by virtue of their own Authority they might justly chalenge the Faith of Mankind But to the undoubted Integrity of the Witnesses God was pleased to adde a more forcible Testimony of his own by enduing them with a power of working Miracles and thereby demonstrating to the World that as they who pretended to be his Ambassadours were serious and in good earnest in their Design so was he too And in truth unless he had endued them with this power from above they could never have had the courage so much as to have undertaken the work but instead of travelling into all parts of the World to tell a Story to the People of which they could not understand one word as being utter Strangers to the Language in which they spake they must have concluded it a wiser course to resolve upon mending their old Nets and betaking themselves to their old Trade But this Eusebius has excellently represented to us in their own Persons In that when our Saviour commanded them to go and teach all Nations they ought to have replied upon him how is this possible that we who are unlearned Persons and understand onely our mother Tongue should discourse in their several Languages to the Romans Grecians Egyptians Persians Armenians Chaldeans Scythians Indians and all the other numberless Nations of the barbarous World And if we cannot as without a Miracle we cannot to what purpose is it to travel from Pole to Pole and tell an unintelligible Story to the People Nay how can we so much as dream that it is possible for us to perswade them to renounce their Country Gods and to worship a new and unknown Deity What eloquence what unheard of power of words must we be inspired with to encourage us
thing and after that when Men reported that to have been done which they knew impossible to be done what followed but away with them for idle Cheats and Lyars And therefore without ever examining them they thrust them into Prison with all manner of scorn and indignation Acts 5. 17 18. Secondly as for the Pharisees who were of the greatest power and reputation with the People they were a strange sort of ignorant supercilious and conceited Fanaticks And there is no temper of Mind so fixed and stubborn as religious Pride and Self-conceitedness 't is of all Illusions the most delightfull to the minds of Men and when they are once throughly possest with it it barrs up their Understandings against all Arguments it takes away the use of their natural Faculties and to go about to convince them of their folly and hypocrisie is onely to provoke their rage and choler This was the state of the case between our Saviour and the Pharisees They pretended to the strictest Piety and valued themselves at a mighty rate beyond all other Men for the singularity and exactness of their devotion And yet this they placed not in any conformity to the Divine Laws but in the observation of some vain Customs and Traditions derived from their Forefathers Now this being so gross and so foolish an Imposture our Saviour set himself particularly to represent its vanity and took all occasions to convince them that they had utterly forsaken the Law of Moses for which they pretended so much reverence and that the Customs they were so fond of were no part of his Religion because no where injoin'd in his Law but meer arbitrary conceits of their own devising And this it was that raised their displeasure against him to so great an height of hatred and indignation that a Person who pretended to so great an Office and Authority as that of the Messias should represent them so contemptibly in his publick and constant discourses to the People And therefore instead of considering the nature and truth of his Doctrine they all along set themselves to trapan him in his Discourses and minded nothing else but to pursue their revenge against him and never rested till they had wrecked all their malice upon him as the mortal Enemy of their Sect. Now 't is no wonder that Persons of this complexion were so strangely blinded against all that evidence that our Saviour gave of his Divine Commission For none so blind as those that will not see and none so wilfull as those that are in love with themselves and no self-love so doting as that which is grounded upon a false conceit of Sanctity and Religion And yet notwithstanding this some of the more ingenuous among them as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were overcome by the Divinity of his Works and afterward even Gamaliel himself was startled at them For the advice he gave to let the Apostles alone seem'd to have proceeded meerly from the unsettledness of his own Mind that was not then throughly satisfied concerning the truth or falshood of their pretences And the truth is his advice took with the Sanhedrin not from the reason of the thing but the authority of the Man for otherwise it was but very foolish Counsel that if this Work be of Men it would of its own accord come to nought for by that principle they must give liberty to all the Impostors in the World to disturb as much as in them lies the publick peace and quiet of Mankind But when it was doubtfull as it then seem'd to him lest haply by punishing the Apostles they might be found to fight against God upon this supposition it was not onely wise but pious advice to stay for a little farther tryal of the Cause before they undertook its utter extirpation And it is not a little observable that though some of the Pharisees were shockt out of their Prejudices the Sadducees were all impregnable for we no where reade that any of them were ever converted to the Christian Faith and the reason is plain because their first Principle supposed its truth utterly impossible and then they would not so much as enquire after it or hear any thing concerning it But the Pharisees not lying under this invincible Prejudice were notwithstanding all their other great hindrances in some capacity of conviction So that though we find that notwithstanding they were at first the fiercest Enemies to our Saviour's Doctrine yet afterwards they were out-stript by the Sadducees in their zeal and fury against it For as in the Gospels the Pharisees are every where noted as his most implacable Enemies so in the Acts of the Apostles after our Saviour's Resurrection the Sadducees are remarked as their most bitter and vehement Prosecutors And now this I think may be a sufficient account of the Incredulity of the Jews notwithstanding our Saviour gave all that Evidence of his Authority that we pretend he did And it is obvious enough to any Man that understands humane Nature to apprehend how easie a thing it is for Men not onely byassed but pressed down by all these Prejudices to avoid or neglect the force of all the Arguments and Demonstrations in the World § XXXVII And thus having described the several unreasonable Prejudices that withheld so many of the Jewish Nation from embracing of the Christian Faith we proceed now in the last place to the grounds that the Heathens went upon in their Opposition to it And these were as much more absurd and unreasonable than those of the Jews as was their Religion For that the Jews had some appearance of pretence against our Saviour's alteration in Religion we have already shewn in that it was own'd by himself to have been establisht by Divine Authority But as for the War that the Heathen World raised against it they grounded it upon such false Principles as though Christianity it self had been false betray their own folly and absurdity Atheism and Contempt of God and all Religion was their master-objection against the Christians and the onely thing they set up and contended for in opposition to it was their own wretched Idolatry and Superstition both which are too great demonstrations of an invincible prejudice and inflexible partiality And they are both so very absurd that which is most so 't is very hard to determine For whatever the Christians were guilty of it is certain that they were at the greatest distance from Atheism of any party of Men in the World And as for the Religion of the Gentiles it was so grosly wicked and foolish that it was impossible for any wise Man to embrace it without affronting both God and his own Conscience This was the true state of the Controversie between them they never enter'd into the debate of the matter of Fact or so much as once enquired into the merits of the Cause but for this reason alone they reputed all Christians as vile and profligate Persons because they would not join
general it remains that I make good the credit of his own Testimony in particular that has been assaulted by the great Scaliger with too fierce and concern'd a keenness for though he is a very diligent reprover of Eusebius yet he is much more severe upon Hegesippus for what reason I cannot imagine unless that by reason of his so very great nearness to the Apostolical times he was an unexceptionable Witness of the primitive Tradition for that seems to have been Scaliger's main design to weaken its Authority by picking out faults and oversights in its Records and for what end he has been so diligent in it is shrewdly to be suspected though perhaps it was not out of any bad intention but onely to gratifie his critical pride which naturally delights in nothing so much as the humour of correction The particular passage that he has cull'd out for the exercise of his critical faculty is the Narrative of the Martyrdom of James the Just transcribed by Eusebius in which he says beside extream heedlesness the Historian is guilty of many absurd falshoods To which I first answer in general That the whole Story as to the substance of it agrees with the account of Josephus and that being as it ought to be passed by Scaliger for authentick is an evident proof of its reality Secondly It is possible that Hegesippus might meet with the common fate of the best Authours to be either corrupted or interpolated and though we could not discover it yet the very likelihood of it is enough to keep any prudent Man back from any such harsh censure of such an ancient and venerable Authour and since Scaliger's time learned Men have made several grammatical Emendations which if he had known or observed himself might have saved a considerable part of his pains As for his particular exceptions they are chiefly these First That out of respect to the singular holiness of James the Just he should be familiarly admitted into the Holy of Holies whereas says Scaliger it was not lawfull for any to be admitted thither but onely the High-priest and that as every one knows but once a year But this whole exception proceeds from a meer mistake of Scaliger's for Hegesippus does not say that he was admitted into the Holy of Holies but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy place viz. That part of the Temple in which the Mercy-seat the Shew-bread the Candlesticks and the Altar of Incense were placed where it was ordinarily lawfull for the Priests alone to come and that they did in their daily ministrations And this is it that Hegesippus observes as a remarkable Testimony from the Jews themselves of the singular holiness of this good Man that purely out of respect to that though he were not of the priestly Order yet in the worship of God he was admitted a place among the Priests themselves which was a very unusual dignity and peculiarly remarked as such by Hegesippus To which I might add the observation of Petavius that it was no unusual thing for the Ancients to give the title of Holy of Holies to this place that was peculiar to the Priests Station but the former answer does so utterly blow up the foundations of the Objection as to make this needless Secondly to say nothing of James's wearing the priestly Habit because that is the same with the former Objection Scaliger excepts against the Gentiles meeting together with the Jews at the Passover as Hegesippus affirms whereas the Gentiles never resorted to that Feast But here our learned Critick does not onely fall into a gross absurdity himself but betrays manifest ignorance when every child knows that the Gentile Proselytes attended the worship of the Temple as constantly as the Jews and had a peculiar Court to themselves erected for that purpose and this he might have learnt concerning the Passover from Saint John himself And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the Feast Nay beside this express Text he might have been inform'd of it out of his own Josephus out of whom Valesius has noted several Examples of it The third Objection is That the twelve Tribes should be said to be present at this action of the Martyrdom of Saint James at the time of the Passover whereas it is well known that there were but two remaining the other ten being long since lost in Captivity But I am sure it is as well known that this was then the vulgar phrase for all the People of Israel for though the main Body of ten Tribes were transported yet many that were left behind and many that return'd back mixed with the two that remained and so kept up the name and title of the twelve Tribes and therefore Saint James directs his Epistle to the twelve Tribes i. e. to all the People of the Jews and Saint Paul in his defence before King Agrippa pleads thus And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the Promise made of God unto our Fathers unto which promise our twelve Tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come In the fourth place It is objected that at Saint James's declaring Jesus to be the Messias the People cryed out Hosanna to the Son of David which the Critick says they were never wont to doe unless at the Feast of Tabernacles But though that might be the first rise of this custom yet it grew afterwards as Io Paean among the Greeks to be the common form of joy and exultation and so was used by the People at our Saviour's entrance into Jerusalem But this Acclamation says our learned Man could not be given to James though why he might not be saluted the Son of David I know not when he was so very near akin to our Lord. But however to save our selves the trouble of answering this little scruple this Acclamation was not made to James himself but to our Lord upon his confession of him But in the next place Hegesippus quotes a Text out of Esaias that he ought to have cited out of the Wisedom of Solomon viz. Let us remove the just Man because he is an offence or reproach unto us But this at worst is but a slip of memory to which all our Authours are liable and yet it is not so much but it is to be punctually read in the third Chapter of the Prophet Esaias from whom the Authour of the Book of Wisedom borrowed it But Hegesippus says James the Just was a Nazarene and neither ate Flesh nor drank Wine which if true says Scaliger he could not have eaten the last Supper with our Lord and his Apostles But this is as slender as all the rest for though the Nazarenes in their common course of life neither ate flesh nor drank Wine yet they abstein'd not from the rites and solemnities of their Religion but ate the Paschal Lamb as all other Jews did in that it was indispensably injoyn'd them by God himself antecedently
trick upon himself as to think of bringing down the History of Moses below the known times of Greece As for the Eternity of the World which follows next I shall not answer him here because if it were true as I have elsewhere proved it false it runs too far from the present Argument of the truth of our Saviour's History And as for Moses his commanding the Jews to Worship Angels I scorn to answer it because it is so impudently false when the great Commandment of his Law is to Worship one God alone and when himself had but a very little before objected this as a singularity in the Jews against all the World beside And then as for our Saviour's being a Magician I hope I may now let that pass too without being suspected as guilty of any Omission And as for his Meanness and Poverty I think I have sufficiently accounted for that too already in that it was but suitable to the design of the Divine Providence that he should be sent into the World stript of all Worldly advantages that he might subdue it purely by the power of Truth And therefore that alone is to be consider'd in this Enquiry whether he wrought such Miracles in Confirmation of his Doctrine or not if he did the meanness of his condition is no objection against the truth of his Miracles if he did not he is to be rejected for a much worse objection Nay this is so far from bringing any real disadvantage upon the Christian cause that it brings a considerable accession to its demonstrative proof and evidence In so much that without it it must have ever been lyable to suspicion for if he had appear'd with Kingly splendour and all the advantages of earthly power the strange and wonderful entertainment of his Doctrine might have been imputed to Worldly Interest and not to the force of truth and Men would have followed him for politick Ends and not for any Conscience of Religion And therefore to be secure of the Integrity of his Disciples he gives them no secular Encouragement nay on the contrary ensures to them all the miseries of humane life in their propagation of the Christian Faith His Institution was pure Religion and conscience towards God was its onely Obligation and therefore it was but agreeable to its own intention that it should carry along with it no other recommendation And thus I remember when Julian objects the meanness of our Saviour's condition in that he was born a Subject of the Empire which as he fancies was below the dignity of the Son of God St. Cyril answers that if he had appear'd with Imperial Power and by virtue of that commanded the Obedience of Mankind Men must have submitted to him for Worldly Interest and not out of any sense of duty or Religion and he had been just such another Deity as Caligula and the rest of their Emperours were who forced Men in spite of themselves to give them the shew of Divine honour by their own Laws And whereas you object sayes he that he was subject to Caesar what is that to the purpose when he did such things as neither Caesar nor any other Man ever did He raised Men from the Dead did any of your Caesars ever doe so What then if he were subject to Caesar it is evident from his Works that he was greater and they alone demonstrate him to have been the same Person that he pretended to be So that being the Son of God he scorn'd all your outward pomps and shews of Majesty and would receive no honour but what reflected upon him from the glory and greatness of his own Works To which might be added Origen's reply that it is no wonder for Men that have all the advantages of Birth and Fortune to make themselves considerable in the World but this is the thing that is most wonderful in Jesus that a Person so obscure upon all Worldly accounts should raise himself to so great a fame and reputation that a Man so poor and meanly Educated and never instructed in the arts of Eloquence should take upon him to convert the World to a new Doctrine to Reform the Religion of the Jews and to abolish the Superstition of the Greeks and yet that without any force or Artifice he should so speedily effect what he undertook this sayes he is a thing singular in him and was never done by any Man that I know of in any other Age. Nay farther beside the obscurity of his Life and all other things designedly laid to Eclipse his Glory his ignominious death one would think should have put it out for ever and that even those that he had deluded in his Life-time should then have been convinced of the grossness of the Imposture And therefore it is most wonderful of all that if the Apostles had never seen our Saviour after his Resurrection or had no assurance of his Divinity how it could ever come into their minds to leave their Country and expose themselves to all hazards and hardships to publish and propagate the belief of a known falsehood So that we see that the meanness of that State in which our Saviour appear'd is so far from being any material Objection against his Divine Authority that upon several accounts in the last result of things it lyes at the bottom of itsdemonstration In the next place he flouts at the Relation of the appearance of the Holy Ghost and the voice from Heaven at our Saviour's Baptism as a thing in it self absurd and incredible But here the Epicurean forgets that he is a Jew in that there are many Relations of such appearances in the Old Testament which yet if this objection hold good every Jew is bound to believe false and impossible But to treat with him as an Epicurean why is it impossible Because all Stories of God's concerning himself in Humane affairs are undoubted Fables An admirable way this of confuting a matter of fact onely by saying that it is impossible upon a precarious Principle of our own So that the last result of this rude objection against the Faith of the Evangelists is onely this that it cannot be true because there is no such thing as a Divine Providence But he adds that there was no witness of it but onely John the Baptist his Companion in wickedness And this is another unhappy mistake of a Man that sustein'd the Person of a Jew when all the Jewish Nation even the greatest Enemies to Jesus had a very great Reverence for John the Baptist. And yet it is not his Testimony that we rely upon for the truth of the Story but the truth of the Evangelists that have Recorded it they knew what Evidence they had of its reality and we know what evidence we have of their sincerity And now having discharged all his little Topicks of Calumny against our Saviour's own Person in the last place he falls foul upon his Apostles and that with the same unhappy success For
as little as he gain'd by objecting the meanness of our Saviour's condition he gains just as much by insulting over their Ignorance that is but another enhancing circumstance of his Divine Authority For as it was a wonderful thing for so obscure a Person to make such an alteration in the World so was it much more so to effect it by such contemptible Instruments For no Man that ingenuously considers the prodigious success of the Apostles can ever impute it to any other cause than either some Divine and extraordinary Power or the great and irresistable evidence of the thing it self In that by the Objection it self it is plain that they were destitute of all the Arts of Eloquence and Learning by which it was possible that they might perswade or deceive the People into any belief Whereas if Jesus had chosen the Learned and the Eloquent for the propagation of his Doctrine he might have been justly suspected of the same design with the Philosophers of erecting a new Sect by the Power of wit and Rhetorick But when a few Fisher-men that wanted all the improvements of Learning and Education as the Evangelists Record and Celsus objects effected it with such prodigious success it is not conceivable how they should do it any other way than by Miracle either in their words or actions And thus all along the more they object the contemptibleness of the means the more the strangeness of the Event returns upon themselves so that if there had not been something more than Humane in the design it could never in the way in which it was Prosecuted have taken any effect In the Second Book the counterfeit Jew first rates his Country-men for quitting the Laws of their own Nation to follow this Innovatour But setting aside the answer of Origen that the Christians did by no means forsake the Religion of Moses but pursue and improve it Still this is short of the Argument and comes not up to the reasons for which they did it If they had none their lightness was justly blameable but whether they had or had not it concern'd not this Atheist to enquire And then this becomes Celsus the Jew and the Epicurean very well that when the Epicurean had begun his discourse with a disparagement of the Impostor Moses the Jew should make this an Argument against the Christians that they renounced the Man that his Friend had proved an Impostor In the next place when he objects our Saviour's Cowardise that he fled and hid himself and such other trash it is equal malice and folly without ground or pretence in that there was no History of Jesus extant beside the Evangelists who all affirm that he went up to Jerusalem purposely to deliver up himself into the hands of his Enemies Now sayes Origen I leave it to any Man of common sense to judge which is most reasonable to believe these unvouched and vagabond surmises invented out of meer hatred to the Christians or to believe things as they are deliver'd by the Evangelists who pretended either to have been Eye-witnesses or to have had a full information of the matter of fact and were ready to seal the truth of their Testimony with their blood This strange constancy and resolution even to death it self is not like Men who were conscious to themselves of having forged a false Story but on the contrary a clear and manifest Argument that they were serious and very well satisfied in the truth of the things that they Recorded Is not this then an ingenuous way of proceeding to oppose the truth of their History with flying Reports that have neither Author nor Authority and indeed such that whilst there is malice in the World no true Story can escape But sayes Celsus though he was pleased not openly to shew his Divinity before yet at least he ought to have done it by vanishing miraculously from the Cross. No no Celsus he had a farther design to demonstrate not onely his own Divinity but Man's Immortality If he had onely disappear'd you might have imputed that to a trick of Magick but when he arose from the dead after he had been so publickly executed this was both an undeniable proof of his Divine Authority and a full assurance to Mankind of their capacity to subsist after Death And though there were other indispensable reasons why he suffer'd himself to be sacrificed upon the Cross yet if it were for these alone he had sufficient reason to suffer what he did Especially when himself had through the whole course of his Life referr'd the proof of his Authority to his Resurrection so that if he had according to Celsus his advice withdrawn himself from the Cross he had apparently defeated his own design that he had laid through the whole History of the Gospel But beside this by his Death Passion and Resurrection he has demonstrated to Mankind that the Divine Providence has reserved the happiness of humane Nature to another Life and clear'd up the future existence of Souls by an undeniable Experiment And that is the thing that so much frets the Epicureans that he has put so clear a basfle upon their Impiety But as for his next Cavil he is really to be pitied when he asks Why we do not Worship all other crucified Malefactours It is an Objection worthy the wisedom and gravity of a learned Philosopher but yet for his satisfaction it is fit to let him know that we Worship all such Malefactours as our Saviour was who own'd himself to be the Son of God and then suffer'd himself to be murther'd to prove it by his Resurrection But he says his Disciples forsook him and would dye neither with nor for him They did so by sudden surprise but what did the same Disciples immediately after upon his Resurrection They that were but a little before seised with so much Cowardise feared then no danger to attest it to the World and most of them dyed for the truth of their Testimony So that this Objection of Cowardise in the Apostles is just such another advantageous circumstances to the cause of Christianity as that of their ignorance and want of learning For as it is an Argument of the great Evidence of their Cause when Men neither learned nor eloquent were able so successfully to propagate it among Mankind in that they could give it no more advantage than it brought along with it So when Men so timerous and cowardly should afterward grow so very fearless in asserting it even to the Death that is an unquestionable evidence that they were abundantly satisfied in the truth of what they attested But as for Celsus his insinuation that the Apostles onely dream't and fancied that they saw Jesus after his Resurrection as it may be applied to any matter of Fact in the World and turn even all the actions of his own Life into dream and fancy so if it be compared with all the peculiar circumstances as to this thing they prevent the folly