your Friends condemn If I thought it fitter to convince you by Authority than by Reason I would let you see them but you ought to convince your self by such Proofs as may be acceptable to the Person whom you design to convert The most honest men are not infallible even all those who seem so are not such But however it be it is better to be sensible to light than to the most pious and most sanctified Air because God always enlightens and oftentimes the Way and Air imposes and seduces Arist This is true Theodorus but I fear that your Sentiment is not conformable to that of the holy Fathers Theod. But what occasion have you to fear it Have you ever read any thing contrary to it in the Fathers I see you have been told so gravely and you have believed it in the simplicity of your heart Hath not St. Austin who best understood the corruption of Nature explained the propagation of Original Sin by the example of hereditary Diseases By that of gouty Parents who beget Children subject to the Gout And of the sick Trees which yield a corrupted Seed that produces nothing but bad Trees For he knew that Original Sin can only communicate itself by the body because its principle is in the body and that in some sense it dwells in the body as St. Paul saith As for the other Fathers that lived before St. Austin they never undertook to make a particular discussion of the manner in which the transmission of that Sin could be explained Their Age was neither so incredulous nor malicious as ours and it was not then necessary to give probable explications of our mysteries to make those who called themselves Christians believe them No Aristarchus I could never find that the Fathers were against what I have told you now But I wonder to see that you who formerly used to treat the Churches Authority with so much indifference are now so full of Veneration for the Fathers as to be afraid without cause of dissenting from them by admitting some explications wherein we are not always obliged to follow them provided we keep with them to the Faith and Doctrin of the Church You are too credulous and your apprehensions are not just you do not meditate enough you are like those Children who walk by night without a light that are afraid of all things because they see nothing Whilst you did lead a careless sort of life the air of the Libertines used to persuade you and now you suffer your self to be convinced by the air of piety and gravity of certain persons who have not always as much light and charity as opinion and false zeal You are less in danger of being mistaken but yet you are not in the way of truth You ought to believe what must be believed but you ought to see what may and consequently what must be seen I hope that if you make serious Reflections on the things I have told you without troubling your self with what your Friends think of it your Uncertainties will be cleared and you will no more suffer your self to be scared by a sort of Men who assume an unjust power over the mind of others instead of bringing them to Reason by light and evidence I leave you with Erastus to confer together upon those things I have said to you meditate with him and endeavour either to convince your self or to offer to me that is in a clear and evident manner the Reasons that hinder you from doing it DIALOGUE V. Of the Reparation of Nature by Jesus Christ Arist WE have made many Reflections Erastus and I upon Original Sin and the Contagion that spreads itself in Spirits And have even found that Original Sin is transmitted into Children in some manner as the Sentiments and Passions of passionate men communicate themselves to those that are in their presence For as the union that is between men for the benefit of Society is the cause why a man by the air of his Face stamps on the brain of such as are touched by it the same impressions which the Passion that moves him forms within him See the 7th Chapter of the 2d Book of the Inquiry after Truth so the union of the Mother with her Child being very strict and the Childs wants very great the Child's imagination must needs be sullied by all the impressions and emotions of mind that incline the Mother to sensible things Theod. Thus Aristarchus those that live in the hurry of the world that are held by too many things that never consult their reason but suffer themselves to be convinced moved and run down by every one that hath some strength of imagination and whose air being lively is consequently insectious those civil men of the Town born for Company who are always so ready to receive their Friends Sentiments in a word Aristarchus those Persons that are such as you have been till now for you are the civilest and most complaisant Gentleman I ever knew those Persons I say that are like you have a double portion of Original Sin that which they received from their Mother when they were in her womb and that which they have suckt in by the commerce of the world You are happy Aristarchus in being able to withstand the impression of those two Sins How indebted are you not to inward truth for calling you back so loudly as to be heard by you in spight of the confused noise of your senses and passions You retire sometimes within your self as if your Reason was not corrupted and the concupiscence of original Sin had not been strengthned nor encreased by a concupiscence of thirty years standing You are so much altered to day from what you were yesterday that I believe you will no longer find any considerable difficulty in our following Conferences For all that hindered you from apprehending my sentiments proceeded from the obscurity and disorder wherein the converse of the world had thrown you so that being delivered from that disorder and resolved to retire incessantly within your self you will hearken to the decisions of that truth that presides to all spirits Arist Yes Theodorus I renounce all the impressions that used to prejudice me I plainly see that all manner of union to sensible things estrangeth and removeth us from truth that the union which I had in my Mother's womb made me a Sinner that the union which I have had with my Relations hath only given me a knowledge of the world useful indeed to unite me with it and make my self considerable in it but altogether unprofitable to the inquiry after truth In short that the union which I have had with my Friends and other Men hath filled me with a very great number of most dangerous prejudices which you know better than I. I have hitherto lived by Opinion I desire now to live by Reason I will believe nothing but what Faith and Charity oblige me to believe in all other things I
will consult inward truth and believe only what it shall tell me I mistrust all Men and even you Theodorus you may speak as much as you please I will not believe you the sooner for it if truth doth not speak as well as you Your way of speaking is able to impose upon Men your Air is that of a Man persuaded of what he saith and that Air is persuasive you ought to be feared as well as others I honour and love you but I honour and love truth more than you and only love you so much the more as I find you more united to that truth I love than a world of others Theod. You are now in the best disposition of a true Philosopher and a true Friend for there is nothing but truth that enlightens true Philosophers and unites true Friends I desire you to observe and love in me nothing but truth I speak to you but I do not enlighten you I am not your light nor your good therefore do not believe me If my Air and way of expression make an impression on your imagination I would have you to know that it is not with a design to impose upon you I have no design in it I speak naturally and if I have some design it is only that of awakening your attention by something that may penetrate you Arist I believe it Theodorus and as you would be sorry to deceive me you will not take it ill if I am aware of you and do not believe you upon your word But go on I pray you I am inwardly convinced of the matters which you proved to me yesterday and even of your way of explaining the transmission of Original Sin Theod. I told you yesterday some things that are not absolutely necessary for what will follow There is no necessity of your being persuaded of the manner how Adam could happen to fall nor how his Sin could transmit it self into his Off-spring It is enough that you know that Men are born in Sin and Corruption that there is an enmity between God and them that their body is not under their subjection and that consequently their mind is in darkness and their heart in sin and disorder You cannot doubt of these things if you are persuaded of what I told you yesterday or make some reflections on the strugling that you feel within you of your self against your self of the law of your mind against that of your body of your self after the inward man against your self after the outward and sensible man You believe Aristarchus that the order of things is reversed it must therefore be re-establisht But how shall that be done Shall it be by the Heathens Philosophy They are ignorant of our Ills and cannot cure them Shall it be by the Religion of the Deists They will not admit of a Mediator Shall it be by the Law of Mahomet it encreaseth Concupiscence Shall it be then by the Law of Moses it is just and holy I own it but who shall keep it It shews us Sin it makes us sensible of the decease it makes us know the want of the Physician and the need of Grace that there must be a Mediator to reconcile Mankind to God but it doth not give us that Mediator it promises represents and gives us an image of him but it doth not possess him Moses himself hath need of an Intercessor to God and if he was a Mediator and Intercessor between God and his People it was only as a Type of the true Mediator between God and men His Mediation was only to obtain for them a long life upon earth and temporal enjoyments for he doth not promise them Heaven he doth not reunite them to God he doth not merit them Charity In fine he doth not send them the Holy Ghost that alone removes the fear of Slaves and alone gives right to the inheritance of Children None but Christ is capable to make peace between God and men for none but him can atone the justice of God by the excellency of his Sacrifice intercede to God by the dignity of his Priesthood obtain all things and send us the Holy Ghost by the quality of his Person None but him that came down from Heaven can take us thither with him and none but him that is united to God by an union of substance can reunite us to God by a supernatural union none but the true Son of God can intitle us to his Adoption God having made all things by his Son and for him it was just he should repair all things by him and establish him Head of his Church Judge over his People and Sovereign Lord of all the Creation Who but God-man could retribute to God an honour worthy of him have a fellow-suffering of our miseries and sanctify them in his Person Who but him could be predestinated before the beginning of time as a work worthy of God represented in all Ages as the end of the Law and wished for by all Nations as the only Person able to deliver them from their misery Man being become sensible and carnal it was necessary that the Word should be made Man that the intelligible Light should make himself sensible and that he who enlightens all Men in the deepest recess of their reason should instruct them likewise by their Senses by Miracles Parables and familiar Comparisons United as we are to all corporeal Beings and having a dependence upon whatsoever we are united to it was necessary that we should be taught Self-denial Privation and Repentance and strengthned by the cherishing delights of Grace as also comforted by the sweetness of Hope The Christian Religion doth whatever ought to be done and Christian Morality teaches whatsoever ought to be known But I must prove to you more at large and by a method that may convince your Friend that none but the Christian Religion can re-establish the Order that Sin hath reversed I begin with those things that concern Religion and then will come to Morality I pray you therefore to be attentive Aristarchus Do you believe that God is merciful Arist Can I not believe it Theod. And do you believe that he is just Arist Yes certainly Theod. * This Work being chiefly against such as have but little deference to the Authority of the Fathers I do not quote them to prove my Assertions tho' I give their Arguments when I judge them proper for my design When I quoted The Inquiry after Truth the Reason was that the Reader may see in that Book the things that I have not sufficiently explained in this However it is easy to perceive that I do not pretend to convince any one by the Authority of that Book I quote it as Geometricians do Euclid and Apollonius You must believe then that it is impossible that Sin can remain unpunished and that God must needs revenge himself on such as offend him and that it is necessary that he satisfy himself by atoning his Justice Arist
how he is the beginning and end of all things Those holy persons that read the Scripture with an intention to find Christ never fail to find him there for he is in every place of it But they have not the spirit of this world but that of God whereby they know the greatness of the Gift that God hath imparted to them The outward and sensible Man is not capable of the things which the Divine Spirit teacheth us for the eye hath not seen the ear hath not heard nor the heart of man ever understood what God hath prepared for those that love him I do not only speak of those false learned who deny the corruption of Nature the necessity of Grace and the Divinity of Christ yet assume the quality of Christians I also speak of those who live in the bosom of the Church but have little love for Religion It is impossible they should be very well learned in the knowledge of Christ seeing they do not love him and do not study the Scriptures professing the Christian Religion perhaps only because it is that of their Parents Arist You have told us a great many things both to day and yesterday since I have seen my Friend I imagin that he wants me as I do to know what he will think of these things I must leave you to go to him Theod. Do Aristarchus make him sensible of the general corruption of Nature and the enmity that is between God and man and endeavor to demonstrate plainly to him the necessity of Christ's satisfaction If you find that he receives your Sentiments as he ought and is willing to be instructed immediately fall on the praises of our Redeemer and stir him up to the love of his Saviour by the consideration of the chief obligations he hath to him Tell him That Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life That he is our intelligible light that enlightens us in the deepest recess of our Reason and our sensible light that instructs us by Miracles by Parables and Faith That he alone is the food of the Soul That his light is the sole producer of Charity and that none but him can give us the holy Spirit whereby we become the children of God Tell him that he hath been predestinated before all time to be our King and Chief our Pastor and Law-giver That God receives our Prayers through him only That we are made clean only by his blood and enter into the Holy of Holies only through his Sacrifice In short That Christ is all things to us that in him we are new creatures and new men that have not been condemned in Adam that without Christ we are nothing have right to nothing but are sold to Sin Slaves to the Devils and the eternal objects of God's wrath Use all your endeavors to make him think on Christ to unite him to and make him esteem and love Christ and conclude with these words of St Paul at the end of one of his Epistles If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maran-atha 1 Cor. 16.22 DIALOGUE VI. The Truth of the Christian Religion proved by other Reasons Arist AH Theodorus how unsatisfy'd am I in my Friend Theod. Yes Aristarchus I can easily see it the Air of your Countenance does not rejoice those that examin it 't is not an Air of Triumph or of Victory that might please those who take part of it But how cou'd he resist you Arist As I was well persuaded of the truth of the Christian Religion by the proofs of original Sin and the necessity of a Mediator so I imagined I cou'd convince him by proposing the same proofs but I know not to what I should attribute the ill success of my words when I spoke to him instead of persuading him I provoked him and he rejected all that I proposed to him with a kind of scorn he would not so much as agree with me in common Notions but continually said that my Reasons were the Reasons of Philosophy Such Answers grieved me I strove to convince him and continued to repeat the same things hoping that at last he would reflect but all my Efforts were entirely lost 'T is something strange Theodorus that a Man can't convince others of the same thing that he himself is fully convinced of for it appears to me that all Men ought to see the same things Theod. If all Men were equally attentive to inward truth they would all equally see the same things but your Friend is not like you he is taken up with a multitude of things and his pride has now for many years kept him unconversant even with himself so that abstracted proofs and reasonings built upon Notions which have no dependance of the senses persuade him not because these proofs don't touch him and because he has many confused reasons which hinder his application to them When a Man has discovered a Geometrical Demonstration he can convince all Men of it to whom he clearly proposes it because that these things are sensible that they freely apply themselves to them that there 's no reason why they should not believe them that they are not prepossess'd by the authority of Men that deny them and that when they see these kinds of truth they see them after a sensible manner But 't is not the same with certain truths which are contrary to our inclinations there we think not seriously and we have many reasons not to believe them It 's necessary Aristarchus that I demonstrate to you the truth of the Christian Religion by more sensible proofs than those of our preceding Conferences it may be your Friend will more willingly hearken to them Do you take his place and object whatever you can imagin against what I shall offer I only suppose that God hath made our Souls to know and love him 'T is what your Friend assents to You have heard Aristarchus of one Moses the famous Legislator of the Jews to whom God gave the Ten Commandments upon Mount Sinai Do you believe what the Scripture says of him Arist But what if he was a Cheat an Impostor Theod. Very well Aristarchus you suppose your self under your Friend's character but you know that he must have an excessive bold spirit I would say the most ignorant and most transported of bold spirits who dares say that Moses was a Cheat you do much honour to your Friend Arist I know what I say Theod. Well then if you know him so well speak for him I will engage him in your person You have reason Aristarchus and ought not to oppose a Sentiment that is universally received by all reasonable persons unless you have good proofs that they are deceived Arist There is much prejudice Theod. Right but this common Reason does not justifie you nor will it justifie the most extravagant doubts that may be raised but I may tell you that there was never any Man that could be more unreasonably accused of Imposture