this way of conveyance is insisted upon by the Ancients themselves in justification of the Catholick Truth both against Hereticks and Insidels Thus the Apostolical Tradition says Irenaeus is spread all the World over and this every Man that pleases may find in every Church and we are able to reckon up all those that were appointed by the Apostles to be their Successours and Bishops in the Churches of Christ down to our own time But because it would be too tedious in such a Discourse as this to enumerate the Succession of all Churches I shall onely instance in those great ancient and famous Churches that were founded at Rome by those two glorious Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul hereby to shew the Tradition of that Faith that was preached by the Apostles to have been safely conveyed by the Succession of Bishops down to our own time And I choose to exemplifie this thing in this Church rather than any other because of its great preheminence and resort from all parts of the World upon which account its Tradition must needs be more publick and better known The blessed Apostles therefore having laid the Foundations of the Church delivered the oversight of it to Linus of whom Saint Paul makes mention in his Epistle to Timothy to him succeeds Anacletus then Clemens who familiarly conversed with the Apostles and had their Preaching still sounding in his Ears and their Tradition before his Eyes In whose time there hapned a great Schism in the Church of Corinth to allay which the Church of Rome directed an excellent Epistle to them in which she exhorts them to Peace and Unity rubs up their memory of the primitive Faith and sets before them the fresh Tradition of the Apostles themselves To him succeeds Evaristus to Evaristus Alexander and then Sixtus Telesphorus Higinus Pius Anicetus Soter and now Eleutherius in the twelfth place from the Apostles This is a clear and an accurate account of the Apostolical Succession of that Church so that it is impossible to understand how there should ever have been a Bishop in it unless we begin the Succession from the Apostles and then this is an undeniable proof of the certainty of their Tradition as in all other places so particularly in that great and populous City And this very Argument Epiphanius insists upon against the Carpocratians And let no Man wonder says he that I so accurately and carefully set down every single Person in the Succession because hereby the undoubted truth that has been from the beginning will evidently appear And the truth is granting the Succession it would be a pretty hard task to avoid the Tradition and yet against that there lies onely one poor exception viz. That some ancient Writers place Clement in the first place who here stands in the third but that to pass by many other conjectures and especially a very probable one of Epiphanius is clear'd by one that is more than probable and founded upon the Authority of the Ancients themselves that there were at first two Churches at Rome one of the Circumcision over which Saint Peter presided another of the Uncircumcision founded and govern'd by Saint Paul who as we reade in the last Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles left the obstinate Jews to preach to the Gentiles neither is this conjecture a little confirm'd by this very passage of Irenaeus who speaks not of the Church of Rome as a single Church but as two distinct and those eminent Churches from the beginning so that though Clement were immediate Successour in one of them yet he might be the third in the other in that surviving Linus and Cletus and the difference between Jew and Gentile being in a great measure worn away both Churches might naturally unite into one Body under his Jurisdiction Others object to mudd the succession that some Writers place both Cletus and Anacletus before Clemens as if they were distinct Persons But this is a mistake of later Writers who sometimes finding these different names in the Copies of the ancient Books concluded them different Persons but herein they go against the Authority of all the ancient Writers themselves and particularly of Eusebius whose account ought to be valued beyond all others because he collected the succession of Bishops out of the Archives and Diptychs of the Churches themselves to which he particularly refers in the succession of the Church of Jerusalem So that here is no real difficulty or labyrinth as to the succession and all that seems to be is onely occasion'd by an easie and obvious mistake of some later Writers against the more ancient and unquestionable Authority After the same manner does Tertullian triumph over the Hereticks by challenging them to prescribe for their Opinions from the beginning as the Catholicks were able to doe for theirs The truth says he will appear from its Antiquity that is true and delivered by the Lord himself that we find most ancient but that is foreign and false that was brought in afterwards and if they shall dare to pretend to the Apostolical Age let them produce the Originals of the Churches let them describe the succession of their Bishops and so derive it from the beginning as that the first Bishop should have succeeded to some Apostle or some Apostolical Man that conversed with the Apostles For in this way it is that the Apostolical Churches prove their Original as the Church of Smyrna will produce Policarp placed there by Saint John the Church of Rome Clement ordain'd by Saint Peter and so for all other Churches they shew you the Men that were settled in their Episcopal Office by the Apostles themselves and conveyed down their Doctrine to Posterity And again this is the onely Testimony of the truth its possession from the beginning and for this you that are concern'd to enquire more diligently after your Salvation may travel over the Apostolical Churches where the very seats in which the Apostles presided are still remaining where their own authentick Letters are still extant Do you live in or near to Achaia go to Corinth In Macedonia to Philippi or Thessalonica In Asia to Ephesus In Italy to Rome And this certainly as it was sufficient to prescribe to all the Innovations of the Hereticks so was it to demonstrate the undoubted truth and certainty of the Christian Religion when it was so clearly and so uninterruptedly deliver'd down from the first Founders of it And the truth is the succession of Bishops in the principal Churches was so accurately recorded by the Ancients that it had never been so much as call'd in question had not some Men been forced to it onely to justifie themselves in their departing from it it having been the custom of all but especially the most famous Churches to keep an exact Register of the Names and the Deaths of their Bishops which they call'd Diptychs and though it is objected that these Records are now lost and so are
Into which number grant I may be received this day being found in thy sight as a fair and acceptable Sacrifice such an one as Thou thy self hast prepared that so Thou mayest accomplish what Thou O true and faithfull God hast foreshewn Wherefore I praise Thee for all thy Mercies I bless Thee I glorifie Thee through the eternal high Priest thy beloved Son Jesus Christ with whom to thy self and the Holy Ghost be glory both now and for ever Amen To this eminent Martyrdom of Saint Policarp and the Asiaticks I cannot but subjoin that of Pothinus Bishop of Lyons and his Companions in that they suffer'd under the same Prince with the same Christian Courage and Resolution especially because Pothinus also was of a very great Age and almost as near the Apostolical times as Policarp and probably sent by him into these Western parts and lastly because it is attested by publick and undoubted Epistles sent from the Church of Lyons by Irenaeus to the Bishop of Rome and the Churches of Asia of both which Epistles Scaliger himself has given this just and deserved Encomium that as they are of the most ancient Martyrdoms in the Church so the reading of them cannot but so affect every pious and devout Mind as never to be satiated with it and as for my own part says he I do protest that I never met with any thing in all the History of the Church by the reading whereof I have been so much transported as scarce to be my self and particularly of the Acts of the Martyrs of Lyons what can be read more brave or more venerable in all the Monuments of Christian Antiquity And the truth is it is a very amazing Story and one of the greatest examples both of the Modesty and the Courage of the primitive Christians for as they were treated with new and unheard of Cruelties so their behaviour under all their Torments was decent and free from all appearance either of Vanity or Passion Now what can be the meaning of these things that such Men as Policarp and Pothinus to whom I should have added Pionius that suffer'd gallantly about the same time who lived so near the time of our Saviour who had such opportunity to search into the truth of those things that were reported of him should thus frankly resign their Lives upon any less account than the full assurance of the truth of those things that they believed But though this be sufficient to make good the Evidence of the first and apostolical Tradition of the Church from the Testimony of these two eminent Martyrs yet before I quit it it will be convenient to clear off one Objection in which as the ancient Church in general so Policarp in particular is concern'd and that is the contradictory Tradition about the observation of Easter both Parties pretending to derive their different Customs from the Apostles Policarp and the Churches of the lesser Asia from Saint John the Church of Rome from Saint Peter Now if this be so why should it not destroy the credit of their Tradition when they make so little Conscience as to fasten contradictions upon the Apostles themselves Great use has of late been made of this Objection by all the Enemies of the primitive Church Mr. Hales in the time of his peevishness and before he was reconciled to the Church of England has with great scorn upbraided its grossness and folly And it is one of Daille's Topicks against the use and authority of the Fathers and how often it has been since objected by others it is needless here to repeat And yet when all is done it proves nothing but that some Men have a very great Itch to be finding fault for otherwise this grossness and folly this phantastick hurry in which all the World were Schismaticks as Mr. Hales is pleased to speak of it with a great many other good words is a very remarkable instance both of the faithfulness the wisedom and the temper of the primitive Christians For that the custom of the Eastern and Western Church in this thing was different from the beginning is evident from their different practice and so must have descended from the Apostles themselves who might in this as well as other things casually and without design prescribe different Usages Saint John in those parts of Asia where he resided continuing Easter after the manner of the Jewish Passover Saint Peter and Saint Paul in other places to prevent too much Judaising in its observation making the same little alteration in its time as was made in the Sabbath and in this matter of complying with or changing Jewish Customs the Apostles varied their Orders according to circumstances of time and place sometime coming up closer to them sometime keeping at a greater distance according to the judgment of their own discretion Now these different Customs about Easter being once casually settled in the Church in process of time they began to be matter of contention among the People as we know the common People are always zealous for their own Customs whatever they are And therefore to stifle this fire that was broke out among them Policarp a Man of the greatest Authority in Asia undertakes a Journey to Rome if possible to allay and compose the Controversie where upon debate between him and Anicetus they conclude it the most proper course that could be taken for the peace of the Church that both Parties should retain their own Customs without any breach of Charity or Communion and to declare this to the World they communicate together at the holy Sacrament Policarp consecrating the Eucharist in the Church of Anicetus and so they parted lovingly and continued ever after good Friends This is all the grossness and folly that I know of that these good Men were guilty of in their management of this Controversie Though it seems it was afterward revived by the indiscretion of one Man Victor Bishop of Rome who would needs take upon him to command the Asiaticks to conform to the practice of his and all other Churches under the penalty of Excommunication To this they return him a sober Answer represent the inconvenience of changing so ancient a Custom disclaim his Power and Jurisdiction over them and advise him rather to consult the Peace and Unity of the Catholick Church than to impose upon them particular Customs contrary to the practice of their Ancestours Neither was this done by them alone but by almost all the Bishops of the Christian World though they were of his own way unanimously condemning his heat and rashness in so trivial a thing and among the rest Irenaeus having convened a Synod in France writes him a Synodical Epistle to this purpose That he agreed with him in his Observation of Easter but not in the Necessity of it that it was a very unadvised thing to think of excommunicating whole Churches for observing the ancient Customs derived down to them from their Ancestours that there was as
hope of Immortality The vanity of Epicurus his great Antidote against the fear of Death viz. That Death cannot hurt us because when that is we are not p. 106. § XXII All the other Receits prescribed by the Philosophers against the fear of Death represented and exploded p. 113. § XXIII Without a future State no sufficient foundation for Vertue First Not for Temperance p. 120. § XXIV Secondly Not for Justice nor Magnanimity p. 124. § XXV The vanity of the stoical Philosophy represented upon its Principles neither Happiness nor Vertue without a future State p. 131. § XXVI An account of the Platonick and Peripatetick Morality out of Tully And first his consolatory Discourses in his first Book of Tusculane Questions against the fear of Death proved vain and ineffectual p. 139. § XXVII The same shewn of the Remedies prescribed in his second Book for the alleviating of Pain p. 147. § XXVIII The same shewn of the Prescriptions of the third and fourth Books against Grief and Trouble under the calamities of Life and all other perturbations of the Mind p. 151. § XXIX An account of the fifth Book where he forsakes the Peripatetick Philosophy as insufficient to his purpose and what good reasons he had so to doe p. 157. § XXX The defect of his own new way of philosophising proved in general p. 162. § XXXI That great and glorious Maxime of his Friend Brutus That Vertue is sufficient to its own Happiness proved to be a vain and empty saying without Immortality The Argument concluded p. 167. PART II. A Demonstration of the Divine Authority of the Christian Religion from the undoubted Certainty of the Matter of Fact and the uninterrupted Tradition of the Church § I. THE great advantage of the Gospel above the Law of Nature pag. 175. § II. The Evidence and Certainty of the Christian Faith demonstrated from the infinite and intolerable Absurdities of Unbelief p. 179. § III. This particularly proved according to our Saviour's own Advice in the Article of his Resurrection p. 182. § IV. The impossibility of the Apostles being false in their Testimony of it demonstrated from the first Instinct of humane Nature love of Life and desire of Self-preservation p. 184. § V. The same proved from its contradiction to all the principles of Prudence and common Understanding p. 190. § VI. The same proved from its inconsistency with and contrariety to their own design in publishing Christianity to the World p. 193. § VII The undoubted Truth of the Scripture History if written by those Persons whose names it bears p. 199. § VIII That it could not be written by any other demonstratively proved p. 204. § IX The Books of the New Testament whose Authority was sometime disputed proved to be of Apostolical Antiquity p. 207. § X. Mr. Hobbs's Witticism against the Divine Authority of the Scriptures that the Canon was first compiled by the Council of Laodicea confuted p. 210. § XI The concurrence of Jews and Heathens with the Testimony of Christian Writers p. 112. § XII Josephus and Saint Luke reconciled about the Tax of Cyrenius and the Death of Herod Agrippa p. 215. § XIII The famous Testimony of Josephus concerning our Saviour vindicated from the exceptions of Tanaquil Faber and other Criticks p. 222. § XIV The Testimony of Phlegon concerning the Eclipse at the Passion asserted p. 229. § XV. Pontius Pilate his Narrative concerning our Saviour to Tiberius and Tiberius his Opinion of it cleared p. 230. § XVI The Story of Agbarus proved genuine p. 235. § XVII The impossibility of the Apostles prevailing upon the Faith of Mankind if their Story had been false p. 239. § XVIII The speedy propagation of Christianity in all parts of the World described Philo's Therapeutae proved to have been Christians p. 241. § XIX The first disadvantage of Christianity if it had been false its being a late matter of Fact p. 251. § XX. The second disadvantage of Christianity was its contrariety to the Atheism and the Luxury of the Age in which it was published p. 256. § XXI The third disadvantage of Christianity was its defiance to the establisht and inveterate Religions of the World both Jewish and Heathen p. 259. § XXII The wonderfull success of Christianity notwithstanding all other disadvantages not to be ascribed to any thing but the greatness of that rational Evidence that it gave of its Truth p. 263. § XXIII That the Apostles planted the Christian Faith with so much speed by the power of Miracles and that it was not possible to have done it any other way p. 266. § XXIV The continuance of the same power to the next following Ages asserted and with the greatest Assurance appeal'd to by all the Advocates of Christianity in their publick Writings p. 275. § XXV The vanity of the Objection of the Ancients against the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles that they were wrought by Magick p. 283. § XXVI The vanity of the Miracles opposed by the Heathens to our Saviour particularly that of Vespasian in curing the Lame and the Blind p. 287. § XXVII An account of the evident Imposture of Apollonius Tyanaeus from his own Historian Philostratus p. 293. § XXVIII The Evidence of the Christian Faith from meer humane Tradition and that first publick by the uninterrupted succession of Bishops in the chief Churches from the Apostles p. 300. § XXIX The same proved by private Tradition and first of Saint Clement Bishop of Rome p. 308. § XXX Secondly of Saint Ignatius with an account of himself and his Epistles p. 311. § XXXI Thirdly of Saint Policarp Pothinus and Papias The wisedom of the Ancients vindicated as to the Paschal Controversie p. 320. § XXXII Of Hegesippus The purity of the primitive Church vindicated against all Innovators And Hegesippus his History against the cavils of Scaliger p. 328. § XXXIII Of Justin Martyr Irenaeus and a great number more p. 338. § XXXIV The Objection from the Infidelity of great numbers of Men in that Age answered the first ground of the Infidelity of the Jews was their invincible Prejudice in honour of Moses p. 343. § XXXV Their second great Prejudice was their expectation of a great Temporal Prince for their Messias and how they were crossed in it by our Saviour p. 349. § XXXVI Atheism the ground of the Sadducees opposing Christianity and fanatick Pride and Arrogance of the Pharisees p. 357. § XXXVII The Heathens opposed Christianity for the sake of Idolatry The Neronian Persecution onely a trick of State to secure himself from the fury of the Multitude by delivering up the Christians to it p. 363. § XXXVIII Domitian's Persecution founded upon jealousie of State against the Line of David Hegesippus vindicated in his account of it against Scaliger The jealousie both of the Emperours and the Senate about the Messias p. 370. § XXXIX An account of the following Persecutions and of the injustice and unreasonableness of their several Proceedings against
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
little agreement among themselves concerning the manner of the preparatory Fast before Easter and yet this variety being of long standing among them no Man thought himself obliged to impose his own particular conceit upon others in such an indifferent thing and last of all minds him of the prudence and moderation of his Predecessours especially Policarp and Anicetus who did not so much as go about to perswade one another to change the ancient custom of their Church And the effect of these Epistles from all places especially of this of Irenaeus probably was this that they diverted Victor from pursuing his design For we do not find that he ever actually excommunicated the Asian Churches but onely that he threatned it But whether he did or did not it is a worthy piece of ingenuity to charge the folly of one furious and intemperate Man upon the whole Church and that in spite of their own protestation against it And yet this is all the grossness and folly wherewith our Innovatours have made so much noise against them And thus having removed this poor Objection which I could not avoid because it has of late appear'd among us with so much huff and confidence I proceed to the remaining Witnesses of our primitive Tradition And here I cannot pass by Papias for though he were a Person of no great Learning or Judgment yet he was a Man of clear Honesty and Simplicity and living near the time of the Apostles themselves did not search after their Story in Books but made it his particular business to enquire of their familiar acquaintance after their Sayings and Customs If any came in my way says he that was a follower of the Apostles forthwith I enquired of him after the Sayings of the Ancients what Andrew what Peter what Philip what Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lords Disciples what Ariston and John the Elder distinguisht from John the Evangelist and out of the Catalogue of the Apostles Disciples of the Lord were wont to say for I did not think I could profit my self more by reading their Books than by the more lively report of those Persons who are still alive and heard their discourses This is a peculiar sort of Testimony given in to a matter of Fact by a Man plain and simple and yet curious and inquisitive who inform'd himself of the truth of the things so lately transacted not onely by reading the Narratives that were written of them but from the more lively information of such who received it from Eye-witnesses I will easily grant that he was as Eusebius describes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Person of a small Judgment and by consequence of little Authority as to his Opinion especially of the Millennium of which yet himself was not the first Authour but was betrayed into it by the Tradition of the Jews who generally believed that their Messias should reign a thousand years upon Earth in all manner of greatness and glory and therefore it was no wonder if those who were converted from Judaism to Christianity brought this Opinion along with them onely understanding the Jews more gross and carnal Notion in a more refined and spiritual sense and this was the dispute in those early days against the Jewish Hereticks particularly Cerinthus who believed of our Saviour as they had of the Messias that they expected that he should come once more upon Earth and reign at Jerusalem in all manner of pomp and grandeur but be that as it will Papias was ever thought of as a Man of a downright and untainted Integrity and had both the advantage of conversing with those that conversed with the Apostles and the curiosity of recording all the Traditions which they delivered to him by word of mouth and lastly was satisfied in that way of information of the truth of all those things that were registred concerning Jesus and his Apostles To him ought to be ranked Quadratus who wrote an Apologetick to the Emperour Adrian in which he positively avers that many of the Persons cured by our Lord of their Diseases were alive in his time and Aristides a Christian Philosopher at Athens who at the same time presented a learned and eloquent Apology to the same Emperour in behalf of the same cause § XXXII This is the first file of Witnesses next and immediately after the Apostles though I might have reckoned the following rank into the same Catalogue because they are twisted with them as they are with one another for as these that I have already mentioned are not all precisely of the same Age yet being of Antiquity enough to be competent Witnesses of the Tradition of the Apostles may be join'd together into one complicated Testimony of it so their next Successours followed them by the same degrees as they followed one another for Succession is not conveyed down like a Chain by certain Links but like a Cord by the same continued interweaving every part being some part of the part above it And though the Ages of the Church are distinguisht by Centuries yet the Lives of Men are not and the beginning of the next series lived with some of the former as they lived with the first that lived with the Apostles so that there is no possibility of making an Interruption any where between the Chanel and the Fountain head whereever we find the Stream that alone will certainly lead us up to its own Original But this will appear more distinctly by the degrees of its Conveyance having therefore brought the Tradition down to the time of M. Aurelius that is a considerable time beyond that of Trajan to which time Scaliger and some others are pleased to complain of a defect of Records but with what reason we have in part already seen and shall now further discover by our following Witnesses who were not onely able to testifie of their own times but of the foregoing Ages Among whom Hegesippus deserves the first place not onely for his great antiquity but for his manner of writing as an Historian and so not concern'd meerly to give an account of the Affairs of his own Age but to make a diligent enquiry into the Records and Transactions of former times He wrote five Books of Ecclesiastical History which he styled Commentaries of the Acts of the Church wherein he has in a plain and familiar style given an account of the Tradition of the Church and the most remarkable passages in it from our Lord's Death till his own time which was about or rather before the Reign of M. Aurelius for he says he came to Rome and stayed there till the time of Anicetus now Anicetus according to the latest computation succeeded in that See at the beginning of the Reign of Aurelius but according to the earlier account under Antoninus Pius so that it is probable that he was at Rome before Policarp And this description he has given of his Voyage that coming to Rome he
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
if one be true all is true if one false all is false So that if there be a Deity there must be a Law of Nature and if a Law of Nature a future State And on the contrary if no future State then no Law of Nature and if no Law of Nature no Deity So that the proof of all the rest ultimately resolves into the proof of a Deity and that being the most evident thing in Nature it gives the same evidence to all other Principles that are so inseparably connected with it And having brought our Argument to that head there we may safely leave it and challenge the assent of Mankind to both the other till they can rationally quit themselves of the belief of that And 't is for this reason chiefly that I have waved all physical Arguments for the Soul's Immortality because how valid soever they may be they cannot be so certain nor indeed any thing else as the existence of a Deity which is the most certain thing in Nature and of which I have as good assurance as of my own Being Beside I am quite tired out with the dulness of Mechanical Philosophy with which I must have engaged if I had undertaken the Physical Argument but alas when they are not able to give any tolerable account of a Stone 's falling to the Earth by meer Mechanism what wretched work are they like to make of it when they would make out all the Actions of humane Understanding by the fortuitous workings of Matter And when Mr. Hobbs tells us that Reflection upon our own Thoughts is nothing but the Reaction of one parcel of Matter upon another the Notion is just as wise and philosophical as if the witty old Gentleman had told us That when one bowling Stone beats back another the repercussion is Understanding I know some attempts of the same kind have been made by wiser Men but as long as they terminate in meer Matter and make the Brain any more than the Instrument of Conveyance between the operations of the Mind and the Body their discourse is full as wise as if they would undertake to turn Custards and Mince-pies into Philosophers or Statesmen And therefore I cared not to meddle with this part of the Argument because I must confess I was ashamed to be caught at Childs play However if there be any Mechanism as no doubt there is it is Divine Mechanism but as for that I will not be so presumptuous as to pretend to fathom it and though it were easie enough from philosophick Reasons Observations and Experiments to demonstrate that God has actually made humane Nature something more Noble yet because there is nothing in all natural Philosophy so evident as the Being of the Divine Providence and because the future state of Mankind is so apparently connected with it that alone far exceeds the evidence of all other demonstration And I have so much the rather pursued this Argument because though I find it suggested by several Authours both ancient and modern yet it is not that I know of prosecuted by any If I would have been more copious than was absolutely necessary after I had shewn that there was no account to be given of the Providence of God in the Government of Mankind without the supposition of a future State I might have run through the whole Series of humane Affairs and shewn not onely how just but how wise the Providence of God is in the management of all things upon this Supposition But alas when it is once proved that Divine Providence cannot be justified without it it will immediately and of it self clearly prove how excellently it is quitted by it All Objections from the real Vanity of this World and the seeming inequality of Justice towards good and bad Men are clear'd up by the certainty of a future reserve But the proof of this being so easie and obvious after the proof of the other it is needless to treat of it apart because it does not so much follow upon it as go along with it and at the same time we perceive that Providence cannot be justified without it we cannot but see how admirably it is justified with it Thus far may we advance by following the nature of Things and the conduct of natural Reason and it is a sufficient declaration of the will of God to Mankind supposing that he has endued them with a faculty of Understanding and that they are pleased to make use of it for if he has the connexion of these things is evident enough to any Man that will observe it but if he will not he is not capable of any kind of Information no blindness more incurable than when Men will not see But as bright as the light of Nature shines it is but a dimm thing if compared to that great glory that is reveal'd in the Gospel there Life and Immortality are brought to Light so as to be made evident not onely to our Reasons but our very Senses our belief of it is founded upon visible experiment and ocular demonstration And that is the Argument of the Second Part to demonstrate that the original proof of it is on all sides so evidently confirm'd and so advantageously guarded against all Objections that it is not possible for the wit of Mankind to have laid the same design so as to have made it more unquestionable For that is an undoubted proof of its being a contrivance of the Divine Providence in that if we would onely suppose that the Providence of God should set such a design on foot we cannot comprehend how it was possible to recommend its truth to the World with greater Advantage And as it was at first attended with all imaginable Evidence so is the Testimony whereby the knowledge of it is conveyed down to us so undoubted and uninterrupted that if we our selves had been Eye-witnesses of it we could scarce have had a greater assurance of its truth and reality in brief there are so many and so forcible Arguments to prove it apparently true that I cannot think it too much confidence to affirm that it is scarce possible to be false And therefore for the more effectual demonstration of it I have gone that way to work to make out its proof from the monstrous and infinite absurdities of Unbelief and shewn that it must believe every thing that is incredible all the contradictions to humane Nature and humane Affairs I have laid the whole stress of my Argument upon the Evidence of the matter of Fact and for its greater advantage I have leapt over fourteen Centuries and taken a prospect of things in the same posture in which they stood the three first Ages of the Church For then the History of our Saviour's Reformation was as certain and undoubted to the Men of that Age as the change of Religion under Henry the Eighth is or can be to the Men of this And here I have so closely traced the Tradition of it
in the Gospel that other Historians are concern'd to record as well as the Christians are exactly true that is at least a very fair probability that the Christian Writers were faithfull in those other Relations that are peculiar to their own History And this is all that can be expected from foreign Testimony for if such Writers had been exact in the Records of our Saviour's Actions they had then been Christians and not Jews or Heathens Supposing them therefore as they were no Friends to Christianity they have given in all that suffrage to it that can be reasonably demanded from them And now as for the proof hereof it had been much more easie than it is had it not been for the pride and vanity of some of our modern Criticks who care very little what becomes of the truth or falshood of things so they can shew their censuring Faculty upon words and particularly they have in this case set themselves with their utmost critical Severity to disparage or destroy the most eminent Testimonies cited by the Ancients out of foreign Writers in behalf of Christianity Scaliger the Father of them all led the Dance upon what motive I cannot imagine unless it were out of Envy to the Fame and Glory of Eusebius against whom he particularly set himself and his endeavours but however the design looking like a Novelty and carrying in it an ostentation of Learning for that reason alone he could not want a great number of Followers among that sort of Men. But to what little purpose they have spent all their pains and peevishness I now come to represent And here first Josephus the Jew who was contemporary with the Apostles agrees all along with the Evangelists in the History of that time He gives the same account and description of John the Baptist as we reade in the Gospels He gives us the same narration of Herod the Tetrarch and particularly of his marrying his Brother's Wife He mentions the Tax of Cyrenius He records the Acts of the several Governours of Judaea Pontius Pilate Felix and Portius Festus and describes the succession of the several High priests Caiaphas Joha and Alexander the death of Herod Agrippa and of Saint James the Brother of our Lord nay he gives not onely a just History but an high Character of our Lord himself All which our learned Men are willing enough to pass as certain and warrantable History excepting onely that passage concerning our Saviour Onely there is one difficulty in the Tax of Cyrenius which Saint Luke says was about the time of our Saviour's Nativity but Josephus not till after the Banishment of Archelaus which hapned at least nine years after the Death of Herod so that which way to reconcile this difference learned Men have been much puzled and towards its solution have started variety of Conjectures And therefore though it is of no very great concernment I shall give some account of it before I proceed to the Testimony concerning Jesus § XII And first of all Baronius tells us plainly that Josephus is mistaken but then this is to cut the Knot not to untie it for our business is to reconcile him and the sacred History but if we utterly reject him instead of answering the Objection we grant it viz. that there are irreconcileable differences between him and the Evangelists Though here I cannot but wonder at the unusual disingenuity of Casaubon who whereas Baronius affirms that Josephus does in many things of Chronology contradict Saint Luke and therefore if we must stand to his Authority that will enforce us to reject the Evangelist he I say inveighs and declaims upon this as if it were Baronius his Assertion and not his Argument and rates him severely as if he had positively affirm'd that the Testimony of Josephus was sufficient to oblige us to quit that of the Evangelist Whereas he onely makes use of it as a forcible Objection against appealing to Josephus in any matters wherein he contradicts the Scriptures for in such cases says he we cannot admit him without rejecting them Now I say from hence to infer that Baronius affirm'd that we were obliged so to doe became not the ingenuity of a learned Man But the truth of it is to observe once for all Casaubon was little less partial towards one Extreme than Baronius towards the other For as it was the custom of that learned Cardinal and the Writers of the Church of Rome to rake together every thing that might serve their Cause embracing the forged and spurious as well as the true and undoubted records of Antiquity So Casaubon and the learned Men of his way have been as diligent to weaken the Authority of all the most ancient and most authentick Writers so that there is not the least slip in any of the Ancients that they have not observed in their critical Notes upon them and beside that they reject whole Books of the best and earliest Antiquity But by this means they have between them both done this great service to the Christian Church that as they have discover'd the fraud of supposititious Books so they have confirm'd the Authority of the true and genuine And it is by occasion of their disputes that we are come to a certain knowledge of all the sincere records of Antiquity So that at last the Epistles of Ignatius and the Apostolical Canons that have been most of all opposed have by those great endeavours that have been employed to destroy their Authority gain'd and will for ever keep as undoubted a credit as the most unquestion'd pieces of Justin Martyr or Irenaeus The next guess is that of Beza which is followed and variously emproved by Scaliger Casaubon Grotius and others viz. That Cyrenius was employed by Augustus to take two several Musters of the People one with a Tax and the other without it and that was it that was made at the time of our Saviour's Birth For Augustus designing that compendious Account of the Roman Empire which Historians so often speak of and which he left as a guide and direction to his Successours in the Empire sent several Officers through the several Provinces to take an exact account of the number and condition of the Inhabitants and for this purpose though Quintilius Varus were then Prefect of Syria Cyrenius was join'd in Commission with him as a Person that was by reason of his residence in Syria and his Wars in Cilicia exactly acquainted with the Affairs of the East as afterwards he was sent with C. Caesar on the same Errand and when Judaea was reduced into the form of a Province after the Banishment of Archelaus and the first Tax to be imposed immediately by the Romans upon the People he was particularly singled out as the Person most able to manage it So that it is not unlikely that he might be employed in this business though not himself but Quintilius Varus was then Prefect of Syria And if this be so then
so near and yet so prodigious And when they had as it was an easie matter assured themselves of its truth and reality this could not but provoke them to an eager enquiry after the meaning of so strange a thing And when they were assured that the Miracle was wrought by the Followers of that Jesus who was lately crucified and that they declared themselves Eye witnesses of his Resurrection from the dead and withall professed that they were endued with this power of Miracles from Heaven onely for an undoubted evidence and confirmation of the truth of their Testimony they had not power to withstand the force of such a mighty and astonishing demonstration And it was this demonstration of the Spirit and of Power as Saint Paul styles it rather than the strength of their Arguments as cogent as they were that first baffled the unbelieving World into Christianity and forced in the assents of Men to the truth and Divine Authority of its Doctrine They did not put their Auditours to the trouble of examining the validity of their Testimony but prevented all enquiries by this infallible confirmation The evidence of their Miracles was such an irrefragable Argument of the truth of their Testimony as surmounted the power of all other demonstration And what rational Man would stay to expect any other proof of a Divine Testimony that has seen it unquestionably attested by a Divine Power Or who could doubt and dispute after he had seen Devils dispossest the Sick healed and the dead raised This was such an almighty attestation to their preaching that it upbraided away their Scruples and bore away their Understandings And by this means it was that the Gospel prevail'd so easily and so speedily over all the World Its first preachers converted whole Cities and Nations in a moment and founded new Churches upon one undeniable Miracle and nothing less considering all circumstances of things and all the disadvantages under which it laboured could so soon have propagated the Gospel over all the World And thus if we trace the Apostolical History we scarce find any thing transacted without a Miracle insomuch that the People at length familiarly resorted to them for the cure of all kind of Diseases Acts 5. 12. And this power was so vulgarly known at that time that Saint Paul insists upon it as the proof of his true Apostleship Rom. 15. 18 18. 2 Cor. 12. 12. which had been too absurd a thing to alledge to his Followers in confutation of his Enemies if it had been a meer Fiction for if it were they knew it to be so when he appeals to the Signs and Wonders he had already wrought among them and if he had wrought none they could not but convict him of falshood But though I have already proved the certainty of the Records of the New Testament and so might from thence rationally enough make out the truth of these Apostolical Miracles and though I have in part proved the sufficiency of the Tradition of the Church to attest both them and all things contained in them and shall anon more distinctly shew the undoubted and uninterrupted conveyance of it from the very Apostles themselves so that if they had not been true they could never have gain'd belief yet in this present Argument I will not build upon these or any other suppositions and indeed if I suppose them this Argument would be needless for once granting the Scriptures to be true and authentick Records of the Apostles actions to what purpose is it to go about to prove that they were endued with a power of Miracles when the Record alone is an undoubted proof of it And therefore I onely argue from the nature of the thing it self viz. That it is impossible the Christian Faith lying under all those disadvantages above represented could ever have been propagated with that speed and facility that it was all the World over any other way than by this power of working Miracles and on the contrary that supposing this evidence that they gave the World by their Miracles that then it was natural and almost necessary that they should meet with the success they did Here then lies the force of my present Argument that when it was impossible they should compass their design any other way and when it was natural if they took this course to succeed in it and when it is certain that they had such wonderfull success that is a manifest Argument that they were endued with such a power of Miracles as is reported of them And therefore I did not produce those Testimonies of Scripture but now alledged as proofs to justifie the truth of the Argument but onely as instances to exemplifie the practice of it v. g. how incredible it is that 3000 People when they heard the Apostles affirm at Whitsontide that the same Jesus whom they had seen so shamefully executed at Easter was risen from the Grave and ascended into Heaven should so immediately believe them upon their bare Report but when they beheld that miraculous effect of the Holy Ghost in them whereby such illiterate Persons were enabled to speak all manner of Languages that alone could not but satisfie them of the truth of their Testimony So that I argue not from the truth of the Record but from the nature of the thing it self which could not have been done any other way than as it is recorded to have been done I might here also confirm the truth of their Miracles by the confession of their greatest Enemies in that I do not find that ever any of them denied them to have been done but instead of that ascribe them to the power of Magick though how foolish that evasion is I shall shew when I come to consider their evasions to this Argument at present this very surmise is a plain confession of the reality of the thing it self and that goes a great way as to evidence when coming out of the mouth of an Adversary but this having suggested I shall not farther insist upon it § XXIV Onely there is one thing remaining that adds great force to the strength of this Argument viz. That this power was not meerly confined to the Apostolical Age but was continued down to the next Ages of the Church which if true it is an undeniable Evidence of the truth of the Apostolical Miracles in particular and of the Divinity of the Christian Religion in general And yet of the truth of these we have no one thing for which we have better Records It is unanimously attested by all Writers of those times and that in such a publick and extraordinary way as raises their Testimony up to certain demonstration for they do not barely report it but they upbraid it to all their Adversaries as a thing undeniable they challenge Emperours Proconsuls the whole Senate in their Apologies and publick Writings to convince them by experiment they urge it in their Disputes with learned Men and dare them to contradict it
and not onely offer to cast the whole Controversie upon this one proof but their Lives too Now all this they could never have been so foolish or so impudent to have done if it had not been true or if they were they could not have escaped that disgrace that was due to their folly and impudence And yet they were so far from being ever convicted of forgery that it was chiefly by virtue of these challenges that the Christian Faith so wonderfully prevail'd in all places Many and pregnant are the passages to this purpose in the Writings of Just in Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian Saint Cyprian Saint Austin Origen Arnobius Lactantius Minutius Felix Prudentius Firmicus and indeed all that appear'd in defence of the Christian Faith in the first Ages of the Church and though most of them have been often alledged by modern Authours yet being of a peculiar use as to my Argument when join'd to the Apostolical Miracles it will be very requisite to represent at one view the most material passages to this purpose I begin with Just in Martyr who lived in the next Age to the Apostles who tells the Emperour and Senate that they may if they please inform themselves of our Lord's power over their Demons by what was daily done under their own eyes when so many who had been tortur'd and possessed by them throughout the whole World and in the very City of Rome it self whom all their several kinds of Exorcists were not able to relieve had been often cured by Christians through the name of Jesus that was crucified under Pontius Pilate and that at this very time they still cured them And the same thing he frequently upbraids to Trypho the Jew in their personal Conference which had it been a meer Fable he could never have done with so much confidence or if he had he could not have passed without confutation especially when in a short time after he published it to the World And in the same Age Irenaeus proves against the Hereticks the right succession of the Catholick Church to the Apostles from their power of working the same Miracles as casting out Devils foretelling things to come curing the Sick by imposition of hands and raising the Dead many whereof he says conversed among them many years after beside innumerable other Gifts which the Church throughout the World does every day freely exercise in the name of Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate for the benefit of Mankind But Tertullian as his manner is speaks very daringly for having convinced the Heathens of their folly in worshipping their Gods by Argument he challenges them to doe it by matter of Fact Set says he before your publick Seats of Judgment any person possessed as you suppose by some Demon and there let any Christian onely command him to confess what he is and the Spirit shall as certainly acknowledge himself to be a Devil as at other times he confidently pretends to be a God Nay take any person that you suppose inspired by any of your greatest Deities be it Ceres or AEsculapius and if they do not confess themselves to be Devils not daring to lie to a Christian let that foolish Christian that undertakes it and fails of doing it pay for his confidence with his bloud What can be more evident than this matter of fact What more satisfactory than this kind of proof The certainty of the truth lies before you it s own power will maintain it self for it is a ridieulous thing to suspect that this can be done by any magick tricks believe not one word that I say if your own Eyes and Ears do not force you to it What a bold challenge is here to appeal to the Senses of their Enemies and that with the hazard and pawn of their Lives It is such an height of assurance as I think nothing can exceed though his appeal to Scapula seems to equal it when he refers him to the Officers of his own Court some of whose Servants had been healed by Christians but not to insist says he upon inferiour People I could name persons of Quality and Reputation that have been so cured and particularly Severus the Father of the Emperour Antoninus Caracalla who was so cured by Proculus whom he ever after highly esteemed and entertain'd him in his Court till his Death And to this he subjoins the Testimony of M. Aurelius concerning the Miracle of the Christian Souldiers in the German Expedition That when the Imperial Army was reduced to great streights and ready to perish through thirst and in that extremity of weakness forced to Battel by the Enemy the Christians by the power of their Prayers immediately drew down great showrs of Rain upon their own Camp and Thunder and Lightning upon the Enemies This he here urges upon the President Scapula as a thing vulgarly known and in his Apology to the Senate proves it by the Letters that the Emperour had not long before sent to themselves Which certainly he could never have been so presumptuous as to have done had there then been no such Letters extant and yet Scaliger to make it as doubtfull as he can has found out a very lean Conjecture viz. That Tertullian does not positively affirm the thing but onely says Si Literae M. Aurelii requirantur If you make search after the Letter of M. Aurelius from whence he infers that Tertullian himself never saw it because of his hypothetical way of expression But 't is a strange thing that so great a Critick as Scaliger should not know that there is no one form of Speech more vulgar with all kind of Writers than when they are most assured of any thing to express it hypothetically and thereby refer what themselves certainly know to the farther enquiry of others so that the most natural meaning of the words is this viz. As to this matter I need not take pains to satisfie you which you may do your selves if you please by examining the Emperour 's own Letter to your own House Neither is his suggestion much more weighty when he infers that this Letter was not extant in the time of Eusebius because if it had so diligent a Writer would have preserved a Copy of it And so it is very likely he would had it been extant in the Greek Tongue but being written in the Latin to which he was a stranger it lay out of the compass of his diligence Yes but says he it was the custom of Eusebius to translate Latin Monuments into the Greek Tongue as he has several passages out of Tertullian One would think that Eusebius had familiarly cited the Writings of Tertullian whereas he never quoted but one short Book of his and that is his Apology which it is very probable that Eusebius himself did not translate but made use of another's translation especially when it is plain by those few passages that he has made use of that it is very short of the usual care and
affirms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he quite vanisht away at last he onely says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he went away and this though he would seem to affirm that it was after a wonderfull manner and no body knows how is a pitifull abatement to the bigness of his former expression vanishing away Though the truth is if he had stood to it it must unavoidably have proved it self a Lye for it is utterly incredible that so strange a thing as that should have been done in so great a presence as that and yet never any notice be taken of it But in the last place the Historian would fain bid at something of his Hero's appearing after Death yet he does it so faintly that in the conclusion of all it comes to nothing especialy when he tells us that the time of his Death was altogether unknown and that the uncertainty of it took in no less than the compass of thirty years and then they that were so utterly at a loss as to the time of his decease and that for so long a space were likely to give a very wise account of the certain time of any thing that he did after it But how or to whom did he appear Why to a young Man one of his Followers that doubted of the Immortality of the Soul for ten months together after his Death But how or where Why the young Man being tired with watching and praying to Apollonius that he would appear to him onely to satisfie him in this point one day fell into a dead sleep in the School where the young Men were performing their several Exercises and on the sudden starts up in a great fright and a great sweat crying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I believe thee O Tyanaeus And being asked by his Companions the meaning of his transport Why says he do you not see Apollonius They answer him no but that they would be glad to give all the World that they could 'T is true says he for he onely appears to me and for my satisfaction and is invisible to all others and so tells them what he had said to him in his sleep concerning the state of Souls This poor account of a Dream and a Vision of an over-watched Boy is all that this great Story affords to vye with our Saviour's Resurrection And now upon review of this whole History it seems evident to me that this Man was so far from being endued with any extraordinary or Divine Power that he does not deserve the reputation of an ordinary Conjurer For though Huetius has taken some pains to prove him so yet he gives no evidence of it beside the Opinion of the common People and if that were enough to make a Conjurer there is no Man of an odd and a singular humour as Apollonius affected to be who is not so thought of by the common People And therefore when he was accused for it before Domitian the Emperour when he came to hear the cause slighted both him and his accusers and dismist him the Court for an idle and phantastick fellow And it is manifest from the whole series of his History that he was a very vain Man and affected to be thought something extraordinary and so wander'd all the World over in an odd Garb to be gazed at and admired and made himself considerable in that Age by Wit Impudence and Flattery of all which he had a very competent share But for his Wonder-working Faculty which he would needs pretend to he fetcht that as far off as the East Indies that is the farthest off as he thought from confutation And yet the Account that he has given of those parts is so grosly fabulous that that alone convicts his whole Life of imposture and impudence And this may suffice to make good this part of the demonstration of our Saviour's Divine Authority from the certain Evidence both of his own and his Apostles Miracles and to set it above the reach of all manner either of Objection or Competition § XXVIII But though the History of Jesus of Nazareth have this advantage of all others in that the Tradition whereby it has been conveyed down to us has proved the truth of its own Testimony by plain and undeniable Miracles yet if we set aside this peculiar Divine Attestation and consider the Tradition by it self as meerly Humane and deliver'd down in the ordinary course of things it has been so constant so catholick and so uninterrupted as to be its own demonstration For if there had been no such thing as the Story of Jesus of Nazareth in that Age there could never have been any such Tradition or if there were it was so early that if it had been false it must immediately have perished as a manifest Lye in that when it comes so near the very time in which the thing it self was acted nothing but undoubted Truth could ever have maintain'd its Authority For though it is easie at a distance to tell strange stories of the times of old as we find by those many idle and incredible Legends added to the History of the primitive Church in the after-ages of ignorance and superstition yet to raise a story so strange and remarkable as that of Jesus of Nazareth and his Apostles without any ground or foundation for it nay against the certain knowledge of those who lived in the place where it was first broacht and to gain Proselytes to such a notorious Fiction is a thing not possible in the course of humane Affairs For to pass by all the other disadvantages that I have already represented that this Tradition must labour under if it rise not up to the very time that it pretends to especially that of its being a matter of Fact which must unavoidably have destroyed it if false that which I have already proposed and come now to prosecute seems as insuperable as any of the rest viz. That great numbers of learned and wise Men who lived in the Ages next and immediately after it should after the strictest enquiry concerning its truth not onely suffer themselves to be imposed upon by so late and palpable a Fiction but lay down their Lives in defence of it This is not credible unless they were fully assured of the undoubted certainty of the thing it self and their assurance alone is to us a sufficient demonstration of it But though that be enough yet I will undertake more viz. To give an account of the grounds and reasons of their Assurance by tracing up the certain Tradition of the thing it self to the very times of the Apostles and from them deriving it down to after-after-ages through the hands of wise learned and judicious Men and that as I take it will make a new and distinct demonstration of the infallible certainty of the Christian Faith Now this Tradition is conveyed two manner of ways either by a succession of Churches or of single Persons First by a succession of Churches and
the Tables of the Consuls yet they were very carefully preserved in those times and as easily consulted by any inquisitive Person as any other publick Record and were so by all learned Men who made it their business to enquire into them or to convey the account of them to after-ages and particularly Eusebius who as he made use of many other helps and had all the other advantages of information would not want this that was so easie and so satisfactory as himself particularly informs us concerning the succession of Jerusalem that he transcribed it out of their own Archives Though setting aside the information that he received thence the History of the succession is sufficiently preserved by other Writers That of Rome is already cleared that of Antioch is as clear onely some Men are willing to raise a dispute about the immediate Successour to the Apostles whether it were Euodius or Ignatius probably it might be both as it was at Rome but if Euodius were the first it is enough that his Successour Ignatius was an Apostolical Man and familiarly acquainted with the Apostles and that from him the succession runs clear and undisputed down to the Council of Nice to which Eustathius its then present Bishop was summon'd and as he was a Man of eminent learning so he bore a considerable sway in it As for Alexandria the succession runs so clear there that I do not find that the most sceptical Adversaries in this point dare so much as question it and indeed the succession of learned Men in that Church was so early and so uninterrupted that it was no more possible for them to be ignorant of the succession of their Bishops than it is for any learned Man now not to know the succession in the See of Canterbury from the Reign of Queen Elizabeth To these it were easie to add many more if it were not too tedious but though I do not meet with any reasonable suspicion of an interrupted succession in any eminent Church yet I shall instance onely in two that next to those already mention'd most deserve our notice that is the Churches of Corinth and Athens an account of whose succession we have from Dionysius a learned Man and Bishop of Corinth in the time of M. Antoninus as indeed we have of many other Churches in his Epistles to them as for his own Church it were a vain thing to demand a particular account of its succession when himself was so near the fountain head and has withall accidentally let us understand his knowledge of what was transacted there before his own time and particularly by his account of Saint Clement's Epistle As for the Church of Athens he expresly affirms that Dionysius the Areopagite was their first Bishop and after him mentions Publius and Quadratus so that it was not possible there should be any unknown interruption in so short an interval This may suffice for a brief specimen of the certain succession in the most eminent Churches from the Apostles and by consequence of their undoubted Tradition § XXIX The next part of the Argument is to prove its more particular conveyance down from the very time of the Apostles through the hands of a great many wise and learned Men And for this reason it was that Clemens Alexandrinus after he had passed through the Discipline of several Masters and several Sects acquiesced at last without any farther search in the Christian Institution because they that preserved the Tradition of this heavenly Doctrine received it immediately from Peter James and John and Paul the holy Apostles as a Son succeeds a Father and by the Providence of God have brought it down to us planting those seeds of Doctrine which they derived from their Ancestours and the Apostles And it is a very good reason and becoming the wisedom of that learned Man supposing the matter of Fact to be true and that it is is evident from the succession it self in that the first Witnesses of Christianity next to the Apostles familiarly conversed with the Apostles themselves or with Apostolical Men. As Saint Clemens Bishop of Rome who wrote an excellent Epistle to the Church of Corinth received with great veneration in the Christian Church valued next to the holy Scriptures and therefore read with them in several Churches but especially the Church of Corinth And as it was the most ancient next to the Apostolical Books so was it the most undoubted Writing of the Christian Church it was says Eusebius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 received without controversie And it is cited by Dionysius Bishop of Corinth a short time after who affirms that it was then read in that Church every Lord's Day It is magnified by Irenaeus not onely for its own strength and piety but for the primitive Antiquity of its Authour who he says was conversant with the Apostles received his Christianity from them had their preaching still fresh in his memory and their customs and traditions in his eye as divers others there were then living that were taught by the Apostles themselves And Clemens Alexandrinus quoting this Epistle as he often does gives him the Title of Apostle for his primitive Antiquity But beside that it was unanimously attested by the Ancients it was never call'd in question by any of our modern Criticks who though they have taken infinite pains to destroy or impair as much as in them lay the credit of all the ancient monuments of the Church yet have passed this Epistle as undoubtedly genuine with an unanimous approbation Now this supposes the owning and the settlement of the Christian Religion in the World it asserts particularly the truth and certainty of our Saviour's Resurrection and beside several other Books of the New Testament quotes the first Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians in which the Apostle proves its undoubted certainty by the Testimony not onely of himself and the Apostles but of above five hundred Witnesses beside most whereof were then alive Beside this he tells us of the great labours and martyrdoms of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in asserting the Christian Faith and the great patience and constancy of vast numbers more for the same cause and this he speaks of as a thing present Let us says he consider the generous and worthy Examples of our own Age through emulation and envy the faithfull Pillars of the Church were persecuted even unto a most grievous Death Let us place before our Eyes our holy Apostles and so he proceeds to the acts and sufferings of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Now how could this have been done at that time if Christianity had been a meer Fable or what more unquestionable Tradition can we have of its truth especially of the Resurrection when he quotes the Gospels in which it is recorded the Epistle of Saint Paul in which it is proved by such a number of Eye-witnesses the Testimony of the Apostles and innumerable others that lived at the
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-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
very point of his dissolution as his Legacy to the Christian Church communicated to several Churches publickly and vulgarly known attested by Saint Policarp Irenaeus Clemens of Alexandria and not long since by Origen 't is not possible that all the Copies of such a Writing as this should be lost about one and the same time and that a false one should immediately rise up in their stead and that Eusebius a Man so familiarly acquainted with the choicest Libraries of that part of the World should embrace so late and so gross a Forgery and put the mistake upon all learned Men that followed after him The Man that can satisfie himself with such wild surmises and suppositions as these there is nothing so absurd but he may easily swallow its belief nor so demonstratively proved but he may withstand its evidence Now the Authority of these Epistles being vindicated and I am apt to think that they will never more be call'd in question they are a brave and generous Assertion of the truth of the Christian Faith being written with that mighty assurance of Mind that shews the Authour of them to have had an absolute certainty or a kind of an infallible knowledge of the things that he believed In every Epistle his Faith is resolved into that undoubted evidence that he had of our Saviour's Death and Resurrection and particularly in that to the Church of Smyrna he protests that he could no more doubt of its reality than of his own chains and again positively affirms that he knew it to be true And yet not withstanding that all the ancient Copies and all the quotations of the Ancients out of him agree in this sense that he knew Jesus to be in the flesh after his death because in Saint Jerom's Translation who excuses himself for the haste and carelesness of the work it is rendred that he saw Jesus in the flesh this is made use of by the learned Men of our new Church of Geneva as a sufficient Objection to overthrow the Authority of all these Epistles It is possible indeed he might have seen Jesus in the flesh but it is not probable neither is it his design to affirm it in this place seeing he proves its truth from the Testimony of the Apostles as Eye-witnesses and not from his own immediate knowledge but when he onely says that from them he knew it to be true to put this assertion upon him that he saw it with his own eyes against the reading of all the ancient Books from a careless Translation proves nothing but the invincible stubbornness of prejudice and partiality But the truth is these Men have been so zealous for their Faction as not to care how in pursuit of it they endanger'd nay destroyed their Religion For whereas one of the greatest Pillars of the Christian Faith is the Testimony of the Ancients in the Age next to the Apostles in that it is hereby particularly proved that it is no figment of an unknown time and that the Records of it were of that Antiquity that they pretend to be yet because they do as positively assert the original Constitution of the Christian Church which this faction of Men have hapned to renounce they have labour'd with indefatigable industry utterly to overthrow all their Authority but thanks be to God with that ill success that by their endeavour to shake our Faith they have onely made it to take the better root for by this occasion the most ancient Tradition of the primitive Church has been much more inquired into and better clear'd than if it had passed without any dispute or contradictition But to keep close to our Ignatius what has been the bottom of all the zeal and fury against his Epistles but his earnest pressing all good Christians to submit to the government of the Church as to the Ordinance of God or rather because he describes the Constitution of the primitive Platform so accurately as to condemn their Discipline of folly and rashness in departing from the prescription of God himself And yet all the ancient Doctours of the Church have done the same thing laying as great a stress as he has done upon the duty of Obedience to their Ecclesiastical Governours as set over them by Divine Institution For as there was nothing of which they were then more tender than the Peace and Unity of the Church so they thought it could be no other way preserved than by submission to those Guides and Governours that Christ had set over it This it were easie to make evident out of their Writings especially Saint Cyprian's who as he was a Person of very great prudence and discretion so is he full as peremptory in this point as Ignatius But I shall onely instance in the Epistle of Saint Clement because of its greater Antiquity For if that assert a certain form of Church government establisht by our Saviour and observed by the Apostles that prevents and confutes the groundless conjecture of an unknown time immediately after the Apostles in which the whole power of the Church devolved upon the Presbyters because they had appointed no one particular and perpetual form of Government And this Saint Clement asserts in these positive words The Apostles were appointed to preach the Gospel to us from our Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ from God himself Christ being sent by God and the Apostles by him the sending of both was in an orderly manner after the will of God For the Apostles receiving their command and having a full confidence through the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and faith in the word of God with an assurance of the Holy Spirit went forth publishing the Gospel of the Kingdom of God which was erecting They therefore preached the Word through divers Countries and Cities ordaining every where the first fruits of such as believed having made proof and trial of them by the Spirit to be Overfeers and Deacons to minister unto them that should afterwards believe So that it seems they were so far from neglecting to provide Governours for the future state of the Church that they were carefull beforehand to provide Governours for future Churches And this he affirms the Apostles did because they understood by our Lord Jesus Christ that strife and contention would arise about the Title of Episcopacy for this cause therefore having absolute knowledge beforehand thereof they ordained the forenamed Officers and for the future gave them moreover in command that whensoever they should dye others well approved of should succeed into their Office and Ministery So that it is evident that the Apostles themselves by virtue of our Saviour's order observed and prescribed a particular form of Government to be continued down to future Ages And though our Authour does not express the several distinct Orders by the common names of Bishop Priest and Deacon yet he describes them as expresly by allusion to the Jewish Hierarchy under the names of High-priest Priest and Levite
However it is evident from hence that the Apostles settled a perpetual form of Church government to which all Christian people were indispensably bound to conform and then if that form were Episcopacy and if they settled that by our Saviour's own advice with an Eye to prevent Schisms and Contentions the case is plain that Ignatius his pressing all Churches so earnestly to obedience to their Bishop was nothing else but a prosecution both of our Saviour's and their command And then that it was Episcopacy is so evident from the unanimous and unquestionable Testimony of all Antiquity that it is positively asserted by all the Ancients and not opposed by any one but that would be too great a digression from the present Argument and therefore I shall not pursue it though I have gone thus far out of my way to shew for what reasons some Men have endeavour'd to impair the credit of the Records of the ancient Church not for any real defect and uncertainty that they found in them but because they give in such clear and undeniable Witness against their fond and unwarrantable Innovations And therefore I would advise these Gentlemen as they value the peace either of the Church or their own Consciences that they would cease to struggle any longer against their own convictions renounce their Errour when they can neither defend nor deny it and not be so headstrong as rather than part with a wrong Notion or confess a Mistake endeavour what in them lies to blow up the very foundations of the Christian Faith Or to bespeak them in the Words of Saint Clement Is there any one then that is bravely spirited among you Is there any one that hath compassion Doth any one abound in Charity Let him say if this Sedition or Contention or Schism be for me or by my means I will depart I will go my way whither soever you please I will do what the Society commands onely let the Sheepfold of Christ enjoy peace with the Elders that are placed over it He that shall doe so shall purchase to himself great glory in the Lord. Thus they doe and thus they will doe who leade their lives according to the rules of God's policy This was the gentle and peaceable temper of the primitive Christians but if they thought it their duty to quit their Country rather than occasion the disturbance of the Churches peace how much more to forgoe a false or an ungrounded Opinion And therefore to deal plainly with them I shall load their Consciences with this one sad and serious truth that when Men have once rashly departed from the Church that they live under and persevere in their Schism in spite of the most evident conviction they have renounced together with the Church their Christian Faith and are acted meerly by the spirit of Pride i. e. the Devil And therefore I do with all compassion to their Souls request such Men among us impartially to reflect upon themselves and their actions and if they are convicted in their own Consciences of having made causless Schisms in the Christian Church as I know they must be by those peevish pitifull pretences that they would seem to plead in their own excuse with all possible speed to beg pardon of God and his Church and as they would avoid the Judgment and displeasure of Almighty God against Pride Envy Peevishness Contention and Sedition to make publick confession of their fault to all the People that they have drawn after them into the same sin and with all humility and lowliness beg to be admitted into the bosom and communion of this truly ancient and Apostolick Church But my tender Charity to these poor Men that I see driving with so much fury self-conceit and confidence to utter destruction has again drawn me out of my way to perswade them if it be possible to turn back into the way of peace and salvation however it is high time for me to return to my Discourse § XXXI After this great and glorious Martyr the next eminent Witness of the original Tradition of the Christian Faith is his dear Friend and fellow Disciple Saint Policarp who as he was educated together with him under the Discipline of Saint John so he out-lived his Martyrdom about sixty years and by reason of his very great Age was able to give his Testimony not onely to that but to the next period of time so that as he conversed with Saint John Irenaeus conversed with him and withall gives an account of his Journey to Rome in the time of Anicetus and of his Martyrdom under M. Aurelius which was not till the year 167. So that through the great Age of Saint John and Saint Policarp the Tradition of the Christian Church was by them alone delivered down to the third Century for Irenaeus lived into the beginning of it not suffering Martyrdom himself by the earliest account till the year 202. And this is the peculiar advantage of his Testimony beyond all others that as it was as early as any so it continued into the most known times of the Christian Church for it was under the reign of M. Aurelius that the greatest part of the Christian Apologists flourisht and beside that his great courage and constancy in suffering for the Faith proves the great and undoubted certainty of his Tradition He was familiarly conversant with the Apostles and Eye witnesses of our Lord and therefore Ignatius recommended to him the care of his Church as knowing him to be a truly Apostolical Man and so he continued his care of the Christian Church for many years with great Faith and Resolution and at last seal'd his Faith with his Bloud I shall not need to give a particular account of his Life it is enough that as he declared at his Trial he had faithfully served his Lord and Master fourscore and six years but among the Records of his Life there is none more certain or more remarkable than his own Epistle to the Church of Philippi and the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna concerning his Martyrdom in both which is shewed his great assurance of Immortality In the first he bottoms his Exhortation to an holy Life upon no other principle than the certain evidence of their Saviour's Resurrection and firm belief of their own in the second he cheerfully resigns up his last breath with the greatest assurance of Mind concerning it in this short and excellent Prayer O Lord God Almighty the Father of thy well-beloved and ever-blessed Son Jesus Christ by whom we have received the knowledge of Thee the God of Angels Powers and of every Creature and of the whole race of the Righteous who live before Thee I bless Thee that Thou hast graciously condescended to bring me to this day and hour that I may receive a portion in the number of thy holy Martyrs and drink of Christ's Cup for the Resurrection to eternal Life both of Soul and Body in the incorruptibleness of the Holy Spirit
it So that in the true account of things when Men betake themselves to this Weapon against any Cause it is a plain confession that it is liable to no real exception And if the Heathens had thought that they were furnisht with matter of sufficient Argument against Christianity it self they would never have loaded it with the pretended bad practices of its Professours but for want of more material Objections they were forced upon these indirect courses For what is it to the truth or falshood of the Religion it self whether those that pretend to it live not up to its Principles If indeed the Principles themselves were bad then the Practices that follow from them were a pertinent Objection against their entertainment but otherwise if Men that own good Principles live bad Lives that concerns not their Principles but themselves And therefore if the Accusations against the Christians had been true they are of no concernment in the Cause of Christianity it self and so deserve no consideration in this Argument Yet because they were made use of to blind the Eyes of the People by possessing them with an hatred of all those that might convince them I shall give a brief account of them because that will be another distinct reason for the unbelief of so many Men in the first Ages of the Church notwithstanding that evidence of demonstration that Christianity brought along with it I shall say nothing of the out-cry of Atheism though that made the greatest noise because I have accounted for that already onely I cannot but observe that the imputation of this crime to the Christians was not more absurd than their method of convicting them was unjust For their crime was so much taken for granted that they never so much as enquired after any proof but the meer name of a Christian was taken for a full conviction and if any Man own'd it that without any farther trial passed for a confession of Atheism And this it is that all the Christian Apologists complain of that onely the name should be persecuted and for that alone they should be exposed to all the malice and cruelty of their Enemies Though upon the vulgar supposition that the name of a Christian was synonymous with that of an Atheist it was crime enough so that in the result of all that absurd supposition was their onely crime But beside this they charged the Christians with all manner of brutishness and immorality Thyestaean Feasts or eating their own Children at their private Meetings promiscuous Lust Incest and every thing that was beastly and immodest Things so incredible in themselves that they could never gain any serious belief with wise Men but any thing will serve turn to abuse the Rabble for great is the power of Lying as we of this Age know by too sad experience that have not long since seen an establisht Church and State meerly belyed into confusion But though the Adversaries of Christianity were ashamed to make use of these Calumnies in their publick Writings yet they easily served to transport the People into tumults against the Christians and so justifie any illegal and barbarous proceedings against them Thus when Justin Martyr at the beginning of his Conference challenges Trypho the Jew whether he really believed that the Christians ate Man's flesh and put out the Candles at their Meetings to run together into promiscuous Lust the Jew being a pretended Philosopher scorns the mention of such wild stories as unworthy any wise Man's regard and yet notwithstanding that these very stories did the business with the People upon all occasions Thus in that famous French Persecution in which the People exceeded their own usual bounds of Barbarity they first raised these reports against the Christians and then rackt some of their Heathen Servants till they vouched them viz. That they used the Feasts of Thyestes and the Incest of Oedipus with divers other enormities that can neither be thought of nor exprest with modesty nor so much as be believed to have been ever practised among Mankind and yet when these very things were bruited abroad among the the People they were with one consent so enraged and incensed against the Christians that those who upon the account of Neighbourhood or Kindred had before behaved themselves with some civility were hereby transported into the greatest excess of violence and outrage Neither did they design by these Calumnies to cheat the People onely but as Athenagoras complains in his Embassie to the Emperours by the greatness and horrour of those crimes that were so vulgarly reported of them they kindled the hatred and displeasure of great Men Princes and Governours And that was the main design of that excellent Apology to demonstrate that the Christians were meerly slandered into Accusations and that the slanders wherewith they were so confidently loaded were as false as wicked And this was the unanimous petition of all the Christian Apologists that the crimes objected against them might be examin'd and if any Man that pretended to be a Christian were found guilty that he might be punisht with the utmost severity of Law but if they proved meer malicious tales without any evidence of proof that for the time to come the Government would be pleased to secure them from such barbarous wrongs and injuries We onely beseech you says Justin Martyr that those things charged upon the Christians should be enquired into and if they be found to be so let them have their due punishment nay let them be more severely punisht than other Men but if not guilty then it is not reasonable that innocent persons should suffer meerly upon report and clamour And to the same purpose do we find Athenagoras Theophilus Tatianus Arnobius Lactantius and Tertullian frequently complaining of such proceedings and onely requesting so much humanity from them that they might have the favour that was allowed all other Malefactours to have their crimes examin'd and be proceeded against according to evidence of Fact Nay Tertullian proceeds so far as to make himself merry with the folly of their Tales and tells them it would be a work worthy the zeal of some officious President to find out such a Lundsford Christian that had already devoured at least an hundred fat Boys for his own share O quanta illius Proesidis gloria si eruisset aliquem qui centum jam infantes comedisset I know that the Fathers pleaded many other thingsin vindication of their Innocence but I would not stuff my Discourse with more quotations than are necessary to my Argument and this one thing that I have represented is a manifest demonstration of the injustice and unreasonableness of their Enemies in their proceedings against them and that is the onely thing that I am here obliged to make good viz. That all the Opposition that was made to Christianity was made upon unreasonable grounds and by unreasonable Men. § XLII This may suffice for the Grounds and Reasons of the publick Persecutions that were