of wives and concubines came from the Schole of the Nicolaitans The rare carnal Paradise was the invention of Cerinâ—hus and the ancient Chiliasts and that other foist That Christ did not suffer really but onely some Fantasme in his place was forged by the Cerdonians and others of that stamp The greatest part of his Fables are borrowed from the Jews and some Apocryphal Authors that were current like false money in those times and his gross follies wherewith he hath larded and strewed it throughout came from his own ignorance and for that having himself no knowledge at all neither of the Old nor New Testament nor of the writings of the Jews nor profane histories nor the Poets he trusted to the memory of a lewd Monk and some false Christians or false Jews who never understood very much of them whence all that he relates out of them is delivered rashly and at random But on the other side though there were nothing but truth in the whole Alcoran nothing but what were rational in it self and consentaneous to the Holy Scriptures both for histories and doctrines yet the author of it ought nevertheless to be held for no other then an Impostor for that he dares to vaunt himself for a great Prophet For such a Prophet as he pretends to be ought not onely to declare things agreeing with those that were before him but either to reveal doctrines unknown till then or to expound those which were delivered enigmatically and to unveil them out of their obscurities and withall to make faith of his calling either by miracles or prophesies of things to come ratified by the events the prediction of which does not import the vivacity of humane wit by penetrating by conjectures into some things undiscern'd by vulgar eyes but the wisdom of God to whom the bottom of the most impenetrable secrets is conspicuous Otherwise all Divines that ever writ concerning Religion either Jewish or Christian congruously to the books of the Old and New Testament should be either Prophets or Apostles Besides were there no errors in the Alcoran yet how many books have we that treat the best things contained therein in a manner incomparably more excellent Wherefore he ought to be accounted a Deceiver and the father of Deceivers who being so ignorant so impertinent so absurd so discordant from truth so fabulous and pollute he yet glories that he is the greatest of all the Prophets by whose ministry God revealed himself to men Now if Mahomet himself was so gross and mad a fool his principal Doctors and interpreters had yet more need of manacles and chaines then he which I shall shew onely by the sample of two books which they have in esteem In one of which is described the journey of Mahomet into Paradise by the conduct of the Angel Gabriel He entred say they into the first heaven being mounted upon Alborach an animal something bigger then an Asse and having a humane face where he observ'd that that first sphere was of fine silver and so thick as would require the space of five hundred years to be travell'd over by a foot-man There they found an Angel so high as it would be a thousand years journey from his head to his foot with seventy thousand other Angels each of which had seventy thousand heads every head seventy thousand hornes every horn seventy thousand knots and the distance of fourty years journey between one knot and another Also every head had seventy thousand faces in every of which there were seventy thousand mouths in every mouth seventy thousand tongues and every tongue spoke a thousand languages in which they praised God seventy thousand times a day you may imagine what a rare melodious noise they made In the second heaven which is made all of burnished gold they found a great multitude of Angels greater then the former amongst whom there was one whose se et touch'd the earth and his head the eighth Heaven 'T is strange no body ever saw him at least in one of the hemispheres But all these were but pygmies in comparison of another whom they met in the third Heaven who was so prodigiously great that if he should hold all the world in the palm of his hand he could nevertheless shut it Yet betwixt him and those which were in the fourth heaven it is hard to say whether there were any proportion unless some new Geometry be f und out to express it For every one of them had seventy pair of wings in each of which were seventy thousand pinions and every pinion was seventy thousand cubits long But as for him that they saw in the fifth sphere the Poets with their Briareus never understood any thing of him for what was he with his hundred armes to the Angel that opened the gate to them who had seven thousand arms at the end of each of which he moved seventy thousand hands In the other spheres they scarce found Angels of so enormous a stature but in the eighth sphere they beheld I cannot tell what huge Gyant so dreadful that he could have swollowed the Globe of the Earth Sea as easily as a little Pill Is the true History of Lucian and the Chronicles of Garagantua to be compared to this In the other Book is recited the discourse between a Musulman and a Jew who puts questions to him about the principal points of his doctrine and here it is that the spirit of error and lying displayes its full sails He saies God created a large Carton or Paper-volume and a pen of so rare a shape that it was five hundred days journey in length and four and twenty in breadth and that with this pen which ha's four and twenty points he writes continually in that Paper all that ever was is or shall be in the world That the light of the Sun and the Moon were equal in the beginning so that the day could not be well distinguish'd from the night but the Angel Gabriel as he flew by struck the Moon with the end of his wing and made it loose half its light Mention is made there of an Ox of so immense a greatness that between each of his horns whereof he hath fourty there is the distance of a thousand years journey And yet he says this Ox is under the Earth which the Hollanders sail round about in less then a year And least the Sea should complain of being destitute of Mahometical Monsters he assignes a fish to it whose head is in the East and tail in the West which carries on his back the whole earth seas and mountains a heavy load indeed but the air and darkness which he casts into his burden do not much increase his weight He makes Rats to have been produc'd in the Ark of the sneesing of a Hog and Cats of the sneesing of a Lyon perhaps by reason of the resemblance of their snout and muzzle And he saies that Seraphiel whosoever he be is not worth much enquiry
he had pronounced them with his own mouth may beget an immutable certainty that although the expressions be Allegorical yet the reality equals or surpasses them which unquestionably produces wonderful effects Whereas the opinion that other descriptions found in the Books of Poets are humane inventions disparages their authority and so renders them wholly ineffectual Let us proceed now to the other point of this Chapter Because as it hath been shewn all knowledge which we have of God comes either from a particular revelation or from contemplation of his Works and that all our piety is deriv'd from and regulated according to the measure of such knowledge it is of high importance especially to those who acknowledge no particular revelation to the end they may become truely pious towards God to have an exact knowledge of his Works namely of the World and the things contained therein I demand therefore whether they believe that God is the author of the World For if they do not but deny that he created the matter out of nothing of which it is compos'd or introduc'd the form into the matter which we behold in it they are as much at a loss as Epicurus to make out whence they learn't that God is powerful or what is the measure of his power so far are they from being able to assure themselves that it is infinite There is indeed a great Virtue requisite for the administring of Providence and which being duely considered by right reason is found to be infinite But if there hath ever been one person among the Philosophers that reason'd in this manner God governs the world Therefore his power is unlimited which I do not meet with any that ha's done there are found a thousand who conceived that God employ'd his utmost skill and ability in the government of the World and that his object was proportionable to his power so that being but sufficient to all the World he was not able to remove so much as one straw besides unless he should during that little space surcease his action by which he moves all this great mass of the Universe Whereas they which believe that God created the World and that he created it of nothing do necessarily imply in that belief this other that his power is immense since there is an infinite distance between Being and Not-being and those two terms as they speak cannot be conjoyn'd nor the one be pass'd from to the other but by a power of infinite extent Wherefore these people cannot adore God with assurance in reference to the infiniteness of his power For that right reason which is necessary to frame reasonings from the conduct of Providence which may infer the immensity of the power of God is not to be found in any of mankind since the corruption which befell it Moreover they deprive themselves of the fairest inducement to praise and thanksgiving which can be imagin'd For if God did not create the World he ha's not manifested any proof of his goodness in giving Being to the Creatures which is infinitely better then Not-being and consequently deserves an infinite gratitude if man were capable of performing it If particularly he did not create the World for man nor gave him that dominion which he challenges over all things by imagining himself the King of the Universe he does not ow him one word of thanks and ha's no reason to say as a great King once did Lord how illustrious is thy Name Whose power both Heaven and Earth proclame When I the Heavens thy Fabrick see The Moon and Stars dispos'd by Thee Oh what is Man or his frail Race That thou shouldst such a shadow grace Next to thy Angels most renown'd With Majesty and Glory crown'd The King of all thy Creatures made That all beneath his Feet hast laid All that on Dales or Mountaines feed That shady Woods or Desarts breed What in the Airy Region glide Or through the rowling Ocean slide Lord how illustrious is thy Name Whose power both Heaven and Earth proclame Which is reasonably a hymne more agreeable and well-pleasing to the Deity then the sume of all the Incense of Arabia But in the next place what duty will man think he owes to God even for his Being if he believes not that he receiv'd it from him And will he not rather be ready to place himself equal with him being not dependant of him for his Being since there is nothing more renders things equal one to another then Independance It is true it may perhaps be said that men are oblig'd to the Deity in as much as they depend of his Providence because if that did not preside over natural causes and cause them to produce things necessary to the support of Life we could not subsist and therefore he which gives the conservation of a being obliges as much or more then he which gives the being it self and he that feeds and defends then he that begets But this is a gross mistake of theirs and their pretended reason deludes them For if God be not the Author of the World how is he the Preserver of it Do's it not belong to him that made the Work to take the care of it Whence hath he authority to intermeddle in the Works of another or the World the necessity of being guided and preserved by the hand of God if it was not framed by the same And indeed God must either be the author of the World or Chance as Epicurus affirmed or as others Nature or it had never any beginning but hath existed from all eternity If it was Chance that made the world then consequently it is also preserved and governed by the same hazard And truely Epicurus was consistent with his own Principles when he denied Providence For if the World was thus framed by the fortuitous concourse of Atomes there is no need for Providence to put its hand to support it since it might be preserv'd in its Being by the same means by which it was produc'd the conservation of things being not more difficult then their first production If it was made by Nature I demand what that is For if by Nature they mean the order which is in the things of the World according to which causes produce effects sutable to themselves certainly and determinately namely both universal causes as the Heavens and particular as Animals and Plants they are not greatly mistaken We desire to know who is the Author of that order seeing order cannot be the author of it self For besides that nothing is able to produce it self into Being order is an effect of a Cause indowed with Understanding but hath no understanding it self in as much as Order is a disposition and relation according to which things are both conveniently marshall'd among themselves and rationally subordinated to some certain end Now who will say that this relation and disposition of things among themselves is it self indued with understanding And if the order of things did
in arms Now what is the cause of this misery but their Sins both such as are common to all men in general and particular to their own Nation For certainly God who lov'd them so tenderly and chose them out from all others to communicate his Covenants to them would not treat them so rigorously were there not some lawful cause in their extraordinary offenses And what a strange blindness and stupidity of mind is it to have so quick a resentment of evils relating to the body and not to acknowledge the cause of them What a depravity and perversity of understanding to groan under the strokes of the hand of God never to groan under the load of their own iniquity To pant incessantly after a Deliverer of the Body and never to think of the redemption of the soul They are driven out of Judaea and Heaven and Earth resound with their lamentations They are by their sins debar'd the hope of Heaven and make no matter of it They are inthralled to their corporeal enemies and murmure against God for it They themselves are sold to Satan and to Sin and do not understand the horror of this servitude They are impatient in a waiting the coming of some Person that may reassemble them from their dispersion and deliver them in reference to the body The Redeemer and Deliverer of their fouls is offer'd and preach'd to them and they reject him They flatter themselves with hope of a profound and plenteous tranquillity in all sorts of pleasures and delights of the Flesh and cheer up themselves with it They are invited to taste how good the Lord is in his compassions and they refute it Their thoughts are day and night upon gold silver silk scarlet fine linnen and jewels and their hearts leap with the fancy The Gospel tells them of riches and ornaments relating to the minde and they blaspheme it Is this the Posterity of that onely wife and intelligent people with whom God establisht his Covenants But above all the rest they do injury to the glory of that Messias who was promised to them to fancy him an earthly Prince For since themselves call his Kingdom the Kingdom of Heaven what other ought they to hope for but one spiritual and heavenly which beginning to be exercis'd here below in the souls of men which are of a spiritual nature is accomplish'd above in glory unspeakable And truly 't is to this that all the Prophets lead us from the first to the last What does that promise refer to The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head but to the consolation of man by the hope of being deliver'd from the Curse of eternal Death into which he is fallen by the deceit of the Evil One For as he sin'd principally with his soul which is the source and principle of the actions of the body and alone capable of understanding the laws of piety and obedience so it was consentaneous that the condemnation of death should be directed to the soul in case of rebellion And that other promise In thy seed shall all the families of the Earth be blessed and I will give this Land to thee and to thy Posterity after thee wherein did it profit Abraham if it aim'd no further then that Canaan which himself never possess'd and was not given to his Posterity till above 400. years after Was it either a sufficicent consolation to him in all the Crosses that he underwent or a Promise worthy of God who establisht his Covenant with him For which of us cares what will be done a hundred years after his death As for those words of Jacob untill Shiloh come they promise a Prince of peace about whom neither fire nor sword shall glitter but he shall be the author of peace between God and men It shall come to pass saith Isaiah that the Mountain of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountaines and shall be exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it But what to do Come shall they say and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths Therefore 't is to be enrich'd in the knowledge of the Name of the Lord and not in Jewels or Pearls to learn to moderate and subdue their Passions and not to conquer Kingdomes Also in the 25. chap. 6. vers In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things a feast of Wines on the lees of fat things full of marrow of wines on the lees well refined Can they take this according to the Letter It is certain there are some so stupifi'd with the wine of ignorance that they take it so and expect to be satiated with that horrible Leviathan which is powder'd up I know not where against the manifestation of the Messias Poor people who think the Prince of the Kingdom of Heaven will come to fill their bellies But behold what follows vers 7. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all Nations What is the meaning of this but that all Nations being involv'd in ignorance as in the black veil of night he will dispell all that darkness to the end they may behold the light of his knowledge that they may rejoyce I say in the light of that Sun of Righteousness who carries healing in his wings And thus through out all the Prophets which would be too long to recite there needs no more but to read them For it will be found that he is a Prince of peace upon whom the Spirit of the Lord shall rest the Spirit of Wisdom and Vnderstanding the Spirit of counsel and might the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. That under his reign The Wolfe shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard lye down with the Kid and the Calfe and the young Lyon and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them c. That is He will unite the most hostile Nations together in the same society of Religion and cicurate and mollifie the fiercest people by the knowledge of the true God and render the most untractable natures gentle and sweet Which the Prophet himself expounds immediately after They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street A bruised reed shall be not break and the smoaking flaw shall he not quench So far is it that he shall batter all to pieces with Canon-shot or hew all down with the sword And as for his Glory it must needs be other then terrestrial and corporeal Since he was to be despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Since I say he
the other side of the world be very much mistaken if they should likewise have this imagination on their part that God resides in that moiety of Heaven which covers them and which they behold Add hereunto that neither the one nor the other can have assurance that God sees them or that he understands their hearts and esteems their motions and thoughts acceptable unto himself Now is it possible that a man that doubts whether God hears and sees him should have any rational devotion towards him In what fashion can that person serve God in the secret of his Thought that is not assured whether God hath Eyes piercing enough to know the inclinations of his Heart If they conceive God to be of an infinite nature as in truth he is so that he is present to all things even to their most secret and profound meditation which without question they never learnt from the discipline of their Master there will suâ—ely remain no trouble to them to what part they should direct the thoughts of their minds besides that I understand not how it is more unworthy of the Majesty of God or more interruptive of his eternal quiet to govern all things in the Universe then to know them so nearly and penetrate into them with his essence As the infinite comprehension of his Wisdom gives him the understanding of all things exempt from solicitude and perplexity and as the inviolable purity of his essence renders him their presence and if I may so say their contact exempt from the contagion of their immundicity so the infiniteness of his power frees the government and administration of them from being troublesome and the invariable firmitude of his being secures him from receiving any alteration in his Eternal Felicity CHAP. IV. A more particular consideration of the Honor which the Epicureans pretend to render to God in respect of his Power Goodness Justice and Wisdom BUt after these General reasons let us proceed to Survey those which may be drawn from a more particular consideration of the Properties of the Divine Essence and in the first place inquire what Honor the Epicurean Doctrine ascribes to him in reference to his Power They who acknowledge God to have created All things of Nothing a position indeed which we owe to Revelation from Heaven yet such as the right renson of Man subscribes to have a very powerful inducement to become absolutely ravish'd and swallowed up in admiration of his Omnipotence For whereas there is a chasme of infinite extent between Entity and Non-Entity of necessity the Power that ha's produc'd some thing from Nothing to Being must be likewise infinite Wherefore in case they had no more before their Eyes but this one Proof that God hath given concerning what He is they ought to be so far convinced as to separate him from Parity with all other things and render him an honor of Adoration wholly different from that which they exhibite to Creatures For seeing the power wherewith they are capable to be indued bears no proportion to that of the Creator they cannot be intitl'd to the same sort of Honor with him not so much as in the lowest degree if it were possible to admit degrees in the honor due to an Infinite Being They which conceive the Matter of sensible things to be eternal but that God composed the World of the same as a Potter frames his vessel of his Clay which seems to have been the opinion of Plato do not consider the Divine Power in so eminent a degree albeit they do indeed attribute an effect to it which to serious perpension seems onely atchievable by an infinite cause For any power below infinite could never have been capable to bestow so excellent a Form upon a Chaos devoid of all nor to impart the like to all other things which the World contains by distributing formes to them so different as they are according to the divers rank that each holds in the Universe and the various functions to which they are designed So that likewise those of this judgement have ample argument and occasion to proclaim the wonders of it As for them who assert the world such at it presents it self to our eyes had never any Beginning but that it proceeded from God by emanation as Light do's from the Sun and by a necessary and natural production they do in truth very much detract from the glory of this Virtue notwithstanding they always imply an acknowledgement that the Universe owes its Original unto him although that great Effect were not produced by that Cause by the disposure of free Volition but by the necessity of an inevitable dependance Yet this Order also were there nothing else but the Circumgyration of the Celestial Orbes of which they repute God the first cause hath cause to admire the force that is requisite thereunto For whether God move the Heavens immediately and by himself without the intervening assistance of any other thing as one applies his hand to a wheel to turn it notwithstanding any aptitude they may have to circular motion by reason of their natural figure yet there needs a mighty strength to stir all that great Machine and to govern so many different revolutions to preserve them in harmony and to hinder them from clashing or interferring for ever Or whether he moves the same by the Mediation of Intelligences according to the conceit of Aristotle who was father to this Opinion of the Worlds Eternity nevertheless God will always be the first Efficient of their motion and if the Intelligences which are far inferior to him can do that He is without doubt able to do much more Moreover we know that Philosopher speaks very advantageously of the dignity of the First Mover attributes to him the glory of being the primary Principle of all things But in reference to the Epicureans they want our charity to make up so much as a probability that they believe the Supream Being is indued with any power at all For what evidence have they for such a perswasion from his effects if He hath not created the least Mushrom nor given impulsion to so much as one of those small Bodies by whose concurrence they hold the World had its contexture Certainly if they measure this power by the knowledge they have of it and their knowledge by the effects they behold of it and it is clear they cannot know it otherwise it must needs be extreamly inconsiderable or rather none at all in case they keep themselves to their Maximes But peradventure some among them will answer that being there is a God it is necessary he should possess all Perfection required to the constitution of so excellent a nature and that among those perfections there ought to be a power also proportionate to the excellence of that nature We will not scruple to concede this to them although we shall afterwards shew where they learnt to reason in this manner for the discipline of their
Arguments evincing that the Epicureans cannot adore the Deity in a due manner with the solution of some Objections SInce the Epicureans cannot render any sutable honor to the Deity either in consideration of his Power and Goodness or of his Justice and Wisdom which they wholly exclude out of the World and our knowledge it remains that they worship him onely either because he is Happy or because he is Eternal or because we behold him not or meerly because he exists without having the least regard to the Perfections of his Nature And it seems the Poet Lucretius refers all his excellence to these two points that he is supreamly Happy and is of an Immortal Nature For to this purpose he speaketh in these following verses Lib. 1. Omnis enim per se Divum natura necesse est Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur Semota ab nostris rebus sejunctaque longe Nam privata dolore omni privata periclis Ipsa suis pollens opibus nihil indiga nostri Nec bene promeritis capitur nec tangitur ira But concerning that profound Quiet and immortal felicity it is difficult to comprehend of what nature it is For to make up a Happiness t is requisite not onely to be exempt from the Evils of which we complain otherwise Trunks of Trees and Rocks would be capable of the greatest there must also be an injoyment of such contentments as are consentaneous to nature What therefore shall we apprehend those of the Deity to be Are they such as consist in corporeal pleasures Certainly to fancy to our selves a God eternally rejoycing himself with drinking delicious Wines and eating exquisite Viands and sleeping as often as he becomes weary with doing so must needs make us conclude him more brutish then Brutes themselves What appearance is there that the supream happiness of the Deity should consist in such things in which a good man would account it shame to take any If the disciples of this Divine Philosopher speak as they are taught wherein are the conceptions wherewith he describes the beatitude of his God superior to the extravagancies of the ancient Poets who seem expresly to have written of the Deities which they celebrated out of design to asperse them with infamy If God place his contentments in the contemplation and admiration of his own Virtues being he knows none in himself or if he does they must be such as are very smal inconsiderable that beatitude consequently cannot be in any great degree nor consequently the honor which the Epicureans perform towards him in regard of the same In effect if there be no more Virtues in God nor fairer perfections then those which their Maximes assign to him so improbable is it that men should become ravished with admiration of his beatitude that without doubt he cannot but turn away his eyes from beholding them out of shame and regret to find them so defective Like those persons that are imbued with some seeds of Virtue who reflecting to consider a little attentively their defects become displeased and blush at the same Besides all this admitting God to be indeed most happy yet if so be we partake nothing at all of his felicity it will rather be an incitement of our envy and hatred against him then of our love and reverence First of envy for who is there that does not resent some kind of maligning passion when he considers the happiness of another and finds himself extreamly miserable Then like wise of hatred for what can he be accounted but a great Miser and hold-fast and unworthy the love of any one whatsoever that is able to make others very happy without making himself less and notwithstanding do's it not who refuses to direct wanderers into their way and will not permit his neighbor to draw water out of his fountain And although there were amongst men so much moderation of spirit that the supreme felicity of God should not induce them either to envy or hatred against him yet is it credible there should be so much piety in them as to be drawn to adore him because of it If he be rich we say proverbially of one from whom we expect no good let him dine twice and in such cases we do not apprehend we commit any offence when we proceed so far as to contemn the person and his wealth Now in truth inasmuch as the God of Epicurus is immortal and never suffers alteration in his nature he far surpasses our condition Nevertheless the Duration of things if they have no qualities to recommend them besides is below being the true object of honor and veneration The World and the Elements have been esteemed eternal by many among the Philosophers yet none ever ador'd them and they which account the Matter of which all things consist to exist from all eternity do not yield us one example of any person into whose thought it ever came to prostrate himself and render Religious veneration to it And yet there is no question but he hath greater obligation to the World then to the Deity of Epicurus as being indebted to it for his body which was framed out of it Whereas Epicurus's God hath contributed nothing either to the constitution or subsistance of his being Ought we therefore to adore him because we see him not I beseech the Readers indulgence to me to bestow a few words in laying open to these people the vanity and impertinence of their imaginations Certainly if we do not at all behold him it is either because he is of a nature spiritual and imperceptible by the senses of our bodies or because though he hath a body he withdraws it from our eyes and hides himself far from our presence Now whereas some Philosophical Sages have believ'd God to be of a nature not mingled with a body they were induc'd to that perswasion by observing such admirable effects of his Wisdom and Power that they positively concluded a corporeal Being could not be a capable subject of so many transcendent Proprieties And indeed being they judged by the productions of their Understanding that it was necessary for the soul in which the same is seated to be of a nature infinitely elevated above that of the body it was but reasonable they should have no less good opinion of the Diety whose productions are infinitely more worthy admiration then those of the humane Intellect But Epicurus not owning such Perfection and Virtues in God by their effects he also cannot reason in the same sort And if he could though immaterial things have a great advantage above those which are corporeal here below yet it principally consists in this that they are thereby exempted from corruption and mortality Now besides that there are certain bodies accounted not less incorruptible then spirits as the Heavens and which might therefore deserve as much veneration as the Deity we have already shewn that the perpetual duration of things without other qualities to recommend them do's not
induce an intire belief of this important verity and which hinder that this tradition is not worn out as so many others have been which had less firm rooting in our Minds All men have been alike perswaded that there is a God and very few have doubted that he is a Rewarder of Virtue and Punisher of Vice Now neither the compensation of the one nor the Penalty of the other is always fully administred in this World even in the judgement of those who have had no great knowledge of the Nature of Sin nor what punishment is competent thereunto And this is the observation from whence they inferr'd that there must be some other time then that of our sojourning in the Body in which that retributive justice should be executed Whence the Opinion of the Souls immortallity ingrafted on the stock of the perswasion of such a Deity hath fix'd its roots so deep that it hath been impossible ever to be eradicated And we have above demonstrated that it must either be acknowledged that those two Propertys must be in God or that he is necessarily ignorant that they are in him But there is hardly sound any one yet that has suppress'd Nature in himself to such a degree Wherefore there must be an other time then that of our abiding in the Body which is appointed to render recompenses and punishments to Souls since they are here dispensed so disproportionately to Vice and Virtue I know well that Pomponatius who under the pretense of defending the Immortality of the Soul hath fought against it and making profession to be a Peripatetick hath embraced the sentiments of Epicurus in this particular answers that although the soul of man should be mortal yet it would have recompense enough for the exercise of Virtue in the possession of Virtue it self Since it is a thing so excellent in its own Nature that it is contented with it self as the Stoicks speak and that all remuneration which it receives besides is either superfluous or not necessary unto it But supposing this to be true of Virtue that they which practice it are sufficiently recompensed by injoying it yet it would not be equally true of Vice that they which addict themselves thereunto are punished enough by doing so For the Impious possessing very frequently so great contentments of Life that the most part of Good men which have lived in all Ages have been scandaliz'd thereat can it reasonably be thought that there is satisfaction enough in this Philosophical speculation that in as much as Vice is the greatest of all Evils it is therefore a sufficient penalty to their Crimes Nature teaches us and the practice of all Nations confirms it that Vice being a Moral Evil that is such as consists in a thing which is of it self dishonest and meriting blame the punishment thereof ought to be in suffering a Physical Evil that is such as consists in the feeling of something which is contrary to nature and painful to it And there was never yet such a Law-giver heard of that established a constitution to punish a man for Robbery by causing him to commit adultery It is so natural to men to esteem not onely that the Punition of Vice consists in Pain but that it is congruous to the natural order of things that whosoever commits Evil in the First manner should be repaid Evil in the Second that they number Nemesis amongst the Virtues which denotes the indignation that we are inflamed with in beholding Good arrive to those that are Evil and on the other side Evil betide them that have otherwise deserved Whence because they believed it proper to the Deity to maintain the orders of nature and to correct the irregularities and deviations that happen therein they have sometimes been carried so far as to doubt that there was a God in as much as they observed according to their apprehension the Just and Pious evilly entreated and the Wicked passing their days in ease and delectation as ample as their wishes Every one knows the verses of Claudian in reference hereunto touching the life and death of Ruffinus and Antiquitie furnishes us with store of other the like testimonies Yea it hath befallen even the Prophets themselves to exclaim upon this occasion Does God in Heaven see what 's done here below Does he observe events and govern Fate For lo Vngodly men like Palm-trees grow And Righteous languish in forlorn estate Either therefore there is a strange Irregularity in Nature or being crimes escape with impunity in this world contrary to what they deserve there must of necessity be vengeance reserved for them in that which is to come Now concerning Virtue although it be natively embellish'd with many beauties incentive of our Love yet so it is that it cannot be it self the price and recompence which appertains to it For what is Virtue but the fair habits of our minds and particularly the good actions which proceed from them And what is a recompense but that which is given in consideration of such good actions and which consequently ought to come other where then from themselves In truth there is not less natural correspondence between Virtue in which Moral Goodness consists and Physical Goodness which is placed in the injoyment and preception of what we naturally desire then there is between there contraries And the discontentment which we conceive in beholding them which take pleasure in Virtue to suffer remarkable calamities in their Lives do's not appear less reasonable to us then the displeasure which we apprehend at the Prosperity of the wicked Which disorder when it happens in the nature of things that good men become miserable do's not less perplex the belief we have of Providence nor less incite us then the other to doubt of the existence of the Deity Witness that complaint of Ovid upon the death of Tibullus Cum rapiant mala sata Bonos ignoscite fasso Sollicitor nullos esse putare Deos. And although the Inclinations which induce Providence to compensate Virtue are not of the same nature with those that oblige it to the punishment of Vice because the inducements to this Latter are sounded on his Justice the rectitude of which ought to be exact and rigorous whereas the former arise from pure Goodness or Mercy yet the notions which we have of the Deity not permitting us to have a less good opinion of his goodness and Mercy then of his Justice the scandal is equal to us in both the one and the other defect Thus you see the same Prophet after his hesitancy at the belief of Providence by reason of the Prosperity of the Wicked immediately after complains that his integrity and his innocence were unprofitable unto him seeing they did not repreive him from the Evils which he continually endured And he professes that this thought gave him so much inquietude and trouble and the inequality of things seemed to him so preposterous and scandalous that he could not well reassure himselfe
allow as much strictness in reference to the service of God as to the Duties which they render to men That is they should readily conform themselves to such ceremonies as are consentaneous to right reason or at least not manifestly dissonant and repugnant to it but where they violate the Laws of Nature so rudely it is not free for any one whatsoever to condescend to them But the matter is something further considerable For it also seems not to be more natural to men to conspire together uniformly in matter of Religion then it is natural to them to think that it is the part of God to found and give the model of such a Society All Nations have referred the invention of things to the Deity which although they concern not God at all yet seem hard and admirable so as to esteem the first authors of them not onely inspired by God but worthy to be Gods themselves The Art of waging War those of Physick and Poetry and even of Embroidery had their inventors and patrons amongst the Gods And as for things necessary to Life the tilling of the Earth for the advantage of Corn and the means of pruning the superfluities of vines to procure wine from them were not found by men without the same help It is true that if onely the meaner and ignorant sort of people had been imbued with this belief it might have been said that their ignorance occasion'd the admiration which they had of all excellent inventions because perceiving that they surpass'd the power of their own wits and measuring others by themselves they might have imagin'd that men could not have invented them of themselves And hence it also came to pass that the Epicureans have within a small degree placed their Master amongst the Gods because being for the most part but little instructed in commendable Sciences when they beheld him far above them they conceited that he had somewhat of Divinity in him although without regard to the truth or falsity of his sentiments he seems to have been but meanly qualified with gifts of the mind or acquisitions of knowledge But whereas we observe the wise and learned to have likewise held that opinion that the first Inventors were illuminated by some ray of Divinity it must be confessed that it is a natural propensity in all men and I know not what kind of constraint by the evidence of truth Socrates being condemned to dy professeth that it was God that raised him up to teach Philosophy and to reform the manners of his fellow Citizens by his precepts and pronounces resolutely that though they should open the Prison doors to him with injunction never to Philosophise more he would not go forth but would rather obey God then men And Pythagoras when he had found out an excellent demonstration in Geometry went and sacrific'd a hundred Oxen for what reason saving that he acknowledg'd that God had favour'd him with his assistance therein And truely they had reason on their side I would not so much derogate from the dignity of the humane Mind as to take from it all power of inventing excellent things and of profound disquisition But there appeared such a Providence of God in what I have alledged that he that bears not a great measure of obstinacy in his breast will suffer himself to be perswaded that God presided therein Sometimes one Nation bears away the glory of Sciences and Arts sometimes another and divers Ages give birth to divers Inventions Egypt of old for skill in Arts Greece after had the fame Rome glory'd in their height a while Now Paris bears the Name Archimedes performed such wonders in the Mechanicks as none in the world ever effected since And of late days the singular Inventions of Typography and that terrifying one of Artillery declare that God did not exhaust all his treasures in the Ages of old but reserves some or other particularity to every Generation It is true when things are once found out there 's no body almost but observes a great obviousness and facility in their discovery which yet is not so much even in such things as are now 〈◊〉 days accounted the most easie but that thâ— would never have come into any man's thougâ— without the influence of Heaven or if they had yet the atchievment and execution of the design would have seem'd impossible without assistance from thence Who observes not such an orderly concatenation in the Propositions of Euclide one with another that they correspond together and propagate in a continual series with infallible truth and that consequently the power of humane wit may seem capable to have found out such a contexture of it self since the onely thing considerable is to perceive what follows indubitably from certain principles by the means of ratiocination And nevertheless I cannot perswade my self upon estimate of the great difficulty there was in the first discovery of those things and of the admirable vivacity of imagination and vigor of judgement requisite to the concinnation of their first compages that that Person could possibly have drawn so many subtle and solid consequences from the first Principles laid down by him and erect so firm a structure of a noble Science upon the same without some especial favor of the Deity who was pleas'd to provide by such means for the advantage of humane affairs and for the adorning of our Minds with the Understanding of Sciences What a marvellous thing was it to find out the Polar inclination of the Loadstone and to make that discovery the foundation of the great Art of Navigation by help of which these latter Ages have discover'd so many unknown Lands and brought so many eminent advantages to our times above those of â—ld But moreover Homer who perhaps was the most clear sighted among the Pagans notwithstanding his decryed blindness not onely ascribes to God the invention of abstruse matters but referrs even our ordinary cogitations to him in these verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Talis nempe mens est terram-incolentium hominum Qualem in dies indit pater hominumque Deumque And his Poem is throughout beset with advertisments directed to men from the Gods as so many pourtraicts of the Divine Providence sutably as the obscurity of the times and the ignorance of the true God could permit him And hereunto likewise all intelligent men agree especially the Poets who seem to have been the Divines of the Pagans and the Priests of their Mysteries Now whereas they believ'd that humane Arts and Sciences could not be invented without God what would they have said of the Sciences of knowing and serving God himself But although there may have been some dissonance of opinion among the Ancients concerning this Production or Birth of things yet the foundation of these two kinds of Societies Civil and Religious ha's been consider'd by them as a thing altogether divine Whence it is that there never was any celebrated Legislator but
by his Lieutenants and Satrapae Lastly so little do's he think that a special Providence takes care of all particular events of things which are called contingent that he excludes God as much as he can from their administration and from all little inconsiderable accidents as esteeming them unworthy of his excellence so far is he from admitting God to preside absolutely over the Understandings and Wills of men and that he governs all their most inward and abstruse thoughts All the Rhetorick which he imploys to deduce this most elegantly and adorn it with the choisest flowers of Oratory and Poetry amounts onely to this without carrying it further Now this doctrine can by no means be judged capable of begetting true piety in the hearts of men For since they describe that action of God in the government of the World as a natural thing and by consequence necessarily determin'd so that nothing can be attributed to the Goodness or free will of God what obligation can men think they have to him any more then they have to the Primum mobile which hurrieth all the Celestial Spheres along with it with a natural violence which they are not able to resist For though he be the supreme cause of all and involves all others yet if a man be once perswaded that God is bound to that action by a natural necessity he will not conceive himself more beholden to him for it then to the Fire because it burns or to the Air in regard it fills all the extent of Nature Yea it is questionable whether in stead of being incited to venerate him men would not rather esteem his condition miserable to be perpetually confin'd to the Heavens to move them without being able to slacken one moment any more then Ixion to stay his wheel But putting the case that men notwithstanding account that action to proceed from the free will of God which yet is not consistent with their principles and let us see on what inducements they will render praise and thanksgiving to God Namely for that he moves the Heavens and the Heavens transmit their influences to the Earth and impart their virtues to the Elements that so herbs may grow and fruits ripen for the supply of nourishment to its inhabitants and lastly for that by the same ways he gives animals the power to bring forth young ones for the propagation and perpetuity of every Species Now in an unexpected danger of which there are so many and various sorts which threaten men continually and oftentimes overtake them how will they turn their eyes and minds towards the Heavens to implore the assistance of God seeing he ha's no care but of what he does naturally and abandons contingent things to fortune And when a man shall be deliver'd from the danger of the fall of a house or the assault of an Assassin or the enterprise of a Poisoner with what zeal will he thank the Deity who ha's no regard thereof Now our whole Life is full of such misfortunes and that which befalls us according to the ordinary ways of Nature is that which is most rare in all her course Moreover experience is to every man the mistress of this truth that things which are common to us with all other men how excellent soever they be yet they do not much affect us onely particular accidents make a lively impression in our minds So that a man will look upon himself as more oblig'd to a Physitian that secur'd him from loss of one of his Eys which a defluction threatned him with then to God that gave him both with the injoyment of the light of the Sun at his birth But above all the rest the ignorance of that Singular Providence which presides in the minds of men themselves and over their thoughts will cause a signal prejudice to true piety therein For Wisdom and Virtue being the most excellent of all Presents that can come from the hand of God to humane creatures if we do not conceive that we hold them from him we shall never return him the praise of them we shall pride up our selves and become presumptious even so far as to rank our selves equal with him yea above him accordingly as we find in Cicero and Seneca such brave sentences as these That a Wiseman owes his Being indeed to the Deity but as for his Well-being which consists in Wisdom he ows the same absolutely to himself And moreover that in this the Sage does in some manner go beyond Jupiter in as much as Jupiter is good by the necessity of his Nature and cannot be otherwise but the other acquired his own Virtue by combating with discourse of reason against his corporeal appetites A Soul tainted with this Philosophy and pust up with so rank an arrogance how can it ever perform any thing considerable in relation to piety And yet thither it is that ignorance of this Providencâ— carries us But if they have a better opinion of Divine Providence and subject not onely natural but also contingent things and our very thoughts to his conduct we shall always return to demand of them how they know it so throughly the World and the administration of it presents us with arguments enough if we were capable to comprehend them But how do they know it Indeed the Philosophers and Poets sometimes utter in their writings excellent elogiums of God as among others Plutark in his incomparable Discourse De Sera Numinis Vindicta and Socrates in an ancient Dialogue attributed to Plato whether it be his or not says that Virtue is a thing that is not learnt as Arts and Sciences but is given by Inspiration as some divine and celestial beneficence And Homer as we have intimated elsewhere ascribes to the Deity the greatest part of the extraordinary Motions of the Heart especially such as are Heroical as likewise do's Virgil following his example Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus And in another place he introduces Alethes a personage of high merit thus speaking upon occasion of the generosity of Euryalus and Nisus Dii patrii quorum semper sub numine Troja est Non tamen omnino Teucros delere paratis Cum tales animos juvenum tam certa tulistis Pectora And Juvenal shewing that the best and perhaps onely wish which men ought to make is that the Deity would give them Mentem sanam in corpore sano seems to acknowledge that we hold both the one and the other from his liberality which is a very authentique advowing of Providence And it were easie to produce plenty of the like instances But how little firm were all those people in this belief And of what inconsiderable efficacy were those excellent sentences amongst the vulgar yea amongst Philosophers and the Authors themselves Plutark one of the most religious of all relates very exactly how Timoleon was miraculously delivered from the conspiracy of two murderers by the meeting of a certain person
was to be lowly riding upon an Ass a Colt the fole of an Ass And indeed the frail dusty ornaments of the Earth would have been too vile and wretched for him that is the Sun of righteousness of souls Wherefore forasmuch as the Christian Religion refers all the promises of the Messias to the good of the Minde making him to be the Redeemer of souls and attributing to him a spiritual Empire and glory it directs them to their right end from which the carnal imaginations of the Jews had perverted them and hath consequently as great pre-eminence above the Jewish in this point as the soul hath above the body and the Heavens above the Earth CHAP. VII That according to Right Reason and the Old Testament the means of obtaining Salvation ought to be such as the Christian Religion holds forth I Affirmed in the precedent Chapter that the Law of God and the nature of his justice require that either all men perish universally or that some person in their stead endure the punishment which they have merited But because this is the Foundation of the Christian Religion and the most usual stumbling-stone on which the Jews and divers other people fall foul it is requisite for us to discover it something more clearly in this Chapter Certainly if they will confess the truth the natural terrors of their Consciences when they consider the justice of God seriously will make them acknowledge that nature it self directs them in order to the obtaining of solid comfort to seek out a satisfaction of merit proportionate to the Majesty of him to whom it is due and to the demerit of their offenses For not onely the Jews to whom God revealed his vindictive justice more manifestly but others who never heard speak of the Law have been invaded by them Which how could it be did not punishment accompany sin as the shadow a body and that for a man to be quit from the penalty it must either be suffer'd by another or he must be exempt from sin himself And the Natural Instinct which lead them to offer sacrifices in the beginning and which was approv'd and authoris'd by the Law of God under the Old Testament is an evident argument of it For whence was it that soon after sin committed Abel offers the first-lings of his stock in sacrifice and that this example became so powerful to all the posterity of Adam that there ha's been no Nation by whom the death of beasts immolated in sacrifice was not practis'd but onely that nature it self taught him to acknowledge what he had deserved and all others have in like manner follow'd his sentiments So that though they could easily judge that the satisfaction was not proportionate to the dignity of him with whom they thus transacted yet being unable otherwise to satisfie they offer'd that which they could and withal referr'd it to the Wisdom of God to supply the rest Moreover it is apparent by several Nations mention'd above and whose names and customes are recorded both in Holy Profane Histories as the Cananaeans Tyrians Carthaginians Egyptians Cyprians Arabians Persians Scythians Cretans the ancient Grecians ancient Romans Gauls and others who sacrifis'd living men that the opinion which Caesar attributes to the Druydes That it is not possible for the Wrath of the Gods to be appeas'd but by offering the blood of men to them was naturally imprinted in their souls Otherwise man being sufficiently prone to elevate the opinion of his faults and flatter himself partly through an immoderate self-love partly by reason of the little knowledge he hath of the nature of God would never be so inhumanely animated against his own species and even against his own children which some of those Nations were wont to make victimes of And for testimony to this I appeal to mens peculiar thoughts in the administration of humane justice How do they detest murderers and robbers and those that give themselves up to perpetrate heinous crimes And when they observe a Magistrate suffering such persons to go on in impunity do not they judge that he is either like them one of their complices and partakers in their prey or that he connives at their facinorous actions through want of power Certainly when any enormous misdeed is committed there ought no dammage to arrive to the Commonwealth either by the Fact or the example But there is a kind of detestableness in the deed that of it self cryes out for vengeance the impunity of which blots the reputation of him who hath the authority and power of punishing in his hand and brings him into an evil suspition and esteem And he that shall more attentively consider the emanations of his own minde will finde that Nature ha's not onely indued us with the Passion of Anger to be inservient towards defending us from particular injuries which are offered to us but also ha's imprinted in our Minds a Hatred against Wickednesses which do not particularly reach us which causes us not to be satisfied till we have seen vengeance inflicted upon the same But assoon as we have beheld them expiated by sutable punishment our minds acquiesce in the justice done with a kind of satisfaction and our indignation ceases For corrupt qualities and horrid vices in the soul when they come to be discover'd by actions they are like Ulcers and Cancers which hideously deform the visage we divert our thoughts from the former with indignation and our eyes from the latter with nauseousness Now the Virtues which are but little in us are in God in a degree transcendently eminent he possesses as we may speak the body of them whereas we have no more then the shadow As therefore a good Magistrate do's not onely detest Crimes because they are detrimental to the Commonwealth but also by reason of the natural turpitude which renders Vice odious were it not pernitious so that he thinks he do's not satisfie the natural equity of things nor his own Conscience unless he punish it and the more upright a person the Judge is the more hatred do's he bear against Vice for its own sake So God do's not onely punish Sin being the Universal Judge and Magistrate of the World because it produces prejudice to Humane Society and is an enemy to its preservation but also by reason of that internal and essential deformity in it which is so repugnant to the Divine Nature and the natural order of things so that he cannot possibly prevail with himself not to revenge it And the more perfect his Nature is the greater is this natural detestation he hath against sin But to proceed further The Jews consent that men are naturally corrupted by sin and that they have in them from their conception an evil seminary of Vice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they say is like a mountain to the Good and a straw to the Wicked That is they which are immerged in it are not sensible of it no more then a dead man