the cause of Jesus was sent to the City baptized by a Christian Minister instructed and sent abroad and he became the prodigy of the World for learning and zeal for preaching and writing for labor and sufferance for government and wisdom he was admitted to see the holy Jesus after the Lord was taken into Heaven he was taken up into Paradise he conversed with Angels he saw unspeakable rayes of glory and besides that himself said it who had no reason to lie who would get nothing by it here but a conjugation of troubles and who should get nothing by it hereafter if it were false besides this I say that he did all those acts of zeal and obedience for the promotion of the Religion does demonstrate he had reason extraordinary for so sudden a change so strange a labour so frequent and incomparable sufferings and therefore as he did and suffered so much upon such glorious motives so he spared not to publish it to all the world he spake it to Kings and Princes he told it to the envious Jews he had partners of his journey who were witnesses of the miraculous accident and in his publication he urged the notoriousness of the fact as a thing not feigned not private but done at noon day under the Test of competent persons and it was a thing that proved it self for it was effective of a present a great and a permanent change But now it is no new wonder but a pursuance of the same conjugation of great and Divine things that the Fame and Religion of Jesus was with so incredible a swiftness scattered over the face of the habitable World from one end of the earth unto the other it filled all Asia immediately it passed presently to Europe and to the furthest Africans and all the way it went it told nothing but an holy and an humble story that he who came to bring it into the world died an ignominious death and yet this death did not take away their courage but added much for they could not fear death for that Master whom they knew to have for their sakes suffered death and came to life again But now infinite numbers of persons of all sexes and all ages and all Countries came in to the Holy Crucifix and he that was crucified in the reign of Tiberius was in the time of Nero even in Rome it self and in Nero's family by many persons esteem'd for a God and it was upon publick record that he was so acknowledged and this was by a Christian Justin Martyr urged to the Senate and to the Emperors themselves who if it had been otherwise could easily have confuted the bold allegation of the Christian who yet did die for that Jesus who was so speedily reputed for a God the Cross was worn upon breasts printed in the air drawn upon fore-heads carried on banners put upon crowns Imperial and yet the Christians were sought for to punishments and exquisite punishments sought forth for them their goods were confiscate their names odious prisons were their houses and so many kinds of tortures invented for them that Domitius Vlpianus hath spent seven Books in describing the variety of tortures the poor Christian was put to at his first appearing and yet in despite of all this and ten thousand other objections and impossibilities whatsoever was for them made the Religion grow and whatsoever was against them made it grow if they had peace the Religion was prosperous if they had persecution it was still prosperous if Princes favored them the World came in because the Christians lived holily if Princes were incensed the World came in because the Christians died bravely They sought for death with greediness they desired to be grinded in the teeth of Lions and with joy they beheld the wheels and the bended trees the racks and the gibbets the fires and the burning irons which were like the chair of Elias to them instruments to carry them to heaven into the bosom of their beloved Jesus Who would not acknowledge the Divinity of this person and the excellency of this institution that should see Infants to weary the hands of Hangmen for the testimony of Jesus and wise Men preach this doctrine for no other visible reward but shame and death poverty and banishment and Hangmen converted by the blood of Martyrs springing upon their faces which their impious hands cords have strain'd through their flesh who would not have confessed the honour of Jesus when he should see miracles done at the Tombs of Martyrs and Devils tremble at the mention of the name of Jesus and the World running to the honour of the poor Nazaren and Kings and Queens killing the feet of the poor servants of Jesus Could a few Fishermen and a Publican effect all this for the son of a poor Maiden of Judaea can we suppose all the World or so great a part of Mankind can consent by chance or suffer such changes for nothing or for any thing less than this The son of the poor Maiden was the Son of God and the Fishermen spake by a Divine spirit and they catched the World with holiness and miracles with wisdom and power bigger than the strength of all the Roman Legions And what can be added to all this but this thing alone to prove the Divinity of Jesus He is a God or at least is taught by God who can foretell future contingencies and so did the holy Jesus and so did his Disciples Our blessed Lord while he was alive foretold that after his death his Religion should flourish more than when he was alive He foretold Persecutions to his Disciples he foretold the mission of the holy Ghost to be in a very few days after his Ascension which within ten days came to pass he prophesied that the fact of Mary Magdalen in anointing the head and feet of her Lord should be publick and known as the Gospel it self and spoken of in the same place he foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the signs of its approach and that it should be by War and particularly after the manner of Prophets symbolically nam'd the Nation should do it pointing out the Roman Eagles he foretold his death and the manner of it and plainly before-hand published his Resurrection and told them it should be the sign to that generation viz. the great argument to prove him to be the Christ he prophesied that there should arise false Christs after him and it came to pass to the extreme great calamity of the Nation and lastly he foretold that his beloved Disciple S. John should tarry upon the earth till his coming again that is to his coming to Judgment upon Jerusalem and that his Religion should be preached to the Gentiles that it should be scattered over all the World and be received by all Nations that it should stay upon the face of the Earth till his last coming to judge all the world and that the gates of hell should not be able to
therefore that you sin against God and are in danger of his eternal displeasure but in giving the final sentence as we have no more to do than your men have yet so we refuse to follow your evil example and we follow the glorious precedent of our Blessed Lord who decreed and declared against the crime but not against the Criminal before the day He that does this or that is in danger of the Council or in danger of judgment or liable and obnoxious to the danger of hell fire so we say of your greatest errors they put you in the danger of perishing but that you shall or shall not perish we leave it to your Judge and if you call this charity it is well I am sure it is piety and the fear of God 7. Whether you may be saved or whether you shall be damned for your errors does neither depend upon our affirmative nor your negative but according to the rate and value which God sets upon things Whatever we talk things are as they are not as we dispute or grant or hope and therefore it were well if your men would leave abusing you and themselves with these little arts of indirect support For many men that are warranted yet do eternally perish and you in your Church damn Millions who I doubt not shall reign with Jesus eternally in the Heavens 8. I wish you would consider that if any of our men say salvation may be had in your Church it is not for the goodness of your new propositions but only because you do keep so much of that which is our Religion that upon the confidence of that we hope well concerning you And we do not hope any thing at all that is good of you or your Religion as it distinguishes from us and ours we hope that the good which you have common with us may obtain pardon directly or indirectly or may be an antidote of the venome and an amulet against the danger of your very great errors so that if you can derive any confidence from our concession you must remember where it takes root not upon any thing of yours but wholly upon the excellency of ours you are not at all safe or warranted for being Papists but we hope well of some of you for having so much of the Protestant and if that will do you any good proceed in it and follow it whithersoever it leads you 9. The safety that you dream of which we say to be on your side is nothing of allowance or warranty but a hope that is collateral indirect and relative we do not say any thing whereby you can conclude yours to be safer than ours for it is not safe at all but extremely dangerous we affirm those errors in themselves to be damnable some to contain in them Impiety some to have Sacriledge some Idolatry some Superstition some practices to be conjuring and charming and very like to Witchcraft as in your hallowing of Water and baptizing Bells and exorcizing Demoniacks and what safety there can be in these or what you can fancy we should allow to you I suppose you need not boast of Now because we hope some are saved amongst you you must not conclude yours to be safe for our hope relies upon this There are many of your propositions in which we differ from you that Thousands amongst you understand and know nothing of it is to them as if they were not it is to them now as it was before the Council they hear not of it And though your Priests have taken a course that the most ignorant do practise some of your abominations most grosly yet we hope this will not be laid upon them who as S. Austin's expression is cautâ sollicitudine quaerunt veritatem corrigi parati cùm invenerint do according as they are able warily and diligently seek for truth and are ready to follow it when they find it Men who live good lives and repent of all their evils known and unknown Now if we are not deceived in our hopes these Men shall rejoyce in the eternal goodness of God which prevails over the malice of them that misguide you but if we be deceived in our hopes of you your guides have abus'd you and the blind leaders of the blind will fall together For 10. If you will have the secret of this whole affair this it is The hopes we have of any of you as it is known principally relies upon the hopes of your repentance Now we say that a Man may repent of an error which he knows not of as he that prays heartily for the pardon of all his sins and errors known and unknown by his general repentance may obtain many degrees and instances of mercy Now thus much also your Men allow to us those who live well and die in a true though but general repentance of their sins and errors even amongst us your best and wisest Men pronounce to be in a favable condition Here then we are equal and we are as safe by your confession as you are by ours But because there are some Bigots of your faction fierce and fiery who say that a general repentance will not serve our turns but it must be a particular renunciation of Protestancy these men deny not only to us but to themselves too all that comfort which they derive from our Concession and indeed which they can hope for from the mercies of God For be you sure we think as ill of your errors as you can suppose of our Articles and therefore if for errors be they on which side it chances a general repentance will not serve the turn without an actual dereliction then flatter not your selves by any thing of our kindness to your party for you must have a particular if a general be not sufficient But if it be sufficient for you it is so for us in case we be in error as your men suppose us but if it will not suffice us for remedy to those errors you charge us with neither will it suffice you for the case must needs be equal as to the value of repentance and malignity of the error and therefore these men condemn themselves and will not allow us to hope well of them but if they will allow us to hope it must be by affirming the value of a general repentance and if they allow that they must hope as well of ours as we of theirs but if they deny it to us they deny it to themselves and then they can no more brag of any thing of our concession This only I add to this consideration that your men do not cannot charge upon us any doctrine that is in its matter and effect impious there is nothing positive in our doctrine but is either true or innocent but we are accus'd for denying your superstructures ours therefore if we be deceived is but like a sin of omission yours are sins of commission in case you are in the wrong as we believe
the man in the Gospel that was half blind he saw men walking like Trees and so you possibly might perceive the meaning of it in general You knew where they came to the Epistle when to the Gospel when the Introit when the Pax when any of the other more general periods were but you could have nothing of the Spirit of prayer that is nothing of the devotion and the holy affections to the particular excellencies which could or ought there to have been represented but now you are taught how you may be really devout it is made facil and easie and there can want nothing but your consent and observation 2. Whereas now you are taken off from all humane confidences from relying wholly and almost ultimately upon the Priests power and external act from reckoning prayers by numbers from forms and out-sides you are not to think that the Priests power is less that the Sacraments are not effective that your prayers may not be repeated frequently but you are to remember that all outward things and Ceremonies all Sacraments and Institutions work their effect in the vertue of Christ by some moral Instrument The Priests in the Church of England can absolve you as much as the Roman Priests could fairly pretend but then we teach that you must first be a penitent and a returning person and our absolution does but manifest the work of God and comfort and instruct your Conscience direct and manage it You shall be absolved here but not unless you live an holy life So that in this you will find no change but to the advantage of a strict life we will not flatter you and cozen your dear soul by pretended ministeries but we so order our discourses and directions that all our ministrations may be really effective and when you receive the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist or the Lords Supper it does more good here than they do there because if they consecrate rightly yet they do not communicate you fully and if they offer the whole representative Sacrifice yet they do not give you the whole Sacrament only we enjoyn that you come with so much holiness that the grace of God in your heart may be the principal and the Sacrament in our hands may be the ministring and assisting part we do not promise great effects to easie trifling dispositions because we would not deceive but really procure to you great effects and therefore you are now to come to our offices with the same expectations as before of pardon of grace of sanctification but you must do something more of the work your self that we may not do less in effect than you have in your expectation We will not to advance the reputation of our power deceive you into a less blessing 3. Be careful that you do not flatter your self that in our Communion you may have more ease and liberty of life for though I know your pious soul desires passionately to please God and to live religiously yet I ought to be careful to prevent a temptation lest it at any time should discompose your severity Therefore as to confession to a Priest which how it is usually practised among the Roman party your self can very well account and you have complain'd sadly that it is made an ordinary act easie and transient sometime matter of temptation oftentimes impertinent but suppose it free from such scandal to which some mens folly did betray it yet the same severity you 'l find among us for though we will not tell a lie to help a sinner and say that is necessary which is only appointed to make men do themselves good yet we advise and commend it and do all the work of souls to all those people that will be saved by all means to devout persons that make Religion the business of their lives and they that do not so in the Churches of the Roman Communion as they find but little advantage by periodical confessions so they feel but little awfulness and severity by the injunction you must confess to God all your secret actions you must advise with a holy man in all the affairs of your soul you will be but an ill friend to your self if you conceal from him the state of your spiritual affairs We desire not to hear the circumstance of every sin but when matter of justice is concerned or the nature of the sin is changed that is when it ought to be made a Question and you will find that though the Church of England gives you much liberty from the bondage of innumerable Ceremonies and humane devices yet in the matter of holiness you will be tied to very great service but such a service as is perfect freedom that is the service of God and the love of the holy Jesus and a very strict religious life for we do not promise heaven but upon the same terms it is promised us that is Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus and as in faith we make no more to be necessary than what is made so in holy Scripture so in the matter of Repentance we give you no easie devices and suffer no lessening definitions of it but oblige you to that strictness which is the condition of being saved and so expressed to be by the infallible Word of God but such as in the Church of Rome they do not so much stand upon Madam I am weary of my Journey and although I did purpose to have spoken many things more yet I desire that my not doing it may be laid upon the account of my weariness all that I shall add to the main business is this 4. Read the Scripture diligently and with an humble spirit and in it observe what is plain and believe and live accordingly Trouble not your self with what is difficult for in that your duty is not described 5. Pray frequently and effectually I had rather your prayers should be often than long It was well said of Petrarch Magno verborum fraeno uti decet cum superiore colloquentem When you speak to your Superior you ought to have a bridle upon your tongue much more when you speak to God I speak of what is decent in respect of our selves and our infinite distances from God but if love makes you speak speak on so shall your prayers be full of charity and devotion Nullus est amore superior ille te coget ad veniam qui me ad multiloquium Love makes God to be our friend and our approches more united and acceptable and therefore you may say to God the same love which made me speak will also move thee to hear and pardon Love and devotion may enlarge your Litanies but nothing else can unless Authority does interpose 6. Be curious not to communicate but with the true Sons of the Church of England lest if you follow them that were amongst us but are gone out from us because they were not of us you be offended and tempted to impute their
over you I know not what D. P. G. did say but I am confident they who reported it of him were mistaken He could not say or mean what is charged upon him I have but two things more to speak to One is you desire me to recite what else might impede your compliance with the Roman Church I answer Truth and Piety hinder you For you must profess the belief of many false propositions and certainly believe many Uncertain things and be uncharitable to all the World but your own party and make Christianity a faction and you must yield your reason a servant to man and you must plainly prevaricate an institution of Christ and you must make an apparent departure from the Church in which you received your Baptism and the Spirit of God if you go over to Rome But Sir I refer you to the two Letters I have lately published at the end of my discourse of Friendship and I desire you to read my Treatise of the Real presence and if you can believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation you can put off your reason and your sense and your religion and all the instruments of Credibility when you please and these are not little things In these you may perish an error in these things is practical but our way is safe as being upon the defence and intirely resting upon Scripture and the Apostolical Churches The other thing I am to speak to is the report you have heard of my inclinations to go over to Rome Sir that party which needs such lying stories for the support of their Cause proclaim their Cause to be very weak or themselves to be very evil Advocates Sir be confident they dare not tempt me to do so and it is not the first time they have endeavoured to serve their ends by saying such things of me But I bless God for it it is perfectly a Slander and it shall I hope for ever prove so Sir if I may speak with you I shall say very many things more for your confirmation Pray to God to guide you and make no change suddenly For if their way be true to day it will be so to morrow and you need not make hast to undo your self Sir I wish you a setled mind and a holy Conscience and that I could serve you in the capacity of Your very Loving Friend and Servant in our Blessed Lord JER TAYLOR The IV. LETTER To the same Person SIR I Perceive that You are very much troubled and I see also that you are in great danger but that also troubles me because I see they are little things and very weak and fallacious that move you You propound many things in your Letter in the same disorder as they are in your Conscience to all which I can best give answers when I speak with you to which because you desire I invite you and promise you a hearty endeavour to give you satisfaction in all your material inquiries Sir I desire you to make no hast to change in case you be so miserable as to have it in your thoughts for to go over to the Church of Rome is like death there is no recovery from thence without a Miracle because Unwary souls such are they who change from us to them are with all the arts of wit and violence strangely entangled and ensur'd when they once get the prey Sir I thank you for the Paper you inclosed The men are at a loss they would fain say something against that Book but know not what Sir I will endeavour if you come to me to restore you to peace and quiet and if I cannot effect it yet I will pray for it and I am sure God can To his Mercy I commend you and rest Your very affectionate Friend in our Blessed Lord JER TAYLOR The V. LETTER To the same Person SIR THE first Letter which you mention in this latter of the 10 th of March I received not I had not else failed to give you an answer I was so wholly unknowing of it that I did not understand your Servant's meaning when he came to require an answer But to your Question which you now propound I answer Quest. Whether without all danger of Superstition or Idolatry we may not render Divine worship to our Blessed Saviour as present in the Blessed Sacrament or Host according to his Humane Nature in that Host Answ. We may not render Divine worship to him as present in the Blessed Sacrament according to his Humane Nature without danger of Idolatry Because he is not there according to his Humane Nature and therefore you give Divine worship to a Non Ens which must needs be Idolatry For Idolum nihil est in mundo saith S. Paul and Christ as presenâ— by his Humane Nature in the Sacrament is a Non Ens for it is not true there is no such thing He is present there by his Divine power and his Divine Blessing and the fruits of his Body the real effective consequents of his Passion but for any other Presence it is Idolum it is nothing in the world Adore Christ in Heaven for the Heavens must contain him till the time of restitution of all things And if you in the reception of the Holy Sacrament worship him whom you know to be in Heaven you cannot be concerned in duty to worship him in the Host as you call it any more than to worship him in the Host at Nostre Dame when you are at S. Peters in Rome for you see him no more in one place than another and if to believe him to be there in the Host at Nostre Dame be sufficient to cause you to worship him there then you are to do so to him at Rome though you be not present for you believe him there you know as much of Him by Faith in both places and as little by sense in either But however this is a thing of infinite danger God is a jealous God He spake it in the matter of external worship and of idolatry and therefore do nothing that is like worshipping a meer creature nothing that is like worshipping that which you are not sure it is God and if you can believe the Bread when it is blessed by the Priest is God Almighty you can if you please believe any thing else To the other parts of your Question viz. Whether the same body be present really and Substantially because we believe it to be there or whether we do believe it to be there because God hath manifestly revealed it to be so and therefore we revere and adore it accordingly I answer 1. I do not know whether or no you do believe Him to be there really and Substantially 2. If you do believe it so I do not know what you mean by really and Substantially 3. Whatsoever you do mean by it if you do believe it to be there really and Substantially in any sense I cannot tell why you believe it to be so you best know
the birth of this young Child which was thus glorified by a Star was also signified by an Angel and was effected by the holy Spirit of God in a manner which was in it self supernatural a Virgin was his Mother and God was his Father and his beginning was miraculous and this matter of his birth of a Virgin was proved to an interested and jealous person even to Joseph the supposed father of Jesus it was affirmed publickly by all his family and by all his disciples and published in the midst of all his enemies who by no artifice could reprove it a matter so famous that when it was urged as an argument to prove Jesus to be the Messias by the force of a Prophecy in Isaiah A Virgin shall conceive a Son they who obstinately refused to admit him did not deny the matter of fact but denied that it was so meant by the Prophet which if it were true can only prove that Jesus was more excellent than was foretold by the Prophets but that there was nothing less in him than was to be in the Messias it was a matter so famous that the Arabian Physicians who can affirm no such things of their Mahomet and yet not being able to deny it to be true of the Holy Jesus endeavour to elevate and lessen the thing by saying It is not wholly beyond the force of nature that a Virgin should conceive so that it was on all hands undeniable that the Mother of Jesus was a Virgin a Mother without a Man This is that Jesus at whose presence before he was born a Babe in his Mothers belly also did leap for joy who was also a person extraordinary himself conceived in his Mothers old age after a long barrenness signified by an Angel in the Temple to his Father officiating his Priestly Office who was also struck dumb for his not present believing all the People saw it and all his Kindred were witnesses of his restitution and he was named by the Angel and his Office declared to be the fore-runner of the holy Jesus and this also was foretold by one of the old Prophets for the whole story of this Divine person is a chain of providence and wonder every link of which is a verification of a Prophecy and all of it is that thing which from Adam to the Birth of Jesus was pointed at and hinted by all the Prophets whose words in him passed perfectly into the event This is that Jesus who as he was born without a Father so he was learned without a Master he was a Man without age a Doctor in a Child's garment disputing in the Sanctuary at 12. Years old He was a sojourner in Egypt because the poor Babe born of an indigent Mother was a formidable rival to a potent King and this fear could not come from the design of the Infant but must needs arise from the illustriousness of the Birth and the Prophecies of the Child and the sayings of the Learned and the journey of the Wise-men nd the decrees of God this journey and the return were both managed by the conduct of an Angel and a Divine dream for to the Son of God all the Angels did rejoyce to minister This Blessed Person made thus excellent by his Father and glorious by miraculous consignations and illustrious by the ministery of Heavenly spirits and proclaimed to Mary and to Joseph by two Angels to the Shepherds by a Multitude of the Heavenly Host to the Wise men by a Prophecy and by a Star to the Jews by the Shepherds to the Gentiles by the three Wise men to Herod by the Doctors of the Law and to himself perfectly known by the inchasing his humane nature in the bosom and heart of God and by the fulness of the Spirit of God was yet pleased for 30. Years together to live an humble a laborious a chast and a devout a regular and an even a wise and an exemplar a pious and an obscure life without complaint without sin without design of fame or grandeur of spirit till the time came that the clefts of the rock were to open and the Diamond give its lustre and be worn in the Diadems of Kings and then this Person was wholly admirable for he was ushered into the World by the voice of a loud Crier in the Wilderness a Person austere and wise of a strange life full of holiness and full of hardness and a great Preacher of righteousness a Man believed by all the People that he came from God one who in his own Nation gathered Disciples publickly and which amongst them was a great matter he was the Doctor of a new institution and baptized all the Country yet this man so great so rever'd so followed so listned to by King and People by Doctors and by ideots by Pharisees and Sadducees this man preached Jesus to the People pointed out the Lamb of God told that he must increase and himself from all that fame must retire to give him place he received him to Baptism after having with duty and modesty declared his own unworthiness to give but rather a worthiness to receive Baptism from the holy hands of Jesus but at the solemnity God sent down the holy Spirit upon his holy Son and by a voice from Heaven a voice of thunder and God was in that voice declared that this was his Son and that he was delighted in him This voice from Heaven was such so evident so certain a conviction of what it did intend to prove so known and accepted as the way of Divine revelation under the second Temple that at that time every Man that desired a sign honestly would have been satisfied with such a voice it being the testimony by which God made all extraordinaries to be credible to his People from the days of Ezra to the death of the Nation and that there was such a voice not only then but divers times after was as certain and made as evident as things of that nature can ordinarily be made For it being a matter of fact cannot be supposed infinite but limited to time and place heard by a certain number of persons and was as a clap of Thunder upon ordinary accounts which could be heard but by those who were within the sphere of its own activity and reported by those to others who are to give testimony as testimonies are required which are credible under the test of two or three disinterested honest and true Men and though this was done in the presence of more and oftner than once yet it was a divine testimony but at first but is to be conveyed by the means of Men and as God thundred from Heaven at the giving of the Law though that he did so we have notice only from the Books of Moses received from the Jewish Nation so he did in the days of the Baptist and so he did to Peter James and John and so he did in the presence of the Pharisees and many of the
common People and as it is not to be supposed that all these would joyn their divided interests for and against themselves for the verification of a lye so if they would have done it they could not have done it without reproof of their own parties who would have been glad by the discovery only to disgrace the whole story but if the report of honest and just men so reputed may be questioned for matter of fact or may not be accounted sufficient to make faith when there is no pretence of Men to the contrary besides that we can have no story transmitted to us nor Records kept no acts of Courts no narratives of the days of old no traditions of our Fathers so there could not be left in nature any usual Instrument whereby God could after the manner of Men declare his own will to us but either we should never know the will of Heaven upon earth or it must be that God must not only tell it once but always and not only always to some men but always to all men and then as there would be no use of History or the honesty of Men and their faithfulness in telling any act of God in declaration of his will so there would be perpetual necessity of miracles and we could not serve God directly with our understanding for there would be no such thing as faith that is of assent without conviction of understanding and we could not please God with believing because there would be in it nothing of the will nothing of love and choice and that faith which is would be like that of Thomas to believe what we see or hear and God should not at all govern upon Earth unless he did continually come himself for thus all Government all Teachers all Apostles all Messengers would be needless because they could not shew to the eye what they told to the ears of Men And it might as well be disbelieved in all Courts and by all Princes that this was not the letter of a Prince or the act of a Man or the writing of his hand and so all humane entercourse must cease and all senses but the eye be useless as to this affair or else to the ear all voices must be strangers but the principal if I say no reports shall make faith But it is certain that when these voices were sent from Heaven and heard upon Earth they prevailed amongst many that heard them not and Disciples were multiplied upon such accounts or else it must be that none that did hear them could be believed by any of their friends and neighbours for if they were the voice was as effective at the reflex and rebound as in the direct emission could prevail with them that believed their brother or their friend as certainly as with them that believed their own ears and eyes I need not speak of the vast numbers of miracles which he wrought miracles which were not more demonstrations of his power than of his mercy for they had nothing of pompousness and ostentation but infinitely of charity and mercy and that permanent and lasting and often he opened the eyes of the blind he made the crooked straight he made the weak strong he cured fevers with the touch of his hand and an issue of blood with the hem of his garment and sore eyes with the spittle of his mouth and the clay of the earth he multiplied the loaves and fishes he raised the dead to life a young maiden the widows son of Naim and Lazarus and cast out Devils by the word of his mouth which he could never do but by the power of God For Satan does not cast out Satan nor a house fight against it self if it means to stand long and the Devil could not help Jesus because the holy Jesus taught Men virtue called them from the worshipping Devils taught them to resist the Devil to lay aside all those abominable idolatries by which the Devil doth rule in the hearts of men he taught men to love God to fly from temptations to sin to hate and avoid all those things of which the Devil is guilty for Christianity forbids pride envy malice lying and yet affirms that the Devil is proud envious malicious and the Father of lies and therefore where ever Christianity prevails the Devil is not worshipped and therefore he that can think that a man without the power of God could over-turn the Devils principles cross his designs weaken his strengths baffle him in his policies befool him and turn him out of possession and make him open his own mouth against himself as he did often and confess himself conquered by Jesus and tormented as the Oracle did to Augustus Caesar and the Devil to Jesus himself he I say that thinks a meer man can do this knows not the weaknesses of a man nor the power of an Angel but he that thinks this could be done by compact and by consent of the Devil must think him to be an Intelligence without understanding a power without force a fool and a sot to assist a power against himself and to persecute the power he did assist to stir up the World to destroy the Christians whose Master and Lord he did assist to destroy himself and when we read that Porphyrius an Heathen a professed enemy to Christianity did say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that since Jesus was worshipped the gods could help no man that is the gods which they worshipped the poor baffled enervated Daemons He must either think that the Devils are as foolish as they are weak or else that they did nothing towards this declination of their power and therefore that they suffer it by a power higher than themselves that is by the power of God in the hand of Jesus But besides that God gave testimony from heaven concerning him he also gave this testimony of himself to have come from God because that he did Gods will for he that is a good man and lives by the Laws of God and of his Nation a life innocent and simple prudent and wise holy and spotless unreproved and unsuspected he is certainly by all wise men said in a good sense to be the son of God but he who does well and speaks well and calls all men to glorifie and serve God and serves no ends but of holiness and charity of wisdom of hearts and reformation of manners this man carries great authority in his sayings and ought to prevail with good men in good things for good ends which is all that is here required But his nature was so sweet his manners so humble his words so wise and composed his comportment so grave and winning his answers so seasonable his questions so deep his reproof so severe and charitable his pity so great and merciful his preachings so full of reason and holiness of weight and authority his conversation so useful and beneficent his poverty great but his alms frequent his family so holy and religious
his and their imployment so profitable his meekness so incomparable his passions without difference save only where zeal or pity carried him on to worthy and apt expressions a person that never laughed but often wept in a sense of the calamities of others he loved every man and hated no man he gave counsel to the doubtful and instructed the ignorant he bound up the broken hearts and strengthened the feeble knees he relieved the poor and converted the sinners he despised none that came to him for relief and as for those that did not he went to them he took all occasions of mercy that were offered him and went abroad for more he spent his days in Preaching and healing and his nights in Prayers and conversation with God he was obedient to Laws and subject to Princes though he was the Prince of Judaea in right of his Mother and of all the World in right of his Father the People followed him but he made no conventions and when they were made he suffered no tumults when they would have made him a King he withdrew himself when he knew they would put him to death he offered himself he knew mens hearts and conversed secretly and gave answer to their thoughts and prevented their questions he would work a miracle rather than give offence and yet suffer every offence rather than see God his Father dishonored he exactly kept the Law of Moses to which he came to put a period and yet chose to signify his purpose onely by doing acts of mercy upon their Sabbath doing nothing which they should call a breach of a Commandment but healing sick people a charity which themselves would do to beasts and yet they were angry at him for doing it to their brethren In all his life and in all his conversation with his Nation he was innocent as an Angel of light and when by the greatness of his worth and the severity of his doctrine and the charity of his miracles and the noises of the people and his immense fame in all that part of the World and the multitude of his disciples and the authority of his Sermons and his free reproof of their hypocrisie and his discovery of their false doctrines and weak traditions he had branded the reputation of the vicious Rulers of the People and they resolved to put him to death they who had the biggest malice in the World and the weakest accusations were forced to supply their want of articles against him by making truth to be his fault and his office to be his crime and his open confession of what was asked him to be his article of condemnation and yet after all this they could not perswade the competent Judge to condemn him or to find him guilty of any fault and therefore they were forced to threaten him with Caesar's name against whom then they would pretend him to be an enemy though in their charge they neither proved nor indeed laid it against him and yet to whatsoever they objected he made no return but his silence and his innocence were remarkable and evident without labour and reply and needed no more argument than the Sun needs an advocate to prove that he is the brightest star in the firmament Well so it was they crucified him and when they did they did as much put out the eye of heaven as destroy the Son of God for when with an incomparable sweetness and a patience exemplar to all ages of sufferers he endured affronts examinations scorns insolencies of rude ungentle Tradesmen cruel whippings injurious unjust and unreasonable usages from those whom he obliged by all the arts of endearment and offers of the biggest kindness at last he went to death as to the work which God appointed him that he might become the Worlds sacrifice and the great example of holiness and the instance of representing by what way the World was to be made happy even by sufferings and so entring into heaven that he might I say become the Saviour of his Enemies and the Elder Brother to his friends and the Lord of Glory and the fountain of its emanation Then it was that God gave new testimonies from Heaven The Sun was eclipsed all the while he was upon the Cross and yet the Moon was in the full that is he lost his light not because any thing in nature did invest him but because the God of nature as a Heathen at that very time confessed who yet saw nothing of this sad iniquity did suffer The rocks did rend the veil of the Temple divided of it self and opened the inclosures and disparked the Sanctuary and made it pervious to the Gentiles eye the dead arose and appeared in Jerusalem to their friends the Centurion and divers of the People smote their hearts and were by these strange indications convinced that he was the Son of God His garments were parted and lots cast upon his inward coat they gave him vinegar and gall to drink they brake not a bone of him but they pierced his side with a Spear looking upon him whom they had pierced according to the Prophecies of him which were so clear and descended to minutes and circumstances of his passion that there was nothing left by which they could doubt whether this were he or no who was to come into the World But after all this that all might be finally verified and no scruple left after three days burial a great stone being rolled to the face of the grave and the stone sealed and a Guard of Souldiers placed about it he arose from the grave and for forty days together conversed with his followers and Disciples and beyond all suspicion was seen of 500. Brethren at once which is a number too great to give their consent and testimony to a lye and it being so publickly and confidently affirmed at the very time it was done and for ever after urged by all Christians used as the most mighty demonstration proclaimed preached talked of even upbraided to the gain-sayers affirmed by eye-witnesses perswaded to the kindred and friends and the relatives and companions of all those 500. persons who were eye-witnesses it is infinitely removed from a reasonable suspicion and at the end of those days was taken up into Heaven in the sight of many of them as Elias was in the presence of Elisha Now he of whom all these things are true must needs be more than a meer man and that they were true was affirmed by very many eye-witnesses Men who were innocent plain men men that had no bad ends to serve men that looked for no preferment by the thing in this life Men to whom their Master told they were to expect not Crowns and Scepters not praise of men or wealthy possessions not power and ease but a voluntary casting away care and attendance upon secular affairs that they might attend their Ministery poverty and prisons trouble and vexation persecution and labour whippings and banishment bonds and death and for a
peace and war in solitude and society in persecution and in Sun-shine by night and by day and be solemnized by Clergy and Laity in the essential parts of it and is the perfection of the soul and the highest reason of Man and the glorification of God But for the Heathen religions ir is evidently to be seen that they are nothing but an abuse of the natural inclination which all Men have to worship a God whom because they know not they guess at in the dark for that they know there is and ought to be something that hath the care and providence of their affairs But the body of their Religion is nothing but little arts of Governments and stratagems of Princes and devices to secure the Government of new Usurpers or to make obedience to the Laws sure by being sacred and to make the yoke that was not natural pleasant by something that is But yet for the whole body of it who sees not that their worshippings could not be sacred because they were done by something that is impure they appeased their gods with adulteries and impure mixtures by such things which Cato was ashamed to see by gluttonous eatings of flesh and impious drinkings and they did litarein humano sanguine they sacrificed Men and Women and Children to their Damons as is notorious in the rites of Bacchus Omesta amongst the Greeks and of Jupiter to whom a Greek and a Greekess a Galatian and a Galatess were yearly offered in the answers of the Oracles to Caichas as appears in Homer and Virgil who sees not that crimes were warranted by the example of their immortal gods and that what did dishonor themselves they sang to the honor of their gods whom they affirmed to be passionate and proud jealous and revengeful amorous and lustful fearful and impatient drunken and sleepy weary and wounded that the Religions were made lasting by policy and force by ignorance and the force of custom by the preferring an inveterate error and loving of a quiet and prosperous evil by the arguments of pleasure and the correspondencies of sensuality by the fraud of Oracles and the patronage of vices and because they feared every change as an Earthquake as supposing overturnings of their old error to be the eversion of their well established Governments and it had been ordinarily impossible that ever Christianity should have entered if the nature and excellency of it had not been such as to enter like rain into a fleece of wool or the Sun into a window without noise or violence without emotion and disordering the political constitution without causing trouble to any man but what his own ignorance or peevishness was pleased to spin out of his own bowels but did establish Governments secure obedience made the Laws firm and the persons of Princes to be sacred it did not oppose force by force nor strike Princes for Justice it defended it self against enemies by patience and overcame them by kindness it was the great instrument of God to demonstrate his power in our weaknesses and to do good to Mankind by the imitation of his excellent goodness Lastly he that considers concerning the Religion and person of Mahomet that he was a vicious person lustful and tyrannical that he propounded incredible and ridiculous propositions to his Disciples that it entred by the sword by blood and violence by murder and robbery that it propounds sensual rewards and allures to compliance by bribing our basest lusts that it conserves it self by the same means it entred that it is unlearned and foolish against reason and the discourses of all wise Men that it did no miracles and made false Prophecies in short that in the person that founded it in the article it perswades in the manner of prevailing in the reward it offers it is unholy and foolish and rude it must needs appear to be void of all pretence and that no Man of reason can ever be fairly perswaded by arguments that it is the daughter of God and came down from Heaven Since therefore there is nothing to be said for any other Religion and so very much for Christianity every one of whose pretences can be proved as well as the things themselves do require and as all the World expects such things should be proved it follows that the holy Jesus is the Son of God that his Religion is commanded by God and is that way by which he will be worshipped and honoured and that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved but only by the name of the Lord Jesus He that puts his soul upon this cannot perish neither can he be reproved who hath so much reason and argument for his Religion Sit anima mea cum Christianis I pray God my soul may be numbred amongst the Christians THE END Martial l. 8. ep 18. Prov. 27.10 * Vt praestem Pyladen aliquis mihi praestet Oresten Hoc non fit verbis Marce ut ameris ama Mar. l .6 ep 11. * Extra fortunim est quicquid donatur amicis Quas dederis solas semper babchis opes Mart. l 5. ep 43. Et tamen hoc vitium sed non leve sit licet unum Quod colit ingratas pauper amicitias Quis largitur opes veteri fidoque sodali ep 19. ‖ Non bellè quoedam faciunt duo sufficit unus Huic operi si vis ut loquà r ipse tace Crede mibi quamvis ingentia Posthume dones Author is pereunt garralitate sui ep 53. De potest Eccles. cons. 12. Ethic. definit 26. Euseb. lib. 5. c. 1. praep Evang.