much served the designs of those bitter enemies of the Christian Cause who from the first did the utmost they could to suppress it What Relations of matters of fact pass uncontradicted and uncontroll'd in the Age in which they were transacted and among those who thought themselves greatly concerned to have them believed false this must be taken for an undeniable argument of their truth And this Argument the History of the New Testament hath on its side in its fullest strength For the Books were written and published in the very age in which the things related in them were done yet no one then ever contradicted or convicted of falsehood any one passage in them though Christianity had from the very beginning the Professors of all other Religions in most bitter enmity against it who would have been most ready and glad so to do could they have found but the least pretence for it And had any of those Relations been false there were then means enough undeniably to have convicted them of it For those things which are related of Jesus Christ and his Apostles in the History of the New Testament are not there said to have been done in Corners where none where present to contradict them but upon the open Stage of the World and many of them in the sight of thousands and therefore had they not been really done or done otherwise than related there could not have wanted witnesses enough to make proof hereof And most certainly those who so bitterly opposed Christianity from the first would have found them out and made use of their Testimonies to the utmost for the overthrowing of the Cause they so violently opposed and had they done so to be sure we should have had those testimonies in the mouths of all its enemies ever since For they would have yielded them the strongest and the most prevailing argument they could possibly have urged against it The false pretences of 〈…〉 Impostors have been detected by 〈…〉 who lived in their times and the true History is given of them instead of the false ones which they gave of themselves And had Jesus Christ and his Apostles been like Impostors and the things related of them in the Books of the New Testament false and forged it is not possible to conceive especially in the circumstances above-mentioned how they could have escaped the like discovery but certainly in this case amidst so many witnesses who could have proved the falsehood and so many enemies who were eager to detect it all must have come out and every false Narrative would have been shown to be such and the true one given in its stead and we should have heard enough hereof from the adversaries of our holy Religion through every age since And that this was not done when there was such bitter opposition against the Christian Religion from the first propagating of it and it would have been so strong an argument against it can be assigned to no other cause but that the things related were so evidently and manifestly true as not to afford the least pretence for the contradicting of them But this is not all we have to say in the case For it hath not only hapned that none of those matters of fact have ever been contradicted or proved false by any of the first enemies of Christianity who were best able to have done so had there been that Imposture in them which you alledge but on the contrary many of them have been allowed true and attested by them For two of the most surprizing particulars related in the Gospels are confirmed by the Testimony of Heathen Writers I mean the murder of the Innocents by Herod at Bethlehem and the wonderfull Eclipse of the Sun which hapned at the death of our Saviour contrary to the nature of a Solar Eclipse when the Moon was in the Full. Macrobius tells us of the former and Phlegon Trallianus of the latter And that which is the most important part of all and bears the greatest Testimony to the truth of the whole was allowed and acknowledged on all hands both by Jews and Heathens even in their bitterest opposition against the Christian Cause I mean the account which is given in those sacred Books of the Miracles of our Saviour For both of them have yielded to the truth hereof only the Jews say that he wrought them by virtue of the Tetragrammaton or the sacred Name Jehovah stolen by him out of the Temple which the ridiculousness of the Fable they relate concerning it sufficiently confutes and the Heathens by Magic Art And therefore Philostratus and Hierocles finding no other way to overthrow the authority which those Miracles gave his Religion confronted against him the History of Apollonius Tyanoeus whom they pretend by the same Art of Magic to have done as wonderfull things and by this means endeavoured at least to invalidate those miraculous Works of his which they could not deny And 2dly As to the Prophecies of our Saviour the truth of their event in every particular proves the truth of him that predicted them For did he not come from God how could he have this wonderfull Knowledge as thus to fore-tell things to come Were he not of the Secrets of the Almighty how could he so certainly have fore-shown what in after-times he would bring to pass If it were only by guess that he did so how possibly could all things so exactly fall out in the event that nothing should in the least happen otherwise than as he predicted especially since as to most of them it cannot be as much as said that there was any place for humane sagacity or the least probable conjecture to help him to any fore-sight therein For how improbable was it that the Religion which he taught should against the bent of the whole World have made so great and speedy progress therein as he fore-told that it should or that such instruments as he imployed in this work a company of poor ignorant and contemptible Fishermen should ever have been able to have effected it without the extraordinary Providence of God over-ruling the hearts as well as the power of Men a thing in the ordinary course of humane affairs so unlikely to succeed could never have been brought to pass or could our Saviour have any manner of ground from the nature of the thing so much as to guess at so strange an event and therefore could never have so punctually foretold it but that being sent of God to begin this work he foreknew all that he would do for the perfecting of it And the same is to be said of what he further predicted of this holy Religion as to its continuance among us to the end of the World of the calling of the Gentiles thereinto and the rejecting of the Jews of the great calamities which should attend that people as accordingly they have through all Ages since and particularly of that great and terrible calamity which was to fall
restore him in so many instances as our Saviour and his Apostles did to health and perfection when the very Parts and Vessels necessary thereto were thoroughly perished and in so miraculous a manner with a word of their mouth bring back total privations again to their former habits Or what craft of Satan can reach as much as to an imitation of such wonderfull Works as these which left behind them for many years after effects of lasting permanency in the persons cured not only to be Monuments of the things done but also undeniable evidences of the truth and reality of them It would be too long to go over all the Miracles of this nature which Christ and his holy Apostles did for the confirmation of those holy Truths which they taught These already mentioned are sufficient to show that some of their Miracles at least were such as are above the Powers of all created Beings either to effect or imitate and therefore these certainly must be allowed to be from God alone without possibility of Imposture deceit or delusion in them and in that they are so they must necessarily prove the Mission of them at whose word they were done to be from him also and consequently become a witness to the truth of every Doctrine delivered by them as firm certain and infallible as the Veracity of God himself which can never err or deceive for ever And so much of the fifth Mark of Imposture SECT VI. VI. No Imposture when entrusted with many Conspirators can be long concealed For what Plot or Conspiracy have we ever known or heard of which hath been thus managed and hath not had some false Brother or other to discover it especially if there be any great Wickedness intended by it or any great Danger attending the execution of it as mostly is in such designs For then if the thing it self doth not work the Conscience into an abhorrence the fear of the Consequence may at least deterr from it and it seldom fails but one of these two in all such cases drives some or other into a discovery and in this Age of Plots we have instances enough hereof And what Plot can be more wicked than to impose a false Religion upon Mankind and what can be more dangerous than to attempt it What hath been already said sufficiently proves both these Particulars and therefore if the first planting of Christianity were such a Plot certainly one of these two that is either the Wickedness or the Danger would have wrought some or other into a discovery of it For they were not a few that were admitted thereinto They were at least five hundred that were in that which you must call the greatest secret of it I mean the Resurrection of our Saviour from the dead For that is the main Article of our holy Christian Religion the truth of which proves all the rest and without which all the rest must have fallen to the ground and our whole Faith become vain And therefore had but any one of these five hundred who are asserted to have been the Witnesses of it discovered the thing to have been only a Conspiracy of Imposture between them this discovery must have laid open the whole design and put a total end thereto And were not the thing certainly true which they attested it is scarce to be conceived but that some or other of them must have done so Among the twelve Apostles one was found a Traytor to his Master and how much more then may we expect that there should have been one such among five hundred and especially in a case where all ought to have been so that is to discover a Plot against the Souls of all Mankind and deliver the World from being imposed on thereby Among so many it scarce happens but some or other prove false to the best Cause and how hard is it then to conceive that in such a number none should be found to betray the worst And can we call it any other than the worst if it be such an Imposture as you would have it to be Were Christianity really such and this Doctrine of the Resurrection of our Saviour totally the Forgery of those who attested it so many as five hundred could never have all kept the Secret or if they should out of love to their own invention or any self-ends which they might have therein be inclined so to do yet punishment pain and torture use to extort the most hidden devices and make the most obstinate offenders the closest designers and the most reserved plotters of mischief to come to a Confession And what punishments what pains what tortures did those first Witnesses of this main and fundamental Article of our Faith go through for the sake of that Testimony which they did bear thereto and yet did any one of them ever flinch from it did any one of them ever retract what he had attested concerning it Prove but this and then you will say something to make out the Charge which you lay against it But they were so far here-from that they all persisted in it to the last and not only so but were every one of them ready to shed their blood for a witness to the truth of what they asserted and a great many of them actually did so and all the terrours threats and tortures of the Persecutours were not able to deterr them herefrom And what greater evidence then can there be given to any truth in the World which depends upon matter of fact than that which Christianity hath from the Testimony of those Men in so great a number and such a manner bearing witness thereto SECT VII VII The last Mark of an Imposture is That it can never be established without force and violence For if it hath wicked Men for its Authors worldly Interest for its End Falsity and Errour for its Doctrines and receives its Rise from the craft and fraud of its first Promoters as I have already shown the search of the inquisitive will soon find it out and Mankind will not long bear the Imposture unless they be over-ruled by Violence and have all Objections against it silenced with the Sword at their Throats This was the Method which Mahomet took to establish that false Religion which he invented For he prosecuted with War all that would not submit thereto and made it no less than Death for any to gain-say it or as much as raise the least dispute against any of the Doctrines of it And without his doing this the reason of all Mankind must have appeared against it and it could never have stood And the Romanists have learnt from him to take the same course as to those Doctrines of Imposture which they have super-added to the Christian Religion For they declare all those to be Hereticks and prosecute them with Sword Fire and Faggot that refuse to receive them and thus by the Power of their Dragoons and their Inquisitions they have established and
particular as I hope I have shown of all the rest not to have the least mark or character thereof And thus far having laid before you all the obvious marks of Imposture and proved that none of them can belong to Christianity I hope what hath been said will sufficiently inferr the conclusion which I have undertaken to make out unto you That our Holy Christian Religion cannot be such an Imposture as you would have it to be but really is that sacred truth of God which you are all bound to believe It is too common with mankind to frame their judgments according to their inclinations and upon very slight grounds hastily to run away with Idea's of things when they correspond with the prevailing bent of their affections which whenever put into a true light before them must all appear to be false and wrong taken And this I reckon to be your case Your inclinations strongly leading you into Infidelity you would fain have Christianity be an Imposture and therefore have over-easily and hastily been induced on very weak grounds to believe it so to be And that you may be undeceived in so dangerous and destructive an errour I have endeavoured in the easiest and most familiar manner I could think of to put this business in a true light before you 1. By letting you see what an Imposture is in that true picture which I have drawn of it in the Life of him who was really and truly such an Impostor as you would have Jesus Christ to be And 2. By examining into the Marks and Properties which naturally belong to every such Imposture and showing of each of them that they cannot belong to that holy Religion which we profess And I hope when you have considered all this thoroughly you will see how much you have been deceived in those Opinions which you have so precipitately given up your selves unto You cannot but be sensible how great the stress is which we lay on this matter and how very ill your case must be if we are in the right and you in the wrong and therefore the thing is of sufficient importance to deserve your most serious consideration and that in such a manner as to make you lay aside all those groundless prejudices and wrong byasses which may obstruct an impartial inquiry and if you will be pleased for the sake of your own Souls to do thus much I am content to leave the success of what I now offer unto you to God's grace and your own judgments As to the particular reasons which you may alledge for your disbelief of our holy Christian Religion whether they be Objections drawn against it either from History Philosophy or the inconsistencies which you imagine you find in the Books of holy Writ in which it is delivered down unto us it is not my purpose now to enter into any Disputes with you about them That which I at present purpose is not so much to consider those premisses as the conclusion which you pretend to draw herefrom That Christianity must therefore be an Imposture and from the nature of such an Imposture and the nature of our holy Christian Religion laid in a true light and compared together with each other to evidence unto you the inconsistency of this Charge and if what I have now said can be of any force to let you in to a clear sight of this matter it will be totally needless for me to meddle any further For all those Objections which you pretend to have been the particular Reasons of your Infidelity have been already abundantly answered and confuted by others But the opinion which you have conceited that Christianity is an Imposture having so far pre-possessed your judgment as to influence it against all things of this nature that can be proposed unto you it will be in vain to offer any thing farther as to those particulars till this prejudice be removed and were it once removed what hath already been said in answer to them will be abundantly sufficient to give you full satisfaction Although this method may seem illogical thus to assault the Conclusion without medling with the Premisses from which you pretend to have deduced it yet it is no other than what you your selves have necessitated me unto by taking up the Conclusion first and the Premisses afterward Had you indeed first began with those Reasons which you offer for your Infidelity and been really by the conviction of them led into this Conclusion That Christianity is an Imposture it would then have been proper and fitting that I should have begun there too and no otherwise have endeavoured to overthrow the Conclusion but by first overthrowing the Premisses from whence you deduced it But since it is well known that the Conclusion hath been of greater force with the most of you to make you assent to the Premisses than the Premisses to prove the Conclusion and it is only the fond conceit you have taken up in compliance with ill-company or worse inclinations that Christianity must be an Imposture that hath made any of those arguments seem so conclusive with you which are brought to prove it this makes it necessary for me to begin my endeavours for your conviction at that same point where you first began your Infidelity and to attack the Conclusion in the first place before any success can be expected towards the setting you right as to any thing else For as long as you are wilfully bent out of a meer fondness for Infidelity to hold Christianity to be an Imposture this will make every Argument seem strong to you that is brought to prove it and every Solution insufficient which is given thereto and render all means for your Conviction utterly ineffectual unto you And therefore this being in truth the first Errour which hath influenced your Mind to all the rest this must be first removed and if what I have said can be of any force in order hereto by letting you see how much you have been mistaken herein this I hope will remove that prejudice which hath hindered you from seeing the strength of those Arguments which have been already offered for your Conviction as to all other particulars of that Infidelity which you have given up your selves unto and make you clearly discern how much you have been mistaken in them also and thereby become the means of delivering your Souls from that terrible danger which you expose them unto the accomplishing of which is the whole End Scope and Design of the Discourse which I now offer unto you But here perchance it may be asked and I think it reasonable to give you satisfaction herein Why I have set forth unto you an Imposture by so foul a picture as that of Mahomet And to this I have these two Answers to return 1. Because I have none other to do it by Mahomet being the only Impostor who could ever prevail so far as to establish his Imposture and make it a standing Religion
that teach it To examine into all the Labyrinths and abstruse Speculations of reason and argument which may be brought for or against any Religion is an operose business which all have not capacities for and few care to attend to But of Good and Evil every Man is judge and where they find the Teachers of any Religion to be wicked and naught it is an inference which they are all apt too precipitately to run into that the Religion must be naught also and without any further examining into it condemn it so to be And I find there is nothing which you your selves are more greedy to lay hold of for an argument against our holy Christian Religion than the faults which you observe in some of our Ministers whose business it is to promote it And therefore if the faults of the present teachers of Christianity be apt thus to afford so popular and prevalent an argument against it how much more would the faults of the first founders and propagaters of it have done so had there been any such to object against them And had there been any such so keen and searching Adversaries would never have suffered the discovery to have escaped them or ever fail'd to have objected it for the serving of their turn to the utmost they were able and it can be owing to nothing but their most unblameable innocency that they have been secured herefrom To say that they could not have that knowledge of their lives and actions as was sufficient for them to discern their faults and observe their miscarriages will not solve the matter Though Mahomet acted his Imposture so many hundred miles within the remoter parts of Arabia among a people who by vast desarts were in a manner cut off from the converse of the rest of mankind where very few or none of any other nation ever came to spy out his actions or observe his doings and where he had none else to be witnesses of them but those only who all imbraced his forgery and became zealously addicted to it yet all this could not serve to conceal his faults or hide his monstrous wickednesses from being observed and recorded against him The foregoing History gives you a large Catalogue of them and they are vouched by the authority of some of the most authentick writers of his own Sect. But Christianity had not its birth in such an obscure hole nor did the first Founder of it or those who propagated it after him make their first appearance among such rude and illiterate Barbarians as that Impostor did but on one of the openest stages in the world at Jerusalem and in the Land of Judea and not in an age when as formerly that Nation separated it self from all others and had no converse with any but themselves but when they had scattered themselves abroad and mingled with all other Nations and also were forced to admit all other Nations to mingle with them by being made a Province of the Roman Empire which brought not only Souldiers and Merchants of other Nations among them but also opened the gate to all others as they should think fit to come and reside among them And the Temple at Jerusalem being that where all of the Jewish Religion worshipped this constantly brought thither from all Nations those who professed it which made a very great resort thither from all Parts of the World especially at their three great Festivals And therefore just after our Saviour's sufferings at the time of Pentecost next following we are told that there were then at Jerusalem Parthians Medes and Elamites and the dwellers of Mesopotamia Cappadocia Pontus Asia Phrygia Pamphylia Egypt Libya and Cyrene with the Strangers of Rome Cretes and Arabians So that to be sure nothing could be hid or concealed which was done on so open a stage of the World and in the sight of so many Nations as were then present upon it nor is it possible if those who then first delivered the Christian Religion to the World had been such wicked persons as Mahomet was and all other Impostors must be it could ever have escaped their observation And if it had at Jerusalem there were other occasions enough given for a fuller discovery afterwards For the holy Apostles after our Saviour's death did not confine themselves to Jerusalem and the Land of Judoea only but dispersed themselves throughout the whole Earth and at Rome at Athens and in many other celebrated Cities appeared openly teaching the Religion which they had received and forming Churches of those whom they had converted thereto and thereby exposing their Lives and Actions publickly to the view of the whole World made all Mankind in a manner witnesses of what they did And Christianity was not such an acceptable thing to the World as to move the Men of it to be so candid and good-natur'd to the first Authors of it as to conceal their faults and hide their wickednesses had there been any such in them No it was that which was against the lusts and pleasures and the other evil courses of this World more than any other Religion which was ever taught therein and this put the World as much against it and all that adhered thereto and therefore we find them to be a Party of Men not only every-where spoken against but also every-where hated opposed and persecuted to the utmost And when so general an Odium was risen against them and both Jews and Gentiles conspired together therein to be sure there were not wanting abundance that made it their business to pry into their actions and examine their practices with all that spight unfairness and ill interpretation of things as is usual in such cases And could they by all this search inquiry and strict observation have found any thing to charge upon Christ or his Apostles which might cast a blot upon the Religion which they taught to be sure we should have heard enough of it For those who propagated their Odium against this holy Religion to the next succeeding Ages to that excessive degree in which the Primitive Christians experienced it in those terrible Persecutions which they underwent for three hundred years together would certainly have propagated therewith all the Accusations they were able against those who were the first Founders and Teachers of it And to be sure when Celsus Porphyry and Julian and other bitter Opposers of Christianity as well Jews as Heathens took Pen in hand to write against it we should have been told enough of it But nothing of this appearing in any of their Writings or any of the least memorial of it being to be found in any Record whatsoever against them this manifestly proves that they are even in the judgment of their bitterest Enemies totally free of this charge and consequently being just and righteous persons and of Christ and St. James one of his Apostles Josephus though a Jew particularly attests that they were so they could never be guilty of
so great a wickedness both against God and Man as to have imposed a cheat upon us in that Religion which they delivered unto us SECT III. III. And if they had been such wicked persons as thus to have imposed upon us a false Religion for their own interest both their wickedness and the interest which they drove at must necessarily have appeared in the very contexture of the Religion it self and the Books of the New Testament in which it is contained would have as evidently proved both these against them as the Alcoran doth against Mahomet every Chapter of which yieldeth us manifest proofs both of the wicked affections of the Man and the self-ends which he drove at for the gratifying of them For first when a Man proposeth an end of self-interest and invents a new Religion and writes a new Law on purpose for the obtaining of it it 's impossible but that this End must appear in the Means and the Imposture which was invented of purpose to promote it must discover what it is For in this case the new Religion and the new Law must be calculated for this End and be all formed and contrived in order thereto otherwise it can have no efficiency for the obtaining of it nor at all answer the purpose of the inventor for the compassing of what he proposed and if it be thus calculated ordered and contrived for such an End that End cannot but be seen and discovered in those Means For the End and Means prove each other that is as the nature of the End proposed shows us what Means must be made use of for the obtaining of it so do the nature of the Means which we use discover what is the End which they drive at And as far as the Means have a tendency to the End so much must they have of that End in them and it is not possible for him that useth the one long to conceal the other And therefore nothing is more obvious and common among us than by the courses which a man takes to discern the end which he would have As Mahomet invented his new Religion to promote his own ends so the Alcoran in which it is contained sufficiently proves it there being scarce a leaf in that Book which doth not lay down some particulars which tend to the gratifying either of the ambition or the lust of that Monster who contrived it And had the first Founder of our holy Christian Religion or they who were the first propagators of it any such end therein the Books of the New Testament in which it is written would have as palpably shown it But here we challenge all the enemies of our Faith to use their utmost skill to make any such discovery in them They have already gone through the strict scrutiny of many ages as well as of all manner of adversaries and none have ever yet been able to tax them herewith For instead of being calculated for the interest of this World their whole design is to withdraw our hearts from it and fix them upon the interest of that which is to come And therefore the doctrines which they inculcate are those of mortification repentance and self-denial which speak not unto us of fighting bloodshed and conquest as the Alcoran doth for the advancing of a temporal Kingdom but that recouncing all the pomps and vanities and lusts of this present World we live soberly righteously and godly in the presence of him that made us and instead of pursuing after the perishable things of this life we set our hearts only on those Heavenly riches which will make us great and glorious and blessed for ever hereafter For as the Kingdom of Christ is not of this World so neither do those Books in which are written the Laws of this Kingdom savour any thing thereof The Mammon of this World and the Righteousness which they prescribe us are declared in them to be totally inconsistent The Old Testament indeed as being under the Dispensation of carnal Ordinances which were the shadows only of those things after to come under the Gospel treated with Men suitably thereto And therefore we find much of this World both by way of promise as well as threat to be proposed therein But it is quite otherwise with the New For in that Revelation being given to the perfecting of righteousness all things were advanced thereby from Earth to Heaven and from flesh to spirit And therefore as the whole end of it is to make men spiritual so are we directed thereby to look only to spiritual and heavenly Blessings for the reward hereof Had our Saviour proposed victory or riches or carnal pleasures to his followers as Mahomet did then indeed his Law would have sufficiently savour'd of this World to make Men suspect that he aimed at nothing else thereby But he was so far herefrom that instead of this the whole tenour of his doctrine runs the quite contrary way we Being told of nothing else through the whole New Testament but of tribulations afflictions and persecutions which shall attend all such as to this World who faithfully set their hearts to become his Disciples and the experience of all ages since hath sufficiently verified the prediction And indeed the very Religion which he hath taught us is of that holiness that according to the course of this wicked World it naturally leads us thereinto And how then can it be said that any thing of worldly interest can be contained either in this Religion or those holy Books in which it is written I cannot deny that there are some Men so crafty and cunning in pursuing their interest that it shall not easily be discerned in the Means what it is which they drive at for their End But how great a compass soever such may fetch about to the point which they aim at or in what by and secret paths soever they make forward towards it yet if the Means which they make use of have any tendency thither they can never be so totally blended but there will always appear in them enough of the End to make the discovery to any accurate observer and at length when the plot grows ripe for Execution and the designer begins to offer at the putting himself in possession of what he proposed as all such designers must at last the whole scene must then be laid open and every one will be able to see thereinto And therefore if you will have it that the Holy Apostles and Evangelists who were the first penners of the New Testament were such cunning and crafty men as to be able thus artfully to conceal their designs in those Books which you suppose they wrote of purpose to promote them which cannot reasonably be imagin'd of men of their education and condition in the World they being all except St. Paul and St. Luke of the meanest occupations among the people and totally unlearned yet if they contrived those Books with any tendency towards those designs and
a root and the effect vastly above the efficiency of such a cause ever to produce it For can it possibly be imagin'd that a wicked Man could either have inclination to do so much for the promoting of that Righteousness which all his passions and desires so violently run counter unto or if he would that such an one could ever be so well acquainted with all the ways thereof as so exactly to prescribe them If it be so difficult for such an one to conceal his inclinations in his expressions if it be so hard for him when he vents himself into Words or Writings not to let loose something in them of what he really is as I have already shown how can any copy be drawn from such a Mind but what must in some feature or other resemble the Original or any thing at all proceed from thence but what must carry with it some savour of the iniquity thereof Set but such a one to write a Letter and he will scarce be able to do it without putting so much of his passions and his temper into it as that we may read from thence what he is as every Man's experience may tell him that corresponds with such and how much more then may we be assured will he lay himself open when he hath the large scope of a Book to express himself in and especially when that book is of such a nature as gives him the fullest occasion and the most inviting opportunity so to do And what book can be more such than that which is to propose a new Law to Mankind In the writing of such a book if ever certainly the wicked Man will show himself and in the same manner as Mahomet did conform his Laws to his own inclinations and prescribe such rules of living to others as may best justifie him in those which he himself follows And although he should not intend any such thing though he should not design so to do and it is hard to imagine of such a Man that he should not yet at least the prevailing bent of his passions and the corruption of his judgment which always follows therefrom must necessarily lead him thereinto it being morally speaking altogether impossible but that the wicked Man must appear in what the wicked Man doth and the deeds words and writings which proceed from such an one must in some measure savour of what he is And therefore if there be nothing in the Law of our holy Religion as I hope I have fully shown that there is not which can make the least discovery of any such thing nothing that can afford the least pretence for such a charge against it where so large a scope is given for it this sufficiently proves that neither the first Founder of the Christian Religion nor those who first wrote it in the Books of the New Testament in which we now have it could possibly be wicked Men and consequently not such Impostors as you would have them to be But here I know it will be objected that there is no necessity that all Impostors should be as wicked as Mahomet and therefore though Jesus Christ and his Apostles were no such wicked Persons yet however they may be still Impostors for all that For first it hath hapned that very just and good Men have had recourse to Imposture to bring to pass and establish their most commendable designs as we have an instance in Minos King of Crete and another in Numa King of Rome both which to give the greater authority to their Laws pretended to have had them by divine Revelation And secondly you will say it 's possible a Man may be an Impostor by Enthusiasm and mistake and falsely impose things for divine Revelation not out of a wicked design to deceive others but that he is really deceived herein himself And if in these two Cases a Man that is not wicked may be an Impostor you will urge That though Jesus Christ and his Apostles were not wicked Men yet this will not prove them not to have been Impostors because it 's possible that in one of these two Cases they might have been such In order to the clearing of the first of these Objections I desire you would consider these Three following Particulars 1. That in every Religion there are these two Parts to be observed very distinct from each other 1. The Religion it self And 2. The Means whereby it is promoted and propagated among Men. 2. When the Imposture is only in the former of these two and a true Religion or at least one that is really believed to be such is promoted by means of Imposture that is by feigning a divine Revelation where there is none or by counterfeiting Miracles or by any other such means tending to deceive Men thereinto this amounts to no higher than a pious fraud which out of an over-hot and inconsiderate zeal some Men have made use of for the promoting of the best Ends. And such Men for the sake of such Ends may still be denominated good and righteous in the main how much soever they may have been out in making use of such means to promote them 3. When the Imposture is in the End as well as in the Means and not only the Revelation pretended but also the Religion it self is all false counterfeit and feigned this amounts to such an Imposture as is totally wicked without any mixture of good therein In the former Case where the Imposture is only in the Means there is a good End designed and therefore something still from whence the person using it may be denominated Good but where the Imposture is in both it is Wickedness all over without any thing at all in it to exempt him from being perfectly wicked that maketh use thereof Which Particulars being premised my Answer to the Objection is as followeth 1. I do acknowledge it to be related by Authors of good credit that Minos King of Crete when he first framed the Laws of his Country to give them the greater authority used to retire into a Cave on Mount Dicta and from thence to bring them forth to his Cretans as if they had been there delivered to him by Jupiter And that Numa when he founded the Laws of Rome practised the same art pretending to have received them from the Nymph Egeria that so he might procure them to be received by the Romans with the greater veneration And by this device they both obtained there End in bringing very rude and barbarous People to submit to those good Orders and Rules which they prescribed for their living civilly peaceably and justly together But this although it were a fraud in the Means yet as far as it related only to a political End belongs to another matter and doth not at all fall within that argument of Religion which we are now treating of 2. As to the Laws of Numa I acknowledge that they reached not only Matters of State but those of
I desire to know among what sort of Men you will place them while you thus plead their excuse For they must be one of these three that is either Atheists Deists or Believers of an instituted Religion 1. If you say they are Atheists that word alone contains enough to prove them perfectly wicked whatever can be said to the contrary It is indeed agreeable enough to the Principes of this sort of Men that such an Imposture as we are treating of may laudably be made use of to a good End For they hold that all Religion is nothing else but a device of Politicians to keep the World in awe But if the Atheist be the deviser what intention of Good can the device carry therewith None certainly towards God since he utterly denies his Being or can it in this case have any towards Men since by denying him for whose sake it is that we are to do good to others he casts off therewith all the reason and obligation which he hath abstractive of his own interest of doing any such at all All the good therefore that such an one can aim at must totally center in himself to advance his own enjoyments and gratifie his own lusts in all those things which his corrupt affections carry him after and to enjoy these without restraint of Laws or fear of punishment being that alone which is the real and true cause that makes any Man deny that supreme and infinitely good and just Being whom all things else prove whoever is an Atheist must be perfectly wicked before he can be such and what is there which can while in that impiety ever give him a better character afterwards 2. If you say they are Deists such as you profess your selves to be your main Principle is against all instituted Religion whatever as if God were dishonoured and Man injured by every thing of this nature practised among us and can you then think that any who are thus persuaded can without being first corrupted to a great degree of Impiety as well as Hypocrisie ever become themselves so contrary to their own Sentiments on any pretence whatsoever the Authors and Teachers of such a Religion among us 3. But if you place them among those who are Believers of an instituted Religion they must abolish that which they believe to be true before they can introduce that by Imposture which they know to be false And this must be the case of Jesus Christ and his Apostles if they were such Impostors as you hold them to be For they were educated and brought up in the Jewish Religion which they believed to be from God and the whole Tenour of the Religion which they taught supposeth it so to be and that it was the only true way whereby God was to be worshipped by them till they delivered their new Revelations which totally abolished this Religion and established the Christian in its stead and therefore if those Revelations were not true and real as they pretended they were but all forged and counterfeited by them as you say they must abolish a Religion which they believed to be true to make way for that which they knew to be false and thereby become wilfully and knowingly according to their own belief the Authors of leading Men from saving Truths into damning Errours to the utter destruction of their Souls for ever and also of depriving God of that acceptable Worship whereby he was truly honour'd according to his own appointment to introduce in its stead a false superstition of their own devising which must be constant dishonour unto him as long as practised among us And if Jesus Christ and his Apostles were such Impostors as all this imports and such they must be if they were Impostors at all they must be guilty of that impiety towards God as well as that injustice towards Men herein as must necessarily suppose them the wickedest of Men before they could arrive hereto and therefore if they were not such wicked Men this abundantly demonstrates they could not be such Impostors as you charge them to be As to the second Objection That a Man may be an Impostour through Enthusiasm and Mistake and falsely impose things for divine Revelations not out of a wicked design to deceive others but that he is herein really deceived himself and that therefore there is no necessity that all Impostors should be such wicked persons as I have alledged my Answer hereto is 1. I do acknowledge that Enthusiasm hath carried Men into very strange conceits and extravagancies upon the foundation of a Religion already established as we have instances enough hereof in the Anabaptists of Germany the Quakers here with us the Batenists among the Mahometans and in some of the Recluses of the Church of Rome But that Enthusiasm could ever go so far as to fansie a divine Revelation for the establishing of a new Religion and upon such a fansie propagate that Religion in the World as if it came from God is that which I cannot believe and there is no instance that I know of that can be given hereof But 2dly Allowing it possible this Objection then as applied to the case in hand must suppose Jesus Christ and his Apostles to have been deceived by Enthusiasm into the Religion which they taught and that therefore although they were by no means such wicked Men as a wilfull Imposture must suppose them to be yet still they might be Impostors by mistake and being by Enthusiasm so far deluded as to think that to come to them from God by divine Revelation which had no other birth but from their own wild fancies might preach it to Men as such not out of a wicked design to deceive but that they were really herein deceived themselves But is it possible for any Man to conceive that so grave so serious and so wisely a framed Religion as Christianity is could ever be the spawn of Enthusiasm Whatsoever is the product of that useth ever to be like the Parent wild and extravagant in all its parts often disagreeing with all manner of Reason and often as much with it self But Christianity is in all its parts as rational as it is good giving us the justest Notions of God the best Precepts of our duty towards Him and the exactest Rules of living honestly and righteously with each other and hath a thorough conformity to it self in every particular of it on which account it hath been approved and admired for the excellency of its composure and the wisdom of its constitutions even by the best and wisest of those who never submitted thereto and therefore always carries with it Marks and Evidences enough in the very Nature of it sufficiently to prove it vastly above the power of such a Cause ever to produce it 3. The Founder and first Teachers of Christianity gave such evidences for the truth thereof as Enthusiasm could never produce For can Enthusiasm raise the dead to life again cure all manner of
diseases and work such other Miracles as Christ and his Apostles did Had they by Enthusiasm been mistaken in the Doctrines which they taught certainly God would never have wrought such wonderfull Works by their hands as give testimony thereto 4. Several of the principal Articles of our Faith depend upon such matters of fact as allow no Room for Enthusiasm to take place in them as that of the Resurrection of our Saviour from the dead his Ascension into Heavem and the descent of the Holy Ghost in the gift of Tongues For in such things as these which Men see with their eyes and hear with their ears and feel with their hands as one of the Apostles did the very Wounds of our Saviour after his Resurrection no Enthusiasm can ever lead Men into a mistake For can it possibly be said that it was only by Enthusiasm that five hundred Men together saw Christ after he was risen again from the dead or that it was by Enthusiasm that his Apostles saw him ascend up into Heaven from Mount Olivet in the presence of them all at noon-day or that it was only by Enthusiasm that the same Apostles on the day of Pentecost received the gift of Tongues by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them so as to be able to converse with all the several Nations then at Jerusalem in their own Languages without ever having learned any thing of them To say that Men could any way be mistaken in such things as these will be to deny the certainty of sense and overthrow the foundations of all manner of knowledge whatever It must therefore be said as to these particulars as it must also of all the Miracles of our Saviour which give Testimony to the Doctrines which he taught That his Apostles who testified them unto the World and upon the credit of them built up that Religion which they delivered unto us did either see them really done as they relate or they did not see them If they did see them no Enthusiasm could ever make them be mistaken therein and if they did not they must be altogether as bad Impostors as Mahomet himself in testifying them unto us and what but as great Wickedness as his could ever induce them so to do SECT IV. IV. The next Mark of an Imposture is That it must unavoidably contain in it several palpable falsities whereby may be made appear the falsity of all the rest For whoever invents a Lye can never do it so cunningly and knowingly but still there will be some flaw or other left in it which will expose it to a discovery and no Man who frames an invention can ever secure it herefrom without two qualifications which no Man can have and they are 1st A thorough knowledge of all manner of Truths And 2dly Such an exact memory as can bring them all present to his Mind whenever there shall be an occasion For to make the Lye pass without contradiction he must make it put on a seeming agreement with all other Truths whatever And how can any one do this without knowing all Truths and having them also all ready and present in his mind to consider them in order thereto And since no Man is sufficient for this no Man is sufficient so to frame a Lye but he will always put something or other into it which will palpably prove it to be so For if there be but any one known Truth in the whole scheme of Nature with which it interferes this must make the discovery and there is no Man that forgeth an Imposture but makes himself liable this way to be convicted of it This is the method whereby we distinguish supposititious Authors from those which are genuine and fabulous Writers from true Historians For there is always something in such which disagrees from known Truths to make the discovery some flaw always left in spight of the utmost care and foresight of the Forgerer that betrays the cheat Thus Annius's Imposture of his Berosus Manetho and Megasthenes became detected and so also we know the Tuscan Antiquities of Inghiramius to be a cheat of the like nature And by the same rule is it that we receive Sallust Tacitus and Suetonius for true Historians and reject others as Writers of Fables and of no authority with us And if we examine the Alcoran of Mahomet by the same method nothing can be more plainly convicted of Falsity and Imposture than that must be by it For although in that Book he allows both the Old and the New Testament to be of divine authority yet in a multitude of instances he differs from both I mean not in matters of Law and Religion for here his design is to differ but in matters of fact and history which if once true must evermore be the same They have a fetch indeed to bring him off by saying that the Jews and the Christians corrupted those holy Books and therefore where he relates things otherwise than they do he doth there restore Truth and not vary from it But certainly this will not hold where by a very gross blunder he makes the Virgin Mary the Mother of our Saviour to be the same with Miriam the Sister of Moses For this would be to put the Gospel so close upon the heels of the Law as to allow no time for the taking place of this latter before it would have been totally abolished by the former But which most discovers his Imposture are the monstrous Mistakes which he makes in the Moral part thereof For he allows Fornication and justifies Adultery by his Law and makes War Rapine and Slaughter to be the main part of the Religion which he taught which being contrary to the Nature of God from whom he says he received it and contrary to that Law of unalterable and eternal Truth which he hath written in the hearts of all of us from the beginning the obvious Principles of every Man's reason convict him of falsehood herein and thereby manifestly prove all the rest to be nothing else but an abominable Impiety of his own invention And were the Religion of Jesus Christ as delivered to us in the New Testament an Imposture like this it must have the same flaws therein that is many falsities in matter of fact and more in doctrine and all his Prophecies would be without Truth in the Original or Verification in the Event And when you can make out any one of these particulars against it then we will be ready to say the same thereof that you do That all is Cheat and Imposture and no credit or faith is any longer to be given thereto And 1st as to the matters of fact contained in the History of the New Testament whoever yet convicted any one of them of falsehood or whoever as much as endeavoured it in the age when the Books were first written when the falsehood might have been best proved had there been any such in them and the doing hereof would have so
in the World and had it not gone so far it could not have been such an Imposture as you would have Christianity to be or at all fit to be compared with it in the Argument now before us And 2dly How foul soever the Picture of Mahomet may be we have no reason from the nature of the thing ever to imagine that any other Impostor can have a fairer till you bring us an instance thereof And these two I hope may be sufficient to clear me from acting any way unfairly in this matter as if I had made choice of the Life of so wicked a person as Mahomet therein to picture out an Imposture unto you only to make it appear in the foulest dress it is capable of the better to advantage thereby that Cause which I handle But to the first of these Answers I fore-see this Objection will be made If Mahomet be the only Impostor that ever established his Imposture in the World how then hath it come to pass that there have been so many false Religions among Mankind To which I reply Not by Imposture such as Mahomet's was and such as Christianity must be if it be such an Imposture as your charge against it supposeth but by corruptions insensibly growing on from that Religion which was first true The first Religion which God gave unto Man was that Natural Religion which he imprinted on his very Nature when he first created him and as much of that as escaped that ruin with which the fall overwhelm'd him was that whereby God was worshipped and served by him afterwards only with this addition That whereas Man in his innocency addressed himself to God immediately of himself alone and in his own Name he could never after his fall from it have any more access unto him but through a Mediator God's infinite purity and greatness on the one hand and Man's infinite guilt and vileness on the other after that fatal miscariage of our first parents did put them at so vast a distance the one from the other that in the nature of the thing there could be no other way thenceforth of maintaining any Communion between them and therefore had not this way been found out again to bring Man to God he must totally have been estranged from him for ever after But God of his infinite Mercy having resolved not thus to cast us off he appointed us a Mediator as soon as we had fallen and promised to send him in his appointed time to take our Nature upon him and therein pay down that price of redemption for us by virtue whereof his Mediation should always be sufficient to obtain mercy and pardon and acceptance for us And this is that which was meant by God s promising immediately after the Fall that the seed of the Woman should break the Serpent's head which being farther explained by After Revelations the whole Religion of God's people after that was to offer up their Worship unto him through hope in this Mediator and all the Idolatry Polytheism and other false Worships which after arose in the Heathen World were all by such corrupt deviations therefrom as the superstitions of Men the unfaithfull way of transmitting divine Revelations by tradition only and the decay of all divine Knowledge occasioned thereby in process of time introduced among them For when Mankind began to encrease after the Flood and they were taught from Noah their Forefather thus to worship God through hope in a Mediator as the knowledge of those divine Truths which he delivered to them began to decay and Superstition to encrease among them they began to determine themselves to such Mediators as their own imaginations led them to phancy and some chose Angels and others Men deceased for this office and in process of time erected Temples and Images unto them and honoured them with divine Worship in order to render them the more helpfull and beneficent unto them The Babylonians or Chaldeans who were the first formed State after the Flood looked on Angels to have been the Mediator's God had appointed through whom they were to come unto him and for this reason directed their Worship to the Sun and Moon and the rest of the Planets which they fansied to be the Habitations where those Angels dwelt and also erected Images unto them into which they reckoned their influence and divine power did descend remain with them when those Luminaries themselves were set and disappeared in their Horizon so that their notion was to make their addresses thro' the Images to the Planets and through the Planets to the Angels that dwelt in them and thro' the Angels to God himself whom they acknowledged to be the one supreme Being who was the Creator and Governour of all things And this was the first Idolatrous Religion which was established in the World and long prevailed over a great part of it and is still preserved in the East among the Sect of the Sabians even to this day But the Persians not liking the Worship of the Planets by Images would endure no other symbol to represent those glorious Luminaries by but fire only of which they reckoned them to be Constituted and therefore where-ever they prevailed they destroyed all Images out of the Temples and placed fire in their stead And from hence the Magi or the Worshippers of Fire had their Original But from their having one Symbol they speedily came to the asserting but of one Deity represented by it which they would have to be Light and that of the mixture of this and Darkness all things in this World were compounded that Light was the cause or principle of all Good and Darkness the cause or principle of all Evil and therefore under the Symbol of Fire they worshipped Light as their God but detested Darkness in the same manner as we do the Devil And from hence Manes the Heretick had his two Principles which he would have introduced into the Christian Religion But above both these they acknowledged a supreme God in respect of whom their God Light was but an inferior Deity or a God Mediator by whom they were to have access unto him And this Religion obtained through all Persia and other Parts on the East of it and doth there remain even unto this day among the Persees in India and the Inhabitants of the Province of Kerman on the Southern Coast of Persia But the Practice of the Babylonians or Chaldeans in worshipping their Gods Mediators by Images obtained in all the Western Parts of the World For they holding that they were to have access to God through Angels as their Mediators and to the Angels through the Planets and to the Planets through the Images which they erected to them did give to those Images the names of the Plaâ—ets and under those names paid divine Worship unto them which Idolatry passing from Babylon or Chaldea into Arabia and from thence to the Egyptians and Phoenicians was by them carried into Greece and from
thence spread it self into all Parts on this Western-side of the World as that of the Magi did on the Eastern For the chief Gods of the Greeks as well as the Names by which they were called came from the Egyptians and Phoenicians and were no more than the Images by which the Babylonians worshipped the Sun Moon and other Planet with the Names of those Planets given unto them Afterward indeed they added to their number other Deities also which were originally either some of the fixed Stars or else the Souls of Men departed as of Bel or Belus among the Babylonians Abraham and Ismael among the Arabians Orus and Osiris among the Egyptians Aesculapius and Hercules among the Greeks and Romulus or Quirinus among the Romans For it early began a Custom among all the Worshippers of Images as well Greeks as Barbarians to Deify Men departed reckoning those who lived justly and righteously or had made themselves eminent by any great and worthy Actions in this life to have those habitations allotted them in the Heavens above where they were in a Capacity to be Mediators to God for them and therefore they offered divine Worship to them as such And this was it that gave occasion to so many Apotheoses's or Deifications among them and so vastly encreased the number of their Gods in all the Idolatrous Parts of the World and also the various Methods of Superstition whereby they paid their Worship unto them Yet they all still held to their notion of one supreme God and reckoned all the others to be no more than God's Mediators under him And this one God whom they held to be made of none and to be the Maker or Father of all things else that are was among the Chaldeans of old as still among the Sabians who are the remainder of them called Deus Deorum and among the Arabs Allah Taal i. e. the high or supreme God and agreeable hereto among the Greeks was there also their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. One supreme God who was the Father both of Gods and Men. And thus far in answer to your Question have I given you an account how all the false Religions in the Heathen World had their Original and herein I have been the longer for the sake of two Reflections which are obvious for you to make hereon 1. That the Notion of a Mediator between God and Man was that which did run through all the Religions that ever were in the World to the Coming of Jesus Christ and was the Fundamental Principle which prevailed in every one of them as to all the Worship which was practised in them which could no otherwise become so universal among Mankind but by a Tradition as universally delivered unto them And what can better account both for this Tradition and also the Vniversality of it than what is delivered unto us in Scripture of our being descended from one common Parent who on his Fall from the favour of God having had this promise of a Mediator made unto him through whom we might be again reconciled unto him transmitted it to all his posterity 2 dly That the mistakes and errours about the Worship of God and the Service we owe unto him which Men are apt to run into when left to the conduct of their own light only are monstrous and endless and therefore evidently demonstrate the necessity of divine Revelations For if God doth expect from us an account of our Actions it is necessary he should give us a Law for the rule of them and if the Law of our Reason alone be insufficient for this as from the continual errours and endless absurdities which mankind when left to themselves have ever hitherto run into it doth evidently appear that it is this demonstrably proves the necessity of another to supply its defect and that in our case we must have a Revealed Religion as well as a Natural or else we can have no certain certain Knowledge of the Will of God or any of those duties of Worship and Service which we are to perform towards him And if this proves the Necessity of such a Revealed Religion as I think it undeniably must to every one that believes God will account with us for what we do all that I have farther to offer is That you would thoroughly examine and consider that holy Christian Religion which we profess and compare it with all the other Religions that are in the World and if it do not appear vastly above them all the worthiest of God for him to give unto us and the worthiest of us to observe and that not only in respect of the honour given to him but also of the improvement and perfection brought to our own Nature thereby I will be content that you shall then persist to believe it an Imposture and as such reject it for ever Humphrey Prideaux AN ACCOUNT OF THE Authours quoted in this Book Arabic Authours ABul Faraghius a Physician of Malatia in Lesser Armenia of the Christian Religion and the Sect of the Jacobites He is an Authour of eminent note in the East as well among Mahometans as Christians His History of the Dynasties is from the Creation of the World to the Year of our Lord 1284. It was published at Oxford with a Latin Version by Dr. Pocock A. D. 1663. He flourished about the time where his History ends His name at length is Gregorius Ebn Hacim Abul Faraghi Abul Feda an Authour of great repute in the East for two Books which he wrote The first a General Geography of the World after the Method of Ptolemy and the other a General History which he calls the Epitomy of the History of Nations He was born A. D. 1273. He finished his Geography A. D. 1321. Twenty years after that he was advanced to the Principality of Hamah in Syria from whence he is commonly called Shahab Hamah i. e. Prince of Hamah where after having Reigned three Years two Months and thirteen Days he died A. D. 1345. being Seventy two years old He was by Nation a Turk of the Noble Family of the Jobidae of which was Saladin the famous Sultan of Egypt His name at length is Ismael Ebn Ali Al Melec Al Moaiyad Amadoddin Abul Feda Ecchellensis quotes him by the name of Ismael Shiahinshiah Abunazar a Legendary Writer of the Mahometans much quoted by Hottinger Agar a Book of great Authority among the Mahometans saith Guadagnol pag. 165. wherein an Account is given of the Life and Death of Mahomet Joannes Andreas makes great use of it under the name of Azaer as doth Bellonius in the Third Book of his Observations under the name of Asaer Guadagnol who had a Copy of the Book calls it the Book Agar and takes most of what he objects against the Life and Actions of Mahomet out of it Ahmed Ebn Edris an Authour that writes in the defence of the Mahometan Religion against the Christians and the Jews Ahmed Ebn Yuseph an Historian who florished A.
of our Lord 1556. His name at length is Abn Mohammed Mustapha Ebnol Saiyed Hasan Al Jannabi Al Kamus i. e. The Ocean a famous Arabic Dictionary so called because of the Ocean of words contained in it It was written by Mohammed Ebn Jaacub Ebn Mohammed Al Shirazi Al Firauzabadi He was a Person of great esteem among the Princes of his time for his eminent Learning and Worth particularly with Ismael Ebn Abbas King of Yaman Bajazet King of the Turks and Tamerlan the Tartar from the last of which he received a Gift of Five thousand pieces of Gold at one time He was born A. D. 1328. being a Persian by birth but he lived most at Sanua in Yaman He finished his Dictionary at Mecca and dedicated it to Ismael Ebn Abbas under whose Patronage he had long lived and afterwards died at Zibit in Arabia A. D. 1414. being near Ninety years old Al Kodai an Historian He wrote his History about the Year of our Lord 1045. and died A. D. 1062. His name at length is Abu Abdollah Mohammed Ebn Salamah Ebn Jaafar Al Kodai Al Masudi an Historian He wrote an History called the Golden Meadows but in what time he lived I do not find His name at length is Ali Ebn Hosain Al Masudi He wrote also another Book wherein he makes it his business to discover and expose the Fraud which the Christians of Jerusalem are guilty of about lighting Candles at the Sepulchre of our Saviour on Easter-Eve For then three Lamps being placed within the Chappel of the Sepulchre when the Hymn of the Resurrection is sung at the Evening-Service they contrive that these three Lamps be all lighted which they will have believed to be by fire from Heaven and then a multitude of Christians of all Nations are present with Candles to light them at this holy Fire which hath been a fraudulent Practice kept up among them for many hundred years And the Emperour Cantacuzenus was so far imposed on by this Cheat that in his Third Apology for the Christian Religion against the Mahometans he makes mention of it and urgeth it against those Infidels as a Miracle which being annually performed in their sight ought to convince them of the truth of the Christian Religion and convert them thereto But the Imposture hath all along been too well known to the Mahometans to be of any such effect with them For the Patriarch of Jerusalem always compounds with the Mahometan Governour to permit him to practise this Trick for the sake of the Gain which it brings to his Church and annually allows him his share in it And therefore instead of being of any effect to convert them it becomes a matter of continual scandal among them against the Christian Religion And not only this Authour but Ahmed Ebn Edris and most others of the Mahometans that write against the Christian Religion object it as a reproach thereto as in truth it is and urge it with the same earnestness against the Christian Religion that Cantacuzenus doth for it Al Mansor Hakem Beamrilla Calif of Egypt was so offended at it that A. D. 1007. he ordered the Church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem wherein this Chappel of the Sepulchre stands to be for this very reason pulled down and rased to the Ground that he might thereby put an end to so infamous a Cheat. But the Emperour of Constantinople having by the release of Five thousand Mahometan Captives obtained leave to have it rebuilt again the Imposture hath still gone on at the same rate and it is there to the great sport of the Mahometans who come in Multitudes every Year to see this Farce acted over in their sight in the same manner as is above related even unto this day Thevenot who was once present at it gives us a large Account of this whole Foolery in the first part of his Travels Book II. Chapter 43. Al Mostatraf the name of a Book written by an unknown Authour Al Motarrezi the Authour of the Book called Mogreb he was born A. D. 1143. and died A. D. 1213. His name at length is Nasir Ebn Abil Macarem Abul Phatah Al Motarrezi He was of the Sect of the Motazali and seems by his last Name Al Motarrezi by which he is usually called to have been by Trade a Taylor that being the signification of the word in Arabic Assamael a Book much quoted by Johannes Andreas and also by Guadagnol Bidawi a famous Commentator on the Alcoran He died A. D. 1293. His name at length is Naseroddin Abdollah Ebn Omar Al Bidawi His Commentary is written for the most part out of Zamachshari Kazwini an Arabic Authour so called from the City Kaswin His name at length is Zacharias Ebn Mohammed Ebn Mahmud Al Kaswini In what Age he lived I cannot find Dialogus Makometis cum Abdollah Ebn Salem a Book wrote in Arabic containing a great many of the Fooleries of the Mahometan Religion under the form of a Dialogue between Mahomet and this Jew who was his chief helper in forging the Imposture It was translated into Latin by Hermannus Dalmata and that Version of it is published at the end of the Latin Alcoran set forth by Bibliander Disputatio Christiani contra Saracenum de Lege Mahometis It was written in Arabic by a Christian who was an Officer in the Court of a King of the Saracens to a Mahometan Friend of his who was an Officer with him in the same Court and contains a Confutation of the Mahometan Religion Peter the famous Abbot of Cluny in Burgundy who flourished A. D. 1130. caused it to be translated into Latin by Peter of Toledo an Epitome of which is printed with the Latin Alcoran by Bibliander taken out of the 24th Book of the Speculum Historiale of Vincentius Bellovacensis Elmacinus an Historian of the Christian Religion His History is from the Creation of the World to the Year of our Lord 1118. The latter part of it which is from the beginning of Mahometism was published by Erpenius under the Title of Historia Saracenica A. D. 1625. He was Son to Yaser Al Amid who was Secretary of the Council of War under the Sultans of Egypt of the Family of the Jobidae for 45 Years together and in the Year of our Lord 1238. in which his Father died succeeded him in his place His name at length is Georgius Ebn Amid and for his Eminent Learning he was also stiled Al Shaich Al Raiis Al Macin i. e. The prime Doctour solidly Learned The last of which Titles Almacin was that whereby Erpenius who pronounceth it Elmacin chose to call him but by others he is generally quoted by the Name Ebn Amid Ebnol Athir a Mahometan Authour who was born A. D. 1149. and died A. D. 1209. His Name at length is Abussaadat Al Moharac Ebn Mohammed Al Shaibani Ebnol Athir Al Jazari Magdoddin Ali Ebnol Athir an Historian Brother to the former Ebnol Athir His name at length is Abul Hasan Ali Ebn Mohammed Al
to have given him the Occasion of writing this Book that so he might provide an Antidote against that false Religion which on that Success had gotten so great an advantage for its further spreading it self in those Parts of the World For it appears by the Dedication that this Book was not written till after the loss of that City it being dedicated to Pope Pius Secundus who entred not on the Papacy till the Turks had been about Three Years in possession of it Abrahami Ecchellensis Historia Arabum This Book is subjoined to his Chronicon Orientale in Two Parts collected out of the Arab Writers The Authour was a Maronite of Mount Lebanus in Syria and was employed as Professour of the Oriental Languages in the College de Propaganda fide at Rome from whence about the Year 1640. he was called to Paris to assist in preparing the great Polyglott Bible for the Press which was there publishing and made the King's Professour of the Oriental Languages in that City The part assigned him in this Work was that which they had afore employ'd Sionita in a Man of thorough Abilities to perform it but on some distate taken against him they discharged him and sent to Rome for Ecchellensis of whose Performance herein a Learned Sorbonist making a Censure truly says Ibi peccatum est toties ac tam enormiter in apponendis vocalibus apiculis ut quod ibi primum inter legendum occurrerit summam sapere videatur Tyronis alicujus oscitantiam He was indeed a Man but of little Accuracy in the Learning which he professed and shews himself to be a very Futilous and Injudicious Writer in most of that which he hath published Abrahami Ecchellensis Eutychius vindicatus which Book is in Two Parts the first writ against Mr. Selden's Eutychij Patriarchae Alexandrini Ecclesiae suae Origines and the second against Hottinger's Historia Orientalis The greatest skill which he shews in this Book is in railing It was published at Rome A D. 1661. Forbesij Instructiones Historico Theologicae publish'd at Amsterdam A. D. 1645. Fortalitium Fidei a Book written in defence of the Christian Religion against the Jews Mahometans and other Infidels The Authour was a Franciscan Frier who wrote this Book A. D. 1459. and it was first printed at Nurenbergh A. D. 1494. and afterwards at Lyons A. D. 1525. Golij Notae ad Alfragani Elementa Astronomica which are exceeding usefull for the understanding of the Geography of the East The Book was published at Leiden A. D. 1669. Philippi Guadagnoli Apologia pro Christiana Religione contra Objectiones Ahmed Filij Zin Alabedin Persae Asphahensis Of which Book I have already given an Account in what I have written of Ahmed Ebn Zin against whom it is written Gentij Notae ad Musladini Saadi Rosarium Politicum published at Amsterdam A. D. 1651. Grotiâ—â— de Veritate Christianae Religionis Epistolae ad Gallos Hottingeri Historia Orientalis Of this Book there are two Editions the first A.D. 1651. and the second A. D. 1660. the latter is much enlarged The Authour was Professour of the Oriental Tongues first at Zurich in Swisserland and afterwards at Heidelbergh from whence being called to be Professour at Leiden he was while on his removal thither unfortunately drowned in the Rhine He was a Man of great Industry and Learning but having written very much within the compass of a few Years for he died young his Books want Accuracy though all of them have their Use Historia Miscella a Roman History begun by Eutropius continued by Paulus Diaconus and finished by Landulphus Sagax Johannes Andreas de Confusione Sectae Mahometanae The Authour of this Book was formerly an Alfaki or a Doctour of the Mahometan Law but in the Year 1487. being at Valentia in Spain converted to the Christian Religion he was received into Holy Orders and wrote this Book in Spanish against the Religion which he forsook from whence it was translated into Italian by Dominicus de Gazelu A.D. 1540. And out of that Translation it was published in Latin by Johannes Lauterbach A.D. 1595. and reprinted by Voetius at Utrecht A. D. 1656. He having throughly understood the Religion which he confutes doth much more pertinently write against it than many others do that handle this Argument Macrobij Saturnalia Caij Plinij Secundi Naturalis Historia Caij Plinij Caecilij Secundi Epistolae Pocock The Famous Professour of the Hebrew and Arabick Tongues at Oxford who was for Eminency of Goodness as well as Learning the greatest Ornament of the Age in which he lived and God blessed him with a Long life to be usefull thereto He was born A. D. 1604. and died at Christ-Church in Oxford in the Month of September A D. 1691. He was for above sixty Years a constant Editor of learned and usefull Books The first which he published contains an Edition of four of the Catholick Epistles in Syriac i. e. the second of St. Peter the second and third of St. John and the Epistle of St. Jude with Versions and Notes which was printed at Leiden A. D. 1630. by Vossius to whom he presented it the year before at Oxford on his coming thither to see that University and the last was his Commentary on Joel which came forth the Year in which he died His Specimen Historiae Arabicae which I frequently make use of in this Tract was published A. D. 1650. and is a most accurate and judicious Collection out of the best Arab Writers relating to the Subject which he handles Richardi Confutatio Legis Saracenicae The Authour was a Dominican Frier who in the Year 1210. went to Bagdad of purpose to study the Mahometan Religion out of their own Books in order to confute it and on his return published this Learned and Judicious Tract concerning it Demetrius Cydonius translated it into Greek for the Emperour Cantacuzenus who makes great use of it taking thence most of that which he hath of any moment in his four Orations against the Mahometan Religion From this Greek Version of Demetrius Cydonius it was Translated back again into Latin by Bartholomaeus Picenus which Translation is published with the Latin Alcoran of Bibliander and that is all we now have of it the Original being lost This and Johannes Andreas's Tract de Confusione Sectae Mahometanae are the best of any that have been formerly published by the Western Writers on this Argument and best accord with what the Mahometans themselves teach of their Religion Others have too much spent themselves on false Notions concerning it for want of an exact knowledge of that which they wrote against Roderici Toletani Historia Arabum It contains an History of the Saracens from the Birth of Mahomet to the Year of our Lord 1150. The Authour was Arch-Bishop of Toledo in Spain and was present at the Lateran Council A. D. 1215. His History from the Tenth Chapter is mostly confined to the Saracens of Spain and is
A DISCOURSE For the Vindicating of Christianity FROM THE Charge of Imposture OFFER'D By Way of LETTER To the Consideration of the DEISTS of the Present Age. By Humphrey Prideaux D. D. And Arch-Deacon of Suffolk The Second Edition LONDON Printed by J. H. for W. Rogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1697. A LETTER TO THE DEISTS c. Gentlemen IF I am not mistaken the Reason you give for your Renouncing that Religion ye were baptized into and is the Religion of the Country in which ye were born is That the Gospel of Jesus Christ is an Imposture An Assertion that I tremble to repeat But whether that Gospel be right or ye are in the right that deny it will appear from the Consideration of the Nature of an Imposture and from the Life of that most infamous Impostor whom we as well as you acknowledge to be such which I have before given you the exact Picture of And if you can find any one lineament of it any one line of all its filthy features in the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ I durst say so sure I am of the contrary that for the sake hereof I will give you all you contend for and yield you up the whole Cause And therefore that we may throughly examine the Matter I will lay down in the first place What an Imposture is 2dly What are the inseparable Marks and Characters of it And 3dly That none of these Marks can belong to the Gospel of Jesus Christ And when I have done this I hope I shall convince all such of you who have not totally abandoned your selves to your Infidelity That the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that sacred Truth of God which you are all bound to believe An Imposture taking the word in the full latitude of its signification may denote any lye or cheat whereby one Man imposeth upon another But it is most frequently used to express such cheats as are imposed on us by those who come with false Characters of themselves pretending to be what they are not in order to delude and deceive And when this character which is thus falsely assumed is no less than a pretended Embassy from Heaven and under the credit of it a New Religion is delivered to the World as coming from God which is nothing else but a Forgery invented by the first Propagators of it to impose a cheat upon mankind it amounts to be an Imposture in that sense in which you would have the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be such And in this sense it is to be understood in the Controversie between us so that the whole Question which we are to examine into is Whether the Christian Religion be a Truth really given unto us by divine Revelation from God our Creatour or else a meer humane invention contrived by the first Propagators of it to impose a cheat upon mankind And when I have fully disproved the latter part of this Question that the Christian Religion cannot be such an invention contrived to cheat and impose upon us that will sufficiently prove the former that it must be that divine Truth which all we that are Christians firmly believe it to be That it is possible such a cheat may be imposed upon Men cannot be denied It is sufficiently proved in the foregoing History which is a very full instance of it and I have laid it before you for this very purpose that you may therein see clearly delineated and displayed in all its proper colours the whole nature of the thing which you charge our holy Religion with All that I contend for is That if Christianity be such an Imposture as we all acknowledge the Religion of Mahomet to be it must be just such another thing as that is with all the same Marks Characters and Properties of an Imposture belonging thereto and that if none of those Marks Characters or Properties can be discovered in it it must be a clear eviction of the whole charge and manifestly prove That our holy Religion cannot be that thing which you would have it to be For our only way of knowing things is by their Marks and Properties and it is by them only that we can discover what the nature of them is It is only by the Marks and Properties of a Man that we know a Man from another living Creature for we cannot see the Essences of things And so it must be only by the Marks and Properties of an Imposture that we can know an Imposture from that which is a real truth when attested unto us And as where we find none of the Marks and Properties of a Man we assuredly know that cannot be a Man how much soever any one may tell us that it is So where we find none of the Marks and Properties of an Imposture we may assuredly know that cannot be an Imposture how much soever you or any other like you may assert it so to be Now the Marks and Characters which I look on to be inseparable from every such Imposture are these following 1. That it must always have for its end some carnal interest 2. That it can have none but wicked Men for the Authors of it 3. That both these must necessarily appear in the very contexture of the Imposture it self 4. That it can never be so framed but that it must contain some palpable falsities which will discover the falsity of all the rest 5. That where-ever it is first propagated it must be done by craft and fraud 6. That when entrusted with many conspirators it can never be long concealed And 7. That it can never be established unless backed with force and violence That all these must belong to every Imposture and all particularly did so to Mahometism and that none of them can be charged upon Christianity is what I shall now proceed to shew you of each of them in their order SECT I. I. That every Imposture must have for its end some carnal interest is a thing so plain and evident that I suppose it will not need much proof For to impose a cheat upon mankind and in a matter of that great importance as all that have any Religion hold that to be is a thing of that difficulty to compass and of that danger to attempt that it cannot be conceived why any one should put himself upon such a design that doth not propose some very valuable advantage to himself in the success To cheat one Man is not always so easie a matter or is it without its mischiefs and inconveniences in the discovery But to enterprize a cheat upon all mankind and in a thing of that importance as the introducing of a New Religion and the abolishing of the Old one to which so many both by custom and education will be always zealously affected be it what it will must be an undertaking of the greatest difficulty and hazard imaginable For whoever engageth himself in such a plot of Imposture must unavoidably
this hapning unto him those who kept up his Party and propagated his Religion after him foisted this thereinto to salve the ignominy of his Death and serve themselves of it for the better carrying on of their designs thereby And if so then the Imposture must be shifted from him to his Disciples and in this case the same inquiry must still be made What advantage could they propose to themselves herefrom For if Christ's having no self-design or worldly-interest in the Religion which he taught be of any force to acquit him of being guilty of Imposture therein as it must with every Man of unprejudiced reason it must also be of force to acquit them of the same charge who propagated it after him And what worldly interest is it which they could possibly have in this matter If you say Empire how improbable is it that a few poor Fishermen without any manner of foundation either of poor riches or interest with others for the carrying on of such a design should ever frame in their thoughts the least imagination tending thereto especially at that time when the Roman Empire being in its utmost heighth and vigour had the major part of the then known World united under its command to crush the greatest attempts of this nature which might be made against it If riches and honour be alledged as their end I must desire you to tell me how this could be a means to gain them or whether any one of them ever attained to either thereby If we examine into the accounts which we have of their lives and actions we shall find them journeying about the world from place to place in great poverty and under all the difficulties and pressures of it to discharge that Apostleship which was committed unto them and in every place where they came to be loaded with contempt oppression and persecution for the sake of that Religion which they taught Had riches and honour been the end proposed for all this certainly after having experienced by the ill success how improper means they had taken in order thereto some of them would have desisted from the enterprize and no longer have pursued a design which could not answer its end But you cannot bring us an instance of any one of them that did this No they still went on in the work which they had undertaken and without being wearied by the poverty they laboured under or in the least discouraged by that contempt scorn and persecution which they every-where met with all constantly persevered to preach that Gospel which they had received even to their lives end and not only so but most of them laid down their lives for the sake therefore which they would never have done if they had not for that Ministry a much higher reason than all the honour and riches of this world could ever amount unto All that can be said of any worldly interest for them in their preaching up that Religion which they propagated is That they were thereby made Heads of the Party which they drew over thereto But alas what advantage could this be unto them to be thus made Heads of a contemned oppressed and persecuted Party of Men who were every-where sought out for bonds imprisonments and death To head such a Party what is it but to expose a Man's self to the greater danger and set himself up to receive the first strokes of every persecution which was levelled against it For in this case those who head the Party are most sought after and the ring-leaders of it are ever made the first and the most signal examples of every severity which is designed for its oppression And this was all that the Apostles got by heading that Party which they converted to the Christian Religion and what of worldly interest could be found therein If the heading of a Party be of any advantage to a Man it must be then only when it brings him honour or power or riches or some other worldly enjoyment But to head such a Party as the first Christians were could bring neither of these therewith but on the contrary poverty contempt oppressions and persecutions were all the fruits as to this world which the Apostles of our Saviour reaped thereby And certainly on these terms to head a Party could never have been the reason to make them enter on that undertaking or if it had they could never under such discouragements have long continued therein SECT II. II. And thus far having examined the first mark of Imposture and I hope sufficiently shown it cannot belong to that holy Religion which we profess I shall now proceed to the second that is that it must always have wicked men for the Authors of it For thus to impose upon mankind a false Religion is the worst of cheats and the highest injustice which can be done either to God or Man to God because it robs him of the worship of his Creatures either by diverting it to a false object or by directing it to him in such a false way as cannot be accepted of before him And to Man because it deprives him of his God by putting him upon such a false Religion as must necessarily alienate both his mercy and his favour from him And to do this is such a consummate piece of iniquity that it is impossible any one can arrive thereto without having first corrupted himself to a great degree in all things else For such an one must have cast off all fear of God as well as all regard of Man before he could ever offer at so great a Wickedness against both And when a Man is come to this to be sure he will stick at nothing whereby his lusts may be gratified or any carnal interest serv'd which he sets his heart upon but will make the corruptions of his mind appear in all the actions of his life and be thoroughly wicked in every thing where his own interest or his own designs do not put a restraint upon him And that Mahomet was such an one the History of his Life which I have laid before you sufficiently shows But whoever yet charged Jesus Christ or his holy Apostles with any thing like this not Celsus not Porphyry not Julian or any other of the Heathens or the Jews who were the bitterest enemies of Christianity and the greatest opposers of it And to be sure could they have found any such accusation against any of them they would never have spared to have made the utmost use of it they could for the blasting of that Religion which they taught For it is a popular Argument which would have served their purpose among the people more than any other they could have offered unto them And we see with what success the various Sects among us serve themselves of it every day no argument being more prevalent amongst the unthinking Multitude for the beating down the reputation of any profession of Religion than the ripping up of the faults of those
a false Religion for the promoting of their own interest as that interest must have appear'd in the contexture of the Religion it self and in those Books in which it is written so also must their wickedness For Words and Writings being the outward expressions of our inward conceptions there is that connection between them that although the former may often disguise the latter they can never so totally conceal them but every accurate observer may still be able through the one to penetrate into the other and by what a man utters whether in speech or writing see what he is at the bottom do what he can to prevent it There are indeed some that can act the Hypocrite so cunningly as to dissemble the greatest wickedness under words writings and actions too that speak the quite contrary But this always is such a force upon their inclinations and so violent a bar upon their inward passions and desires that nature will frequently break through in spight of all art and even speak out the truth amidst the highest pretences to the contrary And there is no Hypocrite how cunningly soever he may act his part but must this way very often betray himself For wickedness being always uppermost in such a Man's thoughts and ever pressing forward to break forth into expression it will frequently have its vent in what that Man speaks and in what he writes do what he can to the contrary the care caution and cunning of no Man in this case being sufficient totally to prevent it Furthermore there is no Man thus wicked that can have that knowledge of Righteousness as thoroughly to act it under the Mask with that exactness as he who is truly righteous lives and speaks it in reality His want of experience in the practice must in this case lead him into a great many mistakes and blunders in the imitation And this is a thing which generally happens to all that act a part but never more than in matters of Religion in which are many Particulars so peculiar to the Righteous as none are able to reach them but those only who are really such And supposing there were any that could yet there will ever be that difference between what is natural and what is artificial and between that which is true real and sincere and that which is false counterfeit and hypocritical that nothing is more easie than for any one that will attend it to discern the one from the other And therefore were Jesus Christ and his Apostles such persons as this charge of Imposture must suppose them to be it 's impossible but that the Doctrines which they taught and the Books which they wrote must make the discovery and the New Testament would as a standing Record against them in this case afford a multitude of instances to convict them hereof That the Alcoran doth so as to Mahomet nothing is more evident a strain of Rapine Bloodshed and Lust running thorough the whole Book which plainly proves the Author of it to be altogether such a Man as the charge of Imposture must necessarily suppose him to be And were the first Founder of our holy Religion or the Writers of those Books in which its Doctrines are contained such Men as he both their Doctrines and their Books would as evidently prove it against them But here I must again challenge you and all other the Adversaries of our holy Religion to shew us any one particular in it that can give the least foundation to such a charge any one word in all the Books of the New Testament that can afford the least umbrage or pretence thereto Let what is written in them be tried by that which is the Touchstone of all Religions I mean that Religion of Nature and Reason which God hath written in the hearts of every one of us from the first Creation and if it varies from it in any one particular if it prescribes any one thing which may in the minutest circumstance thereof be contrary to its Righteousness I will then acknowledge this to be an argument against us strong enough to overthrow the whole Cause and make all things else that can be said for it totally ineffectual to its support But it is so far from having any such flaw therein that it is the perfectest Law of Righteousness which was ever yet given unto Mankind and both in commanding of Good as well as in forbidding of Evil vastly exceeds all others that went before it and prescribes much more to our practice in both than the wisest and highest Moralist was ever able without it to reach in speculation For 1st As to the forbidding of Evil it is so far from indulging or in the least allowing us in any practice that savours hereof that it is the only Law which is so perfectly broad in the prohibition as adequately to reach whatsoever may be Evil in the practice and without any exception omission or defect absolutely fully and thoroughly forbids unto us whatsoever may have but the least taint of corruption therein and therefore it not only restrains all the Overt-acts of iniquity but also every imagination of the heart within which in the least tends thereto and in its Precepts prohibits us not only the doing or speaking of Evil but also the harbouring or receiving into our Minds the least thought or desire thereafter whereby it so effectually provides against all manner of iniquity that it plucks it up out of every one of us by the very roots and so makes the Man pure and clean and holy altogether without allowing the least savour of Evil to be remaining in him and every one of us would be thoroughly such could we be but as perfect in our Obedience to this Law as it is perfectly given unto us And 2dly As to the commanding of Good its prescriptions are That we imploy our Time our Powers and all other Talents intrusted with us to the best we are able both to give Glory unto God and also to show Charity unto Men and this last not only to our Friends Relations and Benefactors but in general to all Mankind even to our Enemies and those who despightfully use us and persecute us and hereby it advanceth us to that highth of perfection in all holiness and goodness as to render us like the Angels of Light in our Service unto God and like God himself in our Charity to Man For it directs us in the same manner as the Angels to worship and serve our God to the utmost ability of out nature and in the same manner as God to make our goodness to Men extend unto all without exception or reserve as far as they are capable of receiving it from us And can any Man think it possible that a Religion which so thoroughly and fully forbids all Evil and in so high and perfect a manner prescribes us all Good could ever be the product of a wicked mind The fruit is too good to proceed from so corrupt
Religion also and that the whole method of the old Roman Religion was regulated and stated by them but that Numa founded any new Religion is what I utterly deny For Numa left no other Religion behind him in Rome at his death than that very same Heathenism which he found there at his first coming thither to be King For the City having been then but newly founded and the People made up of a Collection of the refuse and scum of divers Nations there gathered together they were as much out of order in matters of Religion as in those belonging to the Civil Government and all that Numa did when he came to reign over them was to make Laws to regulate both and therefore as he founded several wholsome Constitutions for the orderly governing of the State so also did he for the regular worshipping of the Gods then acknowledged among them without making any essential alteration in the Religion afore practised by them For had he done so then the Religion of the Romans must have differed from the Religion of the other Cities of Italy which we find it did not For they communicated with each other in their Worship as they did also with the Greeks And in truth the old Roman Religion was no other than the Greek Heathenism the same which was practised in Greece and in all those Countries which were planted with Colonies from thence as almost all Italy was at that time And therefore the Romans as well as the rest of the Cities of Italy looked on Delphos as a principal place of their worship with the same veneration that the Greeks did and had frequent recourse thither on Religious accounts as the Roman Histories on many occasions acquaint us And this Religion Numa while he lived among his Sabines being accurately versed in and also a diligent practicer of it on his coming to Rome and finding the Romans all out of order in that little which they had of it for during the Reign of Romulus they minded little else but fighting and therefore had not leasure or perchance any great regard for this matter he not only instructed them more fully in it according as it was received in the Neighbouring Nations but also framed several rules and constitutions for their more regular and orderly practice of it which did no more make the old Heathenism of the Romans to be a new Religion than the body of Canons given us by King James the First for the more orderly regulating of our Worship and Discipline makes our Religion a new Christianity Only Numa the better to make his Constitutions to obtain among those barbarous people for whom he made them pretended to have been instructed in them by a divine Person and in this he practised a pious fraud but was by no means guilty of such an Imposture as we are now treating of For he taught them no new Religion but only the very same Greek Heathenism which he had received with the rest of the People of Italy from their forefathers and really believed to be that very true Religion whereby God was to be served and therefore notwithstanding the deceit he made use of he might from the end which he proposed and which he really effected thereby to the civilizing of a very barbarous sort of people be still reckoned a just and good Man and to give him his due he really was one of the most excellent Personages of that age in which he lived and first sowed among the Romans the seeds of that vertue with which they so eminently signalized themselves for so many Ages after But 3. Jesus Christ and his Apostles took on them not only to be Messengers sent of God but also to teach a new Religion to the World and therefore if they were Impostors they must be so in the largest and fullest sense both in respect of the Religion it self as well as the means whereby they promoted it And in this case there could be nothing to excuse them from being altogether as wicked as I have alledged Where the Religion is true or really believed so to be there is a pious intention in the end which may speak some goodness in him that useth fraud to promote it and such a goodness as greatly exceeds the obliquity of the fault which he committed about it and therefore although he cannot on the account of the Good be excused from the Evil for it is always a scandal to Religion to be promoted by Falsehood yet still he must be reckoned more commendable from the one than faulty from the other and in this case there will still be room enough left from the goodness of the End design'd and the Piety of the intention to denominate the Man good and righteous in the main notwithstanding the fault committed in using such means to bring it to effect But where the Religion is all Forgery and Falsehood as well as the means of promoting it deceit and fraud the Imposture then becomes so totally and perfectly wicked without the least mixture of good therein as must necessarily denominate the Authors and first Propagators of it to be perfectly wicked also If you say that such a perfect Imposture as this can have any good End for the sake whereof the Authors of it may be freed from that charge of Wickedness which I lay upon them that good End must be either the honour of God or the benefit of Men. But how can God be more dishonoured than by a false Religion or how can Men be more mischiev'd than by having the practice of it imposed on them whereby they must thus constantly dishonour and consequently offend and lose the favour of him that made them An Imposture in this case hath that aggravation from the object it is about as well as from the perfection of iniquity which is in the act that supposing it could be made productive of any good End that good would be so vastly over-balanced by the Wickedness of the Means that it would be of no weight in comparison thereof or at all avail to the rendering of those that shall make use of it less wicked than I have said But when a Man can thus far proceed in Wickedness towards God as to be the Author of constant dishonour unto him in a false Worship and towards Men as to ensnare them into all that mischief which must be consequential hereto it must necessarily imply such a thorough disregard of both as every good intention in respect of either must be inconsistent with And therefore if it be possible that such a wicked Imposture can ever be made the Means to a good End it is scarce to be conceived how they who are so wicked as to be the Authors of it could ever intend any such good thereby But further If the Authors of such an Imposture as we are now treating of can be less wicked than I have said on the account of any good which you pretend they may design thereby
render upon him and what more worthy of us and perfecting of our nature than that Law for the conduct of our lives which he hath delivered unto us and what can be more holy pure and perfect than the Precepts thereof Here the sublimity and vast extent of the matter give scope large enough for the wisest of Men to bewilder and lose themselves in errour and mistake and yet convince us but of any one such in the whole extent of our Religion and that alone shall be sufficient to prove the Imposture you would charge it with and I will yield you all you would have for the sake thereof But it is so far herefrom that I durst make you your selves the judges whether it delivers any thing else unto us of the nature and excellencies of God but what the reason of every man although barely that alone through that cloud of ignorance and errour which the Fall hath over-spread us with could never clearly make the discovery must now when thus discover'd ever justify and admire whether it prescribes us any one particular relating to his worship but what is most agreeable to those his excellencies and whether the Precepts and Laws therein laid down unto us for the governing of our lives and conversations be any other than what do all correspond so exactly with every thing which the rational dictates of our nature direct us to that they take them all in without omission or defect and improve them to the utmost with errour or mistake in the least circumstance that belongs unto them If you say that all this might be attained to by humane wisdom and study I answer supposing it could yet looking on our Saviour barely as a Man and his holy Apostles without any other assistance than that of their own natural endowments how possibly could they reach so high To do this requires that vast compass of knowledge in all the things of Nature Law and Morality as it is not possible to conceive Men of their education and low imployments in the World could ever have arrived unto If you examine what other Men have done by humane wisdom and study only you will find those of the most elevated Genius and sublimest Understanding could never with their utmost industry and search attain unto what you suppose herein or that the highest knowledge of Men could ever reach that perfection in any of the particulars above-mentioned in which the Gospel of Jesus Christ delivers them unto us For what blunders and absurdities do the wisest of the Philosophers lay down concerning the Deity what errours and follies have they taught and practised concerning his worship and what mistakes have those who exalted Morality to the highest pitch among Men made therein Plato in his Common-wealth allowed the common use of Women Aristotle asserts it to be natural and just for the Greeks to make War upon the Barbarians for no other reason but that they are so and both he and Tully place Revenge among their virtues And whoever had vaster capacities for humane knowledge or ever went higher by the abilities of natural reason and understanding only in the search thereof than those Men Yet still being no more than Men they could not avoid putting something of the infirmities of Man even into that wherein they made appear their highest perfections errour mistake and ignorance being so natural unto all of us that neither the greatest the wisest nor the best among us can be totally free therefrom And therefore had Christ and his Apostles no other help in the Doctrines which they taught but that which is humane they must also in like manner have put that which is humane thereinto and the infirmities mistakes and errours that attend humane nature would have appeared in all that they delivered unto us But the doctrines which they taught and the Books in which they delivered them unto us being so totally free from all such errours and mistakes as I have already shown that they are this directs us to look higher than Man for the Founder of this Holy Religion and the Original Author of those Books in which it is contained and necessarily prove that only he who is infinite in knowledge and infinite in all other perfections could thus give us a Law so exactly like himself thoroughly perfect in the whole and infallibly true in every particular thereof SECT V. V. Another Mark of Imposture is That where-ever it is first propagated it must be done by craft and fraud and this is natural to all manner of cheats For the end of such being to deceive craft and fraud are the means whereby it is to be effected In this case a Lye must be made to go for a Truth and an appearance for a reality and to compass this a great deal of Art must be made use of both to dress up the Cheat that it may appear to be what it pretends and also to cast such a mist before the eyes of Men that they may not see it to be otherwise and that especially where the cheat is an Imposture in Religion For whoever comes with a new Religion to be proposed to the World must find all men so far prejudiced and pre-possessed against it as they are affected to the old one they have before professed and therefore when Men are educated or any otherwise fixed and setled in a Religion and all mankind are in some or other they are not apt easily to forego it but it must be something more than ordinary that must bring them over to another contrary thereto When the new Religion really comes from God as the Jewish Religion first and after the Christian did it brings its Credentials with it the power of Miracles to make way for its reception For when Men find the Omnipotency of God working with it they have from thence sufficient evidence given them from whom it comes and there is need of no other means to induce them to believe but that the Religion which God doth in such a manner own and attest must be from him But where there is no such power accompanying the new Religion to gain credit thereto the defect hereof must be made up by somewhat else to draw over the people to its belief and this is that which must put all Impostors upon craft and fraud in order to the compassing of their ends But that Jesus Christ and his Apostles made use of no such craft or fraud to induce Men into the belief of that holy Religion which they taught and consequently could be no such Impostors will be best made appear by going over all those ways of craft and fraud which Mahomet served himself of and by showing you that none of them can possibly be said to have been practised by any of them For Mahomet being one of the craftiest cheats that ever set up to impose a false Religion on mankind and the only person that ever carried on his wicked design with success you may be
sure he left no Art or Device unpractised which could possibly be made use of with any advantage for the compassing of it And therefore by proving unto you that none of those methods of craft and fraud which were made use of for the first propagating of Mahometism were ever practised in the first preaching of Christianity I shall sufficiently prove that no craft or fraud at all which is anyway practicable on such occasions can ever be charged thereupon For 1. Mahomet made use of all manner of insinuation both with rich and poor for the gaining of their affection thereby to gain them to his Imposture also But our Saviour Christ and his Apostles did quite the contrary freely convincing all Men of their sins without having regard to any thing else but the faithfull discharge of the Mission on which they were sent which instead of reconciling men to their persons provoked the World against them and they sufficiently experienced it from the ill usage which they found therein 2. Mahomet the easier to draw over the Arabians to his Party indulged them by his Law in all those passions and corrupt affections which he found them strongly addicted to especially those of Lust and War which those Barbarians above all the Nations of the Earth were by their natural inclinations most violently carried after and therefore he allows them a plurality of wives and a free use of their female slaves for the satisfying of their Lust and makes it a main part of his Religion for them to fight against plunder and destroy all that would not be of it But Jesus Christ and his Apostles allowed no such practices but strictly prohibited all manner of sin how much soever in reputation among men even to the forbidding of many things till then allowed and held lawfull among those who where called God's own people and therefore instead of seeking the favour of Men by indulging them in their lusts and sinfull practices they laid a much stricter restraint upon them than was ever done before 3dly Mahomet to please his Arabians retained in the Religion which he taught them most of those Rites and Ceremonies which they had been accustomed to under that which he abolished and also the Temple of Mecca in which they were chiefly performed But Jesus Christ without having any regard to the pleasing of Men abolished both the Temple and the Law which the Jews were so bigotted unto and also the total worshipping of God by Sacrifices without being at all influenced to the contrary by that extravagant fondness which he knew the whole World had then for them 4. Mahomet when he found any of his new Laws not so well to serve his return craftily shifted the scene and brought them about to his purpose by such alterations as would best suit therewith and therefore when his making his Kebla towards Jerusalem did not so well please his Countrymen he turned it about again towards Mecca and order'd all his Pilgrimages thither as in the time of their Idolatry And the like changes he made in many other particulars according as he found his interest required And this is that which every Impostor must do For interest being the end which all such aim at it is impossible that they can so well lay their designs in order to it but that emerging changes in the one will frequently require changes in the other also But Jesus Christ never made the least alteration in any of the doctrines or precepts which he delivered but what he first taught both he and his Disciples immutably persisted in without at all regarding how violently all the interests of the World ran counter against them herein And what can be a more certain evidence that none such was the bottom which they were built upon 5. Mahomet under pain of death forbad all manner of Disputes about his Religion and nothing could be a wiser course to prevent its follies and absurdities from being detected and exposed For they being such as could never stand the trial of a rational Examination they must all have soon been exploded had every man been allowed the free use of his reason to inquire into them But Christ and his Apostles direct the quite contrary course For our Saviour bids the Jews search the Scriptures for the trial of those truths which he taught them John 5. v. 39. And the Noble Beroeans are commended that they did so before they would receive those doctrines of the Christian Religion which were preached unto them Acts 17. v. 11. And St. Paul gives us this general rule first to prove or try all things and then to hold fast that only which we find to be good 1 Thess 5. v. 21. It is only errour and falsehood that desires to shelter it self in the dark and dares not expose it self to an open view and trial But Truth being always certain of its own stability makes use of no art to support it self but dares venture it self abroad on its own foundation only and boldly offers it self to every Man's search and the more it is sifted and examined into the more bright and refulgent will it always appear And since Christianity from the first ever took this course as it still doth where-ever purely professed and instead of prohibiting Disputes about it invites all Men to search and examine thereinto this sufficiently argues how certain the first Teachers of it were of its Truth and that no cheat or Imposture could ever be intended thereby 6. Mahomet made choice of a People first to propagate his Imposture among who were of all Men most fitted to receive it and that on two accounts 1. Because of the indifferency which they were then grown to as to any Religion at all And 2. Because of the great ignorance they were in of all manner of Learning at that time when he first vented his Forgeries among them there being then but only one Man among all the Inhabitants of Mecca that could either write or read For who are more fit to be imposed on than the ignorant and who can be more easie to receive a new Religion than those who are not prepossessed with any other to prejudice them against it The Papists who next Mahomet have the greatest claim to Imposture as to those errours which they teach very well understand how such a Cause is to be served by both these Particulars and therefore make it their business as much as they can to keep their own People in ignorance and pervert all those they call Hereticks to Atheism and Infidelity that so having no Religion at all they may be the better prepared again to receive theirs And that there are so many Atheists now among us it is too well known how much it is owing to this their Hellish artifice against us But all was quite contrary as to those whom Christ and his Apostles first preached our holy Religion unto Our Saviour did not chuse such ignorant Times to come among us in or a
still keep up those gross errours in their Church which neither Reason nor Religion can ever support and the same must be done as to all other falsities imposed on mankind before they can have any firm footing among them For it is only force and violence that can cram such things down men's throats which their reason and their judgment must ever renounce The unthinking multitude may for a while be carried away by the craft of the Impostor and by the arts of Hypocrisie and Delusion be made easie to swallow any forgery that shall be offered â—nto them but when the heat of the firsâ— zeal is over and the matter comes to be examined into by reason and coolly scanned through by the inquisitive Imposture cannot stand the Test but muâ—â— soon be laid open blasted and exploded thereon And therefore unless it be accompanied with force to suppress this inquiry and hath power on its side to compell Men to acquiesce therein how much soever it may delude Men at first it can never obtain any lasting establishment among them And this hath been the case of all the Impostors which have ever yet appeared in the World without this power to back them and how great progress soever any of them may have made in the first heat they have all at length been detected and exploded and sunk to nothing for want of this support on their side to keep them up For nothing but truth can of it self alone stand the Test of ages upon its own bottom only Falsehood and errour are too weak for such a Trial and therefore unless supported by some external strength and fenced thereby against all assaults of opposers they must necessarily fall to the ground and again come to nothing and where education or the force of long received custom is not strong enough for this and neither can in the first propagating of an Imposture there the sword must come in to over rule all or nothing of this nature can be established among Men. But Jesus Christ and his Apostles instead of making use of any such force to establish the Religion which they taught had all the force and powers of the World in opposition against it and yet in spight of the World it at length prevailed over the World by the dint of its own truth only and after having stood the assault of all manner of persecutions as well as other oppositions for three hundred years together carried the victory over the fiercest of its enemies and made the greatest of them even the Roman Emperours themselves to submit thereto and all this while it had sharpned against it not only the Sword of the Superiour Powers but also the tongues of the slanderers and the wits of all the learned of those times But how much soever it was oppressed by the first of these blackned by the second and sifted and searched into by the last it stood all these Trials without losing any thing thereby but at last came out of them all like Gold out of the Furnace still of the same weight fineness and purity without receiving from that fire which consumeth all things else the least wast or diminution thereof Had it been false and owed its Original only to Deceit and Imposture it would have needed all those means of Violence for its establishment and support but since it thus stood not only without them but also in spight of them when all armed on the adversaries side for three Centuries together in bitter opposition against it what greater argument can we have for the truth thereof For can you think that Falshood and Imposture could ever have held out with such steady and unshaken constancy for so many years as Christianity thus did or that it is possible for any sort of Men so long to have born all this for the sake of a Lye Falshood can have no foundation for such a Constancy or Imposture any reason to engage Men thereto The interest of this World is ever the bottom and foundation of all such Forgeries and therefore as soon as punishments and persecutions make it to be no Man's interest to be for them they ever fall of themselves for want of that foundation on which they afore-stood But Christianity having come into the World contrary to all the interests of it and in its very infancy thus stood the shock of all the powers thereof engaged in persecution against it as I have mentioned and not only so but also prospered and became established in the midst of the hottest assaults thereof this plainly shows that it had another kind of foundation on which it was built a foundation of Truth and Righteousness and not only so but a foundation that was laid and fix'd in such a manner by the hand of God himself as never to be shaken For what truth of it self alone could ever have made its way into the World in such a manner as the Christian Religion did or ever have gained against all the powers thereof such a prevalency over it without some extraordinary assistance conducting and helping it therein The strongest Truths we know are crush'd by such means of violence as that encountred with and even first principles themselves have been over-powered by them And therefore that Christianity should thus enter the World and thus from its first Entry bear up against such long and terrible Trials of persecution and oppression as it met with without the least flinching under them must be owing to somewhat more than its own bare truth And what but the hand of God himself backing and strengthening it in the conflict could be sufficient to give it such a victory therein For that a few poor Fishermen the Disciples of a Crucified Master should without power learning or reputation or any other of the interests or favours of the world on their side be able to introduce a new Religion into the World directly opposite to all the interests pleasures and prevailing humours of it as Christianity then was and that this Religion in spight of all the powers cunning malice and learning of the World joyned together in most fierce opposition and bitter persecution against it for three hundred years together should not only bear up but also at length prevail over the World and subject the highest powers therein to the obedience of its Laws is an event so strange and wonderfull and morally speaking so far above the possibility of all ordinary means to bring it to pass as plainly manifesteth the extraordinary working of God himself therein And for my part had Christian Religion no other Miracle to bear witness thereto this alone would be Miracle enough to me sufficiently to convince me of the truth thereof At least since it thus entered into the World and thus became established in it it must be allowed to be so far differing from an Imposture in that method of violence which that needs for its establishment as to be totally opposite thereto and in this
D. 1599. for then he finished his History Ahmed Ebn Zin Alabedin a Nobleman of Hispahan in Persia of this last Age who hath wrote the sharpest and acutest Book against the Christian Religion in defence of the Mahometan of any they have among them on this Argument It was published on this Occasion Ecbar the Great Mogul Great Grandfather to Aurang Zeb who at present reigneth in India for some Reasons of State making show of encouraging the Christian Religion did in the Year 1595. write to Matthias de Albuquerque then Vice-Roy of the Portuguese in India for some Priests to be sent to him to his Court at Agra The Persons pitched upon for this Mission were Jeronimo Xavier then Rector of the College of the Jesuits at Goa and Emanuel Pigneiro and Benedict de Gois two others of that Society On their coming to Agra they were very kindly received by the Mogul and had a Church there built for them at his Charges and many Privileges and Immunities granted unto them which on the death of Ecbar which happened A. D. 1604. were all confirmed to them by his Successour Jehan Guire At the Command of this Ecbar Xaverius wrote two Books in Persian which is the Language of that Court The first the History of Jesus Christ collected for the most part out of the Legends of the Church of Rome which he intended to be instead of the Gospel among them and the other called A Looking-Glass shewing the Truth which is a defence of the Doctrines of that Gospel against the Mahometans What the former is those who have the Curiosity to see what kind of Gospel the Jesuits preach in the East may satisfy themselves for the Book is translated into Latin by De Dieu and was published by him with the Original A D. 1639. This Gospel of the Jesuits was first presented to Ecbar by Xaverius at Agra A. D. 1602. But the other Book was not published till a Year or two after When it first came abroad it unluckily fell into the hands of this Learned Persian Gentleman who immediately wrote an Answer to it which he calls The Brusher of the Looking-Glass wherein he makes terrible work with the Jesuit through the advantages which he gave him by teaching the Idolatry and other Superstitions and Errours of the Church of Rome for the Doctrines of Jesus Christ When this Book came abroad it so alarmed the College de propaganda Fide at Rome that they immediately ordered it to be answered The first who was appointed for this Work was Bonaventura Malvasia a Franciscan Frier of Bononia who published his Dilucidatio Speculi verum monstrantis in answer to this Brusher A. D. 1628. But this I suppose not being judged so sufficient by the College they appointed Philip Guadagnol another Franciscan Frier to write a second Answer thereto And on this occasion he composed his Book stiled Apologia pro Christiana Religione which was published at Rome first in Latin A. D. 1631. and after in Arabic 1637. For this I suppose meeting with better approbation from the College they ordered it to be translated into that Language and it being accordingly done by the same Authour they sent it into the East to be dispersed among the Mahometans for the defence of the Jesuit's Looking-Glass against this rude Brusher of it But his performance doth by no means answer the Design abundance of his Arguments being drawn from the Authorities of Popes and Councils which will never convince an Infidel of the truth of the Christian Religion how much noise soever they may make with them among those of their own Communion Al Bochari an Eminent Writer of the Traditionary Doctrines of the Mahometan Religion He is reckoned by Johannes Andreas c. 3. and Bellonius lib. 3. c. 4. to be one of the Six Doctours who by the appointment of one of the Califs meeting at Damascus first made an Authentick Collection of all those Traditions which make up their Sonnah His Book contains the Pandects of all that relates either to their Law or their Religion digested under their several Titles in Thirty Books and is the Ancientest and most Authentick which they have of this matter and next the Alcoran of the greatest Authority among them He was born at Bochara in Cowarasmia A.D. 809. and died A. D. 869. Al Coran i. e. The Book to be read or the Legend it is the Bible of the Mahometans The name is borrowed from the Hebrew Kara or Mikra words of the same root as well as signification with the Arabic Al Coran by which the Jews called the Old Testament or any part of it And so any part of the Mahometan Bible is called Alcoran The whole together they call Al Moshap i. e. The Book which also in respect of the Chapters into which it is divided they call Al Furkan from the Arabic word Faraka which from the Hebrew Pharak signifies to divide or distinguish but others will have that Book to be so called in respect of the Matter or Doctrine therein contained because say they it distinguisheth Good from Evil. Al Fragani an Astronomer of Fragana in Persia from whence his name Al Fragani i. e. Fraganensis by which he is commonly called His name at length is Mohammed Ebn Katir Al Fragani He wrote a Book called The Elements of Astronomy which hath been several times published in Europe at Nurenburg A.D. 1537. at Paris A. D. 1546. at Frankfort cum Notis Christmanni A.D. 1590 in Latin and afterwards by Golius in Arabic and Latin at Leiden A. D. 1669. with large Notes of great use for the understanding of the Geography of the East He florished while Al Mamon was Calif who died A. D. 833. Al Gazali a famous Philosopher of Tusa in Persia He wrote many Books not only in Philosophy but also in the defence of the Mahometan Religion against Christians Jews Pagans and all others that differ there-from whereof one is of more especial note entitled The Destruction of Philosophers which he wrote against Al Farabius and Avicenna and some others of the Arab Philosophers who to solve the Monstrous Absurdities of the Mahometan Religion were for turning many things into Figure and Allegory which were commonly understood in the literal sense Those he violently opposeth on this account accusing them of Heresy and Infidelity as Corrupters of the Faith and Subverters of Religion whereon he had the name of Hoghatol Eslam Zainoddin i e. The demonstration of Mahometism and the honour of Religion He was born A.D. 1058. and died A. D. 1112. His name at length is Abu Hamed Ebn Mohammed Al Gazali Al Tusi Al Jannabi an Historian born at Jannaba a City in Persia not far from Shiras His History comes down to the Year of our Lord 1588. and therein he tells us that he went in Pilgrimage to Mecca and from thence to Medina to pay his Devotions at the Tomb of the Impostor in that Year of the Hegira which answers to the Year
Shaibani Ebnol Athir Al Jazari Ezzoddin He was born A. D. 1160. and died A. D. 1232. His History which he calls Camel is from the beginning of the World to the Year of our Lord 1230. Ebnol Kassai Authour of the Book called Taarifat which is an Explication of the various Terms used in Arabic by Philosophers Lawyers Divines and other sorts of learned Professions among them Ebn Phares a Mahometan Authour who died A. D. 1000. Eutychius a Christian Authour of the Sect of the Melchiâ—es his Name in Arabic is Said Ebn Batrik He was born at Cair in Egypt A.D. 876. and became very eminent in the knowledge of Physick which he practised with great reputation being reckoned by the Mahometans themselves to have been one of the Eminentest Physicians of his time But towards the latter part of his life giving himself more to the study of Divinity he was A. D. 933. chosen Patriarch of Alexandria for his Sect for there was another Patriarch of that place for the Jacobites at the same time and then he first took the Name of Eutychius But he hapned not to be so acceptable to his People for there were continual Jarrs between them untill his death which hapned seven years after A. D. 940. His Annals of the Church of Alexandria were published at Oxford in Arabic and Latin by Dr. Pocock A. D. 1656. at the Charge of Mr. Selden and this is the meaning of these words in the Title-page Johanne Seldeno Chorago for he who was the Choragus in the Play always was at the Charges of exhibiting the Scenes And therefore Mr. Selden having born the Expences of this Chargeable Edition the most Worthy and Learned Authour of that Version acknowledged it by those words in the Title-page which several having mistaken to the robbing him of the honour of his Work as if Mr. Selden had begun the Translation and Dr. Pocock finished it I cannot but do this justice to that worthy Person now with God as to clear this matter For he needed no Partner in any of his Works The Translation was totally his and only the Charges of printing the Book Mr. Selden's Mr. Selden did indeed publish a Leaf or two of that Authour which he thought would serve his purpose to express his Spight against the Bishops of the Church of England in revenge of the Censure which was inflicted on him in the High-Commission-Court for his History of Tithes but he made those slips in that Version that Dr. Pocock was not at all eased of his labour by having that little part of it translated to his hands Liber de Generatione Nutritura Mahometis a most frivolous and silly Tract wrote originally in Arabic and being translated into Latin by Hermannus Dalmata is published with the Latin Alcoran by Bibliander Geographia Nubiensis so the Book is called by Sionita and Hesronita who published it in Latin with a Geographical Appendix annexed thereto A. D. 1619. But this Book is only an Epitome of a much larger and much better Book written by Sharif Al Adrisi at the command of Roger the second of that name King of Sicily for the explaining of a Terrestrial Globe which that King had caused to be made of a very large Size all of Silver He finished this Work A.D. 1153. and Entitled it Ketab Roger i. e. the Book of Roger from the name of him who imployed him to compose it The Authour was of the Race of Mahomet and therefore is called Sharif which word signifieth one of a Noble Race especially that of Mahomet and was descended from the Noble Family of the Adrisidae who reigned in some parts of Africa and therefore he is called Al Adrisi that is of the Family of Adris His name at length is Abu Abdollah Mohammed Ebn Mohammed Ebn Adris Amir Olmuminin There was a very fair Copy of this Book among Dr. Pocock's Arabick Manuscripts Georgius Monachus Abbot of the Monastery of St. Simeon He wrote a Tract in defence of the Christian Religion against the Mahometans which is a Disputation he had with three Mahometans of whom the chief Spokesman was Abusalama Ebn Saar of Mosul Jauhari the Authour of a famous Arabic Dictionary called Al Sahah His name at length is Abu Naser Ismael Ebn Hammad Al Jauhari He was by Nation a Turk He died A. D. 1007. This is reckoned the best Dictionary of the Arabic Language next Kamus Golius makes his Arabic Lexicon mostly out of it Jalalani i. e. the Two Jalals They were two of the same Name who wrote a short Commentary upon the Alcoran the first began it and the second finished it The first was called Jalal Oddin Mohammed Ebn Ahmed Al Mahalli and the second Jalal Oddin Abdorrahman Al Osyuti This latter on the death of the former finished the Book A.D. 1466. and was also Authour of an History called Mezhar Shahrestani a Scholastical Writer of the Mahometan Religion He was born at Shahrestan A. D. 1074. and died A. D. 1154. Safioddin the Authour of a certain Geographical Dictionary in the Arabic Tongue Zamachshari the Authour of the Book called Al Ceshaf which is a large Commentary upon the Alcoran and that which is of the best esteem among the Mahometans of any of its kind His name at length is Abul Kasem Mohammed Ebn Omar Ebn Mohammed Al Chowarasmi Al Zamachshari He was born at Zamachshar a Town of Chowarasmia A. D. 1074. and died A. D. 1143. Hebrew and Chaldee Authours CHaldee Paraphrase an Interpretation of the Old Testament in the Chaldee Language That of Onkelos on the Pentateuch and that of Jonathan on the Prophets are ancient being written according to the Account which the Jews give of them before the time of our Saviour But those which are on the other parts of Scripture as also that which bears the Name of Jonathan on the Law were written by some later Jews The Authour of the Chaldee Paraphrase on Job the Psalms and Proverbs was Rabbi Joseph Caecus Sepher Cozri a Book written by way of Dialogue between a Jew and the King of the Cozars from whence it hath its Name Sepher Cozri or Cozari i. e. the Book of the Cozar The Authour of it was Rabbi Judah Levita a Spanish Jew who wrote the Book originally in Arabic about the Year of our Lord 1140. and from thence it was translated into Hebrew by Rabbi Judah Ebn Tibbon in which Translation it was published by Buxtorf with a Latin Version A. D. 1660. Rabbi David Kimchi a famous Jewish Commentatour on the Old Testament He was by birth a Spaniard Son to Rabbi Joseph Kimchi and Brother to Rabbi Moses Kimchi both men of eminent Learning among the Jews but he himself far exceeded them both being the best Grammarian in the Hebrew Language which they ever had as is abundantly made appear not only in his Commentary on the Old Testament which gives the greatest light into the literal sense of the Hebrew Text of any extant of this kind but also in a
Grammar and Dictionary which he hath wrote of the Hebrew Language both by many degrees the best of their kind The first of these he calls Miclol and the other Sepher Shorashim i. e. the Book of Roots Buxtorf made his Thesaurus Linguae Hebraeae out of the former and his Lexicon Linguae Hebraeae out of the latter He flourished about the Year of our Lord 1270. Maimonides a famous Jewish Writer his Book Yad Hachazakah is a Digest of the Jewish Law according to the Talmudists His Book Moreh Nevochim contains an Explication of Words Phrases Metaphors Parables Allegories and other difficulties which occurr in the Old Testament It was first wrote in Arabic and after Translated into Hebrew by Rabbi Samuel Ebn Judah Ebn Tibbon from which Translation it was published in Latin by Buxtorf A. D. 1629. He was born at Corduba in Spain A. D. 1131. but lived mostly in Egypt from whence he is commonly called Rabbi Moses Aegyptius where he died A. D. 1208. Mishnah a Collection of all the Ancient Traditions of the Jews to the time of Rabbi Judah Hakkodish the Compiler of it who flourished about the middle of the second Century in the Reign of the Emperour Antoninus Pius This Book is the Text to the Talmud and that a Comment on it The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled by the Jews who dwelt in Judaea about 300 Years after Christ and the Babylonish Talmud by those who dwelt in Mesopotomia about 500 Years after Christ according to the account which the Jewish Writers give of them But there are several things contained in the latter which seem to referr to a much later date These Three with the Two Chaldee Paraphrases of Onkelos and Jonathan are the ancientest Books which the Jews have next the Bible For how much noise soever may be made about their Rabbinical Writers there are none of them above Seven hundred years old There are some of them indeed lay claim to a much ancienter Date but without any reason for it Greek Authours ARistotelis Ethica Politica Bartholomaei Edesseni Confutatio Hagareni a Greek Tract against Mahometism published by Le Moyne among his Varia Sacra The Authour was a Monk of Edessa in Mesopotamia In what Age he lived it doth not appear Cantacuzenus contra Sectam Mahometicam This Book contains four Apologies for the Christian Religion and four Orations against the Mahometan The Authour had been Emperour of Constantinople but resigning his Empire to John Palaeologus his Son-in-Law A. D. 1355. he retired into a Monastery where being accompanied by Meletius formerly called Achaememid whom he had converted from Mahometism to the Christian Religion he there wrote this Book for the said Meletius in answer to a Letter written to him by Sampsates a Persian of Hispahan to reduce him back again to the Mahometan Superstition Cedreni Compendium Historiarum An History from the beginning of the World to the Year of our Lord 1057. Chrysostomi Homiliae Confutatio Mahometis a Greek Tract published by Le Moyne among his Varia Sacra the Authour not known Dionysii Halicarnassaei Antiquitates Romanae Eusebii Historia Ecclesiastica and Praeparatio Evangelica Hierocles the Fomenter and chief Manager of the Tenth Persecution against the Christians He was first Governour of Bithynia and after of Egypt in both which Places he prosecuted the Christians with the utmost severity and not content herewith he also wrote two Books against them which he called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein among other things he compared Apollonius Tyanaeus with Jesus Christ and endeavoured to prove him in working of Miracles to have been equal to him to which particular Eusebius wrote an Answer which is still extant among his Works but these Books of Hierocles are now wholly lost excepting some Fragments preserved in the said Answer of Eusebius Josephi Antiquitates Judaicae and de Bello Judaico Origenes contra Celsum Philostratus de vita Apollonii Tyanaei Phlegon Trallianus a Freed man of Adrian the Emperour He wrote a Chronicon or History which he called the History of the Olympiads It contained 229 Olympiads whereof the last ended in the Fourth year of the Emperour Antoninus Pius But there is nothing of this Work now extant except some few Fragments as they are preserved in such Authours as have quoted it That relating to the Eclipse of the Sun at our Saviour's Crucifixion is preserved in Eusebius's Chronicon and is also made mention of by Origen in his 35th Tract on St. Matthews Gospel and in his second Book against Celsus Plato Plutarchi Vitae Strabonis Geographia Socratis Scholastici Historia Ecclesiastica Sozomenis Historia Ecclesiastica Theophanis Chronographia This is one of the Byzantine Historians and contains a Chronological History of the Roman Empire from the Year of our Lord 285. to the Year 813. The Authour was a Nobleman of Constantinople where he was first an Officer of the Imperial Court but afterwards turning Monk wrote this History He was born A. D. 758. and A. D. 815. died in Prison in the Island of Samothracia a Martyr for Image-worship for which he had been a zealous Champion in the Second Council of Nice Zonarae Compendium Historiarum Another of the Byzantine Historians It contains an History from the beginning of the World to the death of Alexius Comnenus Emperour of Constantinople which happened A. D. 1118. when the Authour flourished He was first a Prime Officer of the Imperial Court at Constantinople but afterwards became an Ecclesiastic and is the same who wrote the Comment on the Greek Canons Latin Authours Ancient and Modern AMmiani Marcellini Historia Anastasii Bibliothecarii Historia Ecclesiastica The Authour was a Priest of the Church of Rome and Library-Keeper to the Pope He flourished about the Year of our Lord 870. Bellonii Observationes de locis ac rebus memorabilibus in Asia The Book was first published in French A. D. 1553. and after in Latin A. D. 1589. Bocharti Hierozoicon Busbequi Epistolae the Authour was Ambassadour from the Emperour Ferdinand the First to the Port from whence he wrote his Epistles Buxtorfii Lexicon Rabbinicum Buxtorfii Synagoga Judaica Caroli à Sancto Paulo Geographia Sacra sive Notitia antiqua Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Universae Lutetiae Parisiorum A. D. 1641. Clenardi Epistolae The Authour of these Epistles was the famous Grammarian of his Age. Out of love to the Arabic Tongue he went to Fez of purpose to learn it A. D. 1540. when well advanced in years from whence he wrote many things in his Epistles of the Manners and Religion of the Mahometans He died at Granada in Spain as soon as he returned Cusani Crebratio Alcorani The Authour of this Book was the famous Nicolas de Cusa the eminentest Scholar of the Age in which he lived In the Year 1448. he was made Cardinal of Rome by the Title of St. Peter's ad vincula and died A. D. 1464. about Ten Years after the Turks had taken Constantinople Which seems
but of little Credit where he relates any thing of them out of that Country It was published with Erpenius's Historia Saracenica at Leiden A. D. 1625. Schekardi Tarich seu Series Regum Persarum Tubingae A. D. 1628. Spanhemii Iutroductio ad Historiam Sacram Amstel A. D. 1694. Scaliger de Emendatione Temporum and Notae ejus ad Sphaeram Manilii Valerius Maximus Vaninus a famous Atheist He was by birth a Neapolitan and came into France on purpose to promote the Impiety he had imbraced of which being convicted at Tholouse he rather chose to become a Martyr for it than renounce it and therefore was publickly burnt in that City A. D. 1619. persisting to deny the Being of a God with a wonderfull obstinacy even in those very Flames in which he perished He wrote two Books the first was published A. D. 1615. Entitled Aeternae Providentiae Amphitheatrum and the other the next Year after which is his Dialogi de admirandis Naturae in both which he serves that Cause for the sake of which he died English and French Authours PUrchas's Pilgrimage Ricaut's History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire Smyth's Remarks upon the Manners Religion and Government of the Turks The venot's Travels FINIS * The Messias shall come and restore the Kingdom of the House of David to the ancient state of its former Dominion and shall rebuild the Temple and gather together the dispersed of Israel and then shall be re-established all the Legal Rites and Constitutions as in former times and Sacrifices shall be offered and the Sabbatical Years and Jubile's observed according to every Precept delivered in the Law Maimonides in Yad Hachazekah in Tract de Regibus Bellis eorum cap. 11. §. 1. ¶ Mark 15. v. 43. Luke 2. v. 38. c. 24. v. 31. Acts 1. v. 6. From all which places compared together it appears that there was among the Jews in the time of our Saviour a general expectation of the speedy Coming of the Messias and that their notion was of a temporal deliverance and a temporal restoration of the Kingdom of Israel to be effected by him And this expectation was it which made the multitude so ready to join themselves to Theudas and after to Judas of Galilee of whom mention is made Acts 5. v. 36 37. and after that to an Egyptian Jew Acts 21. v. 38. on their pretending to be the persons from whom this deliverance was expected (*) Josephus not only makes mention of Theudas and Judas of Galilee and the Egyptian of whom we have an account in Scripture Antiq. lib. 20. c. 2. c. 6. but also of several others who on the same pretences found the multitude ready to join themselves unto them Antiq. lib. 20. c. 6. 7. de Bello Judaico lib. 7. c. 31. As did also Barchosbas in the reign of Adrian the Roman Emperour And what Maimonides delivers of the doctrine of the Jews concerning this matter might give any man an handle to offer at it For saith he the Messias is not to be known by Signs or Wonders for he is to work none but only by conquest And therefore his Words are If there ariseth a King of the House of David who is studious of the Law and diligent in observing the precepts of it as was David his father that is not only of the Law which is written but of the Oral also and inclineth all Israel to walk therein and repairs the breaches and fights the battles of the Lord this person may be presumed to be the Messias But if he prospers in what he undertakes and subdues all the neighbouring Nations round about him and re-builds the sanctuary in its former place and gathers together the dispersed of Israel then he is for certain the Messias Maimonides in Yad Hachazekah Tract de Regibus Bellis eorum c. 11. §. 4. * Joh. c. 6. (*) Act 6. v. 13. * All that the bitterest enemies of Christianity have ever objected against our Saviour save a fabulous story of his Birth amounts to no more than this That he was a Magician which was an invention framed only to salve his working of Miracles which they could not deny in such a manner as to make them give no reputation or authority to the doctrines which he taught (*) Acts 2. v. 9 10 11. * The main things which Celsus and Julian objected in their books against the Christian Religion are preserved in the Answers which Origâ—n wrote to the former and St. Cyril of Alexandria to the latter but the books themselves are perished as are also those of Porphyry written by him in fifteen Tomes on the same Argument for they being full of virulent Blasphemies Theodosius the Emperour by a Law caused them every-where to be burnt and destroyed but a great many remains and fragments of them are still preserved in the Works of Eusebius and something of him also in St. Hierom in Praefatione ad lib. 1. Comment in Epist ad Galatas Celsus lived in the second Porphyry in the third and Julian in the fourth Century after Christ (*) His words of our Saviour are that he was a wise man a title not given in those days but to such as were also good and that he was a worker of Miracles and a teacher of Truth lib. 18. c. 4. And of James he hath these words These things i. e. the destruction of Jerusalem and the calamities that attended it fell by way of just vengeance upon the Jews for James the Just who was the Brother of Jesus called Christ because the Jews had murdered him being a most righteous Man It must be acknowledged that this passage is not now extant in Josephus but it is quoted by Eusebius in the Second Book of his Ecclesiastical History c. 23. and also by Origen in his Second Book against Celsus which would never have been done by them had it not been extant in the Copies of his Works which were then in use however it came to be omitted since For to have falsely alledged such a testimony to the enemies of Christianity especially to one so acute and sharp as Celsus was would have given them too great an advantage against it But what is still extant in Josephus amounts to the same thing for speaking of his being put to death by Ananias the High-Priest Antiq. lib. 20. c. 8. he says That all good men were offended at it which sufficiently expresseth him to be a good man also For why else should they be so concerned for him (*) Plinii Epist lib. 10. Ep. 97 Hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae vel erroris quod essent soliti stato die ante Lucem convenire carménque Christo quasi De dicere secum invicem seque Sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere sed ne furta ne latrocinia ne adulteria committerent ne fidem fallerent ne depositum appellati abnegarent In like manner they were also vindicated by Serenius Granianus Proconsul of Asia in his Epistle to the Emperour Adrian Euseb Hist Ecclesiast lib. 4. c. 8 9. By Antoninus Pius in his Epistle to the Commons of Asia Justin Martyr Apol. 2. and even by the Heathen Oracles themselves Euseb in vita Constantini lib. 2. c. 50 51. (*) Plato in Minoe in primo Dialogo de Legibus Dionysius Halicarnassaeus lib. 1. Strabo lib. 16. Valerius Maximus lib. 1. c. 2. (†) Plutarchus in vita Numae Dionysius Halicarnassaeus lib. 1. (*) They were a sort of Mahometan Enthusiasts in the East who followed the Light within them in the same manner as the Quakers with us and therefore were called Batenists from the Arabic word Baten intus And on this Principle did all the Villainies imaginable pretending an impulse thereto from this Light within them (*) Alcoran c. 3. where observe that through all that Chapter in every place where the French and out of that the English Translation of the Alcoran hath Joachim in the Original Arabic it is Amran and from thence this Chapter in the Original is called Surato'l Amran i. e. the Chapter of Amran But in both these Translations it is called the Chapter of Joachim For Mahomet mistaking the Virgin Mary to be the same with Miriam the Sister of Moses makes Amran to be her Father But Ryer the French Translator very imprudently taking upon him to correct the Impostor's blunder puts Joachim in the place of Amran and thereby gives us a false Version where it is very material in order to the exposing of that Imposture to know the true And the English Translator follows him herein (*) Saturnal lib. 2. c. 4. (†) Vide Chronicon Eusebii Origenis contra Celsum librum secundum Tract ad Matthaeum 35. (*) Matt. c. 24. v. 34 2 Thess 2.9 (*) 1 Cor. 15.6 (†) 1 Cor. 15.17 (a) Hence Aristotle seems to have had his Doctrine of the Intelligences moving the Spheres and Plato that which he taught of the Stars being living Bodies For it was the Opinion of the Ancient Chaldeans as it is of the Sabii now who are descended from them That there was in each Star an Angel in the same manner as our Souls are in our Bodies and that the Stars are animated by these Angels and hence have all their Motion and also that influence which they are supposed to have over this World and for this reason was it that they worshipped them