favours of the Deity there would be no subordination of Beings which is the great Beauty of the Universe there would be only one confused Heap of good Things without order or design which would be so far from being an Argument of the divine Wisdom that it would be a considerable proof against it Besides no one would praise God for the Benefits they enjoy if all enjoy'd the same in common with them for the universality would take off the edge of Mens Admiration and consequently of their Gratitude and they would be as listless to give thanks to God in this condition as they are to thank God for Health or Wealth as when they never experienced either Sickness or Poverty And therefore as God has wisely contrived it in his Natural and Political Providence for the Beauty and Order of the Universe that some Beings should be Vegetables as well as others Animals that some should be Brutes and others Men and among Men themselves that some must be Poor as well as others Rich that some must labour as well as others govern so likewise in his Spiritual Providence or in his care of the Everlasting wellfare of Mens Souls it is no wonder that God should ordain several Classes or Orders of Future Happiness or should be more or less bountiful to them in affording them Means in this World of attaining it 4. And as for the Jews whom you do not think to be such fit Objects of the Divine favour in communicating to them his Revealed will Jews not such ill People as pretended as the Greeks or Romans that is a Point I am afraid you will never be able to make out Indeed it is grown a mighty fashion of late even among those that are better Friends to Christianity than you to cast very severe Reflexions upon the Jewish Institution and under pretence of shewing the Nobleness of the Christion Religion do upon all occasions be-devil the Poor Jews I do not think this the best way to support Christianity by undermining the foundation which it is built upon for the Law is but the Ground-work of the Gospel and if we destroy the first the latters falls And as for the People of the Jews which of late are so much used to be vilified I do not find that they are more liable to censure of this nature than other Nations It cannot indeed be denyed but that this People were prone to Idolatry and did very often lapse into it which is the occasion of those very severe reprehensions you meet withal in the Prophets and which you hinted at just now But then this is in some measure to be palliated by the mighty grandeur and pageantry of the Idolatrous worship of all the Nations round about them and the great scorn and reproach which was cast upon the Jewish singularity in the worship of one God which must needs have no inconsiderable influence upon vulgar minds And as for their aversation to a familiarity with the Heathens it was but a practice agreeable to the Mosaical Law Vid. Deut. 7. which was a wise command of God which alone preserved his True Worship in that Nation only free from the infection of Idolatrous Nations round them for so many Ages together And although perhaps in the Times of Trogus and Tacitus the Jews might be more scrupulous this way than their Law required yet that must be imputed to Pharisaism which was the prevailing Sect among the Jews at that time and which by false Glosses and superstitious Doctrines had perfectly debauched the Jewish Religion and soured the greatest part of them into an unsociable Temper But after all the faults that may be charged upon them the stedfast worship of the One True God for so many Ages in that Nation only when all the World besides was over-run with Polytheism and Idolatry when they were so much scorned and vilified by the Heathen World for his sake underwent so many Captivities Persecutions and Martyrdoms this was enough to endear them above the rest of the World to God Almighty to incline him to commit his Oracles to them alone and to guide them by his revealed Word rather than to the Greeks or Romans or any other Idolatrous Nation who besides their diabolical superstitions were ten times more lewd and debauch'd 5. As for a few scandalous reflexions which are usually brought against the Jews out of Justin and Tacitus Justin c. considered I think nothing in them is worthy being taken notice of unless it be the disingenuity of the Relators who I am confident report things which they themselves do not give the least credit to For why I pray are not the Holy Scriptures and Josephus that are the Books of that Country fitter to be relied upon than the mistaken reports of malicious or half informed Foreigners I beseech you Sir where would you look for a true account of the Matters of England in Camden Speed or Baker Men of our own Nation or in Mounsieur Sorbeir of France I think the question is easily resolved and then why should you take these scandalous accounts of the Jewish Nation from Justin and Tacitus when you have Writers of their own Nation which give contrary accounts of them Both of these Heathen Authors are notoriously mistaken in their account of the Jews but because Justin gives the fullest account be pleased to observe one or two of the Absurdities of his Relation It is plain that the foundation of Justin's Relation was out of the Book of Genesis by the names of Abraham Israel the particular History of Joseph * Minimus aetate inter fratres Joseph fuit cujus excellens ingenium veriti fratres clam interceptum peregrinis mercatoribus vendiderunt à quibus deportatus in Aegpytum cum magicas ibi artes solerti ingenio percepisset brevi ipsi regi percarus fuit Nam prodigiorum sagacissimus erat somniorum primus intelligentiam condidit nihilque ei divini juris humanique ei incognitum videbatur adeo ut etiam sterilitatem agrorum ante multos annos providerit periissetque omnis Aegyptus firme nisi monitu ejus rex edicto servari per multos annos fruges â—â—ssesset Just Lib. 36. Cap. 6. the Envy of his Brethren his Interpretation of Dreams his being sold pereginis mercatoribus to foreign Merchants 〈◊〉 â—rediction of the Famine his familiâ—y with Pharaoh his storing of the â—â—rn and the like Now it is impossible that such a particular account should be had any where else than from the Bible The Bible therefore must by you Theists be allow'd to have so much of the Truth of Prophane or secular History as to regulate Justin's History who seems plainly to have copied either at first or second hand from it So that if there be any Truth in Justin the same must be more express in the Bible from which Justin had his Relation though he has blended it with other Fables Nor is it difficult to think how
so various had it pleased him when he gave Men Bodies and Souls alike he could have infused into them the same sentiments of the Religion they were to profess and have united all Nations under one Law But 't is obvious that Providence permits variety of Sects and Opinions because God takes as much pleasure to be adored with different Forms of Worship and Ceremonies as to be glorifyed by the wonderful diversity of his Creatures whose various Beauties set forth his Infinite Power So that in short Credentius I think it every Man's duty to comply with the Religion established in his Country whatever his private thoughts may be concerning it and that God-Almighty is satisfied with the inward worship of ones mind though for peace sake he complies with an erroneous outward one But however I hold his folly inexcusable that will expose himself to suffering and contempt rather than to comply with a few simple Niceties which particular Sects and Nations are fond of when all of them own Natural Religion for their foundation In a word as some have boasted themselves to be Citizens so I am a Church-man of the whole World and though you perhaps may be offended at me for an extravagant Latitudinarian yet I am sure I have more reason on my side than those narrow-soul'd People that are hedging in Salvation and keeping their Communion only within the bounds of a little Paultry Sect. Cred. Not indifferent to be of any Religion I thank you Sir for this great freedom for by this frankness you have laid open the very Soul of Deism but withal have given such a vile Character of it as no honest Man would be very fond of embracing it I am afraid there are too great a number of Men in the World of these sentiments and by whom Religion suffers more than by avow'd Atheists for these are open and generous Enemies whilst the other are striking at the Vitals of the Church as they lie foster'd in her Bosom But that you may understand how unreasonable and wicked this Opinion is be pleased with me a little to consider 1. What horrid Hypocrisy and Dissimulation it is 'T is Hypocrisy to communicate with a Religion that you do not believe a Tittle of the Truth of There cannot be a greater Falsity and Cheat in all the World than this is To tell a Lie or to act a shuffling Trick in bargaining or the like seldom deceives but a very few but such a wicked dissimulation in matters of Religion deceives a whole Congregation or it may be in a Man of Figure a whole Nation This is the basest act which any Man of honour or any pretence to Vertue can condescend to so perfidiously to deny the Truth to make use of such false Arts and such little creeping Tricks to pursue an Advantage But what is worst of all it is the most intolerable Affront to God Almighty that can be imagined to offer to pay a worship to him which we are conscious that neither he nor our selves do approve and to joyn in Prayers and Devations which we know must be an abomination to him Which must 2. Be more wicked when the worship you joyn with is downright Idolatrous Sometim Idolatry What excuse can you make for worshipping or falling down before a Popish Host which you believe to be only a Wafer and you pay to it the worship due to the supreme God How can you without horrour think of worshipping an Indian Idol with pretence it is but a Symbol of the Deity when 't is generally but the Representation of some horrid Figure the Devil uses to appear to them in You may talk what you please of the Extensiveness of your Communion but I protest I am scar'd at such a Religion as you pretend to and I think you had better with the Atheist openly bid farewel to all and lay claim to none Morality not the same in all Religions 3. As to what you assert that the Morality of all Religions is the same and is the principal part of them I think that is a great mistake For many Religions are so made up of Ceremonious Foppery that Morality is little taken notice of in them and some retain such Dangerous Errours and Faults in their Doctrine and Worship that there is no Communion with them without violations of moral Honesty or intrenching upon the dictates of Natural Religion As when the worship is Idolatrous when wrong and injurious Notions are entertain'd of God's nature when Dead Men Devils or Images have divine honours paid them when Indulgences are granted to Sin and Crimes are pretended to be pardoned without Repentance when a good Intention shall be allow'd to justify Evil actions and the like So that there is no communicating with such Religions without committing an Offence against the ordinary Rules even of Natural Religion and Schismatically and perfidiously deserting that true Religion we have been educated in 4. As to what you say concerning every Mans being obliged to be of the established Religion of his Country Not always to be of the Religion of our Country and to profess to speak in the usual way all the Tales which the supreme Magistrate shall think fit to allow I look upon this to be wildest of all Hobbs his silly Paradoxes For if the Magistrate be the Publick Conscience by which all Men are to be governed as he asserts why did God give every Man a Conscience of his own which Natural Religion informs us every one is to be governed and judged by There are very few Men can quiet their own Consciences after the Commission of a grievous Crime only because their Prince might allow it or believe a Ballad to be Holy Scripture though there was an Act of Parliament to call it so But if we must be of the Religion which the Magistrate enjoyns we must make the Magistrate God Almighty for no one but he has Authority to command any Religious Doctrine to be believed but God Besides this Opinion would make Religion the most trifling and inconstant thing in the World a Man might change his Religion as often as he does his Cloaths and the poor Men of the Frontiers in Flanders should be Papists Calvinists or Lutherans three difference Religions in so many Moons This would be to render contemptible the noblest thing we are capable of doing the service we owe to Almighty God and to make it the sport and May-game of Prophane and Atheistical Men. Sin outward is to comply with a false Religion 5. But whereas you assert That God Almighty will be satisfied with the inward good Intention and worship of the mind whilst you outwardly comply with the most false and erroneous worship This Opinion will open a Gate to all the Deceit and Villany in the World Upon this Principal Men may Murder and Steal for the glory of God and cut Mens Throats to save their Souls There would be no tying any Man
by Oath or Compact linguâ juravi mentem injuratam gero would always be the burden of their Song and a good pretence too if the inward sense of their mind might be allow'd to be different from their Actions 6. As to what you lay down No folly to suffer for Religion That 't is a folly to suffer for a True Religion rather than to comply with a false one I take that to be a most false and pestilent Doctrine but however it is that which your Sect is founded upon For you Theists owe your Origin here in Europe to this pusillanimous Opinion and to the want of Christian perseverance and a patient bearing of Afflictions For as calamities make good Men better so they make often very ill Men worse Not a few sufferers in our late civil Wars took up with these damnable Opinions because their Religion had exposed them to some Losses and the same I hear has been the mishap of many poor Gentlemen in their late persecution in France But are Religion and a good Conscience things of so slight a value as to be parted with for such temporal profits Must Truth be thus Sacrificed to interest If a Man believes the Holy Scripture it will make him tremble when he but thinks of such a perfidious Defection He that denies me before men him will I deny before my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 10.33 'T is hardly possible that they that were once enlightened c. if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance Nay if he considers but the words of a Heathen Poet it is enough to make him much more honest than this comes to Phalaris licet imperet ut sis Falsus admoto dictet perjuria Tauro Summum crede nefas animum praeferre pudori Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas Juv. Sat. 8. Though Phalaris commands thee to deny The Truth or in his Brazen Bull to fry Tell the fierce Tyrant that his Threats are vain And Vice must not be chose to bribe off Pain That he 's the greatest Villain who will strive To lose the ends of living for to live K. of Siam's Argument answered 7. But for the King of Siam's Argument I wonder how so many Men should be dazled with such a Tinsel Reason as this Whether this be the King of Siam's Argument as is reported or no I shall not now dispute although by the sophistry of it one would guess it had more of the Jesuit in it than the Prince But I pray how he knows that God takes so much pleasure in these various forms of worship This is a thing taken for granted which no body that owns a Revealed Institution will allow For if God have revealed his Will by the command of any particular Worship as he has done to Jews and Christians then all other Religions do of course fall to the ground Well but God permits these different Religions by his not ordering all Men to be of the same Sentiments in Religion whereas he might as easily have done this as to have made their Bodies and Souls alike But is God's permission a sign of his good liking Why then by the same rule all the villanies which are committed in the World are well pleasing to him because they cannot be done but by his permission Besides 't is very true on the other side That God might have infused into all Men the same Sentiments of Vertue and Vice and have made all Men good alike but 't is plain that he permits the greatest number of Men to be vicious which is therefore an evident sign that he does not concern himself about Vertue and Vice and therefore 't is a wonder that Men should shew such a concern about Morality which God himself by this permission does seem to have little regard to Now you see this same Argument if there be any thing in it will make as much against Natural Religion as it does against Revealed and therefore you Theists ought to have a care how you make use of it for you thereby put a Weapon into the Atheist's hands and plainly give up your cause to him But on the other side you ought to consider that as God's permission of Vice is no sign of his liking it he having otherways declared his will by giving to all Men a Law of Vertue so his tolerating so many false Religions does not evince his Approbation of them when he has manifestly declared his will how he will be worshiped viz. in the Christian Religion This is that way which he himself has set out for us to walk in and to go in any other road is but wandering Simplicis ipse Viae dux est Deus ille per unam Ire jubet mortale genus quam dirigit ipse Sublimem dextro célsa ad fastigia clivo Prud. cont Sym. God is our Guide in one plain simple way He would not have Mankind in others stray That one steep Road which to the right does tend Is the sole way that does to Heaven ascend Of Revealed Religion and the Doctrine of the Mediator Phil. I think Sir we have talked enough about Natural Religion and therefore Sir if you will oblige me with your Thoughts concerning that Revealed one which is owned by Christians and will give me satisfaction as to some scruples I have conceived concerning it it will be a very agreeable favour I confess I am not very averse to think that there is a great defect generally in Man's reasoning concerning religious matters and Men's Thoughts do very much vary therein so that it is not a difficult supposition to suppose that the gracious Deity who had compassion upon all our infirmities has contrived a way more certainly to guide fluctuating Nature in such momentous concerns and may have been pleased sometimes to have enlightened Men with a Ray or two of his Wisdom from above by revelation of some divine Truths But then how shall we come to know to whom he has particularly vouchsafed this favour What marks of Grace shall we go by to distinguish who are Heavens darling Favourites that are blessed with such obliging manifestations The Jews and Christians indeed pretend to it but why not the Turks and Tartars as well as they But if a bold pretence to Revelation be an Argument for it every little Hedge-Sect of Idolaters in India shall bid as fair for Inspiration as e'er a Jew or Christian of you all And in truth if there be any such thing as inspiration for ought as I know all the different Religions in the World may be to use the Apostle's phrase but diversity of gifts of the same spirit The Chinese may have the same Divine Revelation to worship their Tanquam and Teiquam as we have to worship Jesus Christ The Banians and Bramins the Priests in India may have the same plea for all the Devotions they claim for their Deities there and so may the Japonese for their famous Gods
again as to the Prophecy of Obadiah whom you assert to have been a Prophet only to the Edomites he was a Prophet only to the Israelites and for ought appears to the contrary originally of Jewish extraction for I think little credit is to be given to the Jewish Authors who would make him an Edomitish Proselyte But that Obadiah was a Prophet to the Jews only is evident by the whole tenour of this short Prophecy where first are denounced God's severe judgments against the Edomites the Enemies of the Jews and his vengeance for their Pride and Insolence and afterwards the Jews delivery from them and conquest over them But upon mount Sion shall be deliverance and Jacob shall possess their possessions And the house of Jacob shall be a fire and the house Joseph a Flame and the house of Esau for Stubble and they shall kindle in them and devour them and there shall not be any of the house of Esau for the Lord hath spoken it v. 17 18. Now does this look like an Edomitish Prophet But this is just as Spinosa and Hobbs and the Devil are used to quote Scripture 10. The most considerable Instance is that of Balaam who may seem to be an Ethnick Prophet by his living in a Heathen Country and his being at the command of a Heathen King and by his predicting so plainly such remarkable Events which afterwards so punctually came to pass as the greatness of the Common-wealth of Israel the destruction of the Canaanitish Nations and the coming of the Messias But then altho' this be true yet it does not from hence follow that the gift of Prophecy was common to other Nations as well as to the Jews from this Instance Because this Prophecy was designed only for the benefit of the Jewish Nation and although it was pronounced by the mouth of a Heathen Man yet the design and purpose of it was for the good of the Jews and truly it was but a small priviledge of the Heathen to have one of them to pronounce a Prophecy of God only in favour of the Jews and that too for the utter Extirpation of themselves So that for ought I see in this Instance Baalam's Ass would be as good a one altogether to prove That Inspiration is common to Brutes too because God once made use of his mouth to confute his Master's folly 11. Well but Baalam you say was a true and accustomed Prophet and not made use of only by God upon this extraordinary exigence I am afraid this is an assertion which cannot be so easily made out as said and indeed the contrary thereof may be proved by the context For first he cannot be a true Prophet of God because he made use of unlawful Arts and as the Scripture says fought for inchantments Cap. 24. 1. and what we from the Vulgar Translate the rewards of divination are in the original only divinations i. e. instruments of divination conjuring Books Wands or the like And secondly he is called Kosem a Diviner or Sorcerer Josh 13.22 Which word has always an ill Character fixt on it in Scripture notwithstanding Spinosa maintains the contrary though without any Instance of it I have carefully examined all the words that I find in Scripture which come from this root and I do not find any unless by way of Metaphor but carry an ill sense and signify unlawful knowledge of future things or a lying pretended one and as for those places of the Prophets Is 24.25 Jer. 14.14 Ezech. 13.7 and 23. Micah 3.6 c. Where they may seem to signify simple Prophecy yet it will be manifest by closely considering the places that they are only harder words to characterise the false prophecies of some lying Prophets among the Jews as if I should call an Astrologer a Gypsy or a Conjurer names which carry more vulgar disrepute and shamefulness in them I know but two places in Scripture where they are used in a good sense the first is Prov. 16.10 A divining sentence or divination not as we translate it too far from the original words a divine sentence is in the Lips of the King and his mouth transgresseth not in judgment That is the King is a wise sagacious Man in his judicial determinations makes shrewd conjectures from outward appearance to discover Mens inward Intentions and by that sort of Political divination awards judgment accordingly The second is Is 32. where it is said The Lord doth take away from Judah the judge and the prophet the Kosem the Conjecturer or the prudent and the Ancient Where the Septuagint do very well translate Kosem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that makes good conjectures or Divinations which is a Metaphorical sense of the word in most Languages drawn from the Heathen Auguries as is particularly plain in those verses of Ovid concerning the Childrens play at Even and Odd Est etiam par sit numerus qui dicat an impar Vt divinatas auferat Augur opes Ovid. de Nuce Phil. By your Criticisms you have roved a little too far from the main point but pray if Balaam were not a true Prophet how came he to say that he would bring Balack's Messengers word what the Lord Jehovah the true Judaical God should speak unto him Numb 22.7 The LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you v. 13. I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God to do less or more v. 18. And God came unto Balaam c. And Balaam said unto God c. v. 9 10. I pray how came he to have this intercourse with the Lord Jehovah and yet be such a Heathen Conjurer as you would make him Nay how came he to make such fine Prophecies of Jesus Christ and yet be such a Diabolical Necromancer Cred. I think Philologus you are not a little mistaken in Arguing after this manner For it does not appear from Scripture that Balaam did endeavour to seek after Jehovah or the true God when he designed to make enquiry after the future fate of the Israelites upon Balack's request but only after Baal or some other false Deity of the Moabites That the search made to him is said to be made to Jehovah is because Jehovah is the Jewish name for God which no doubt in the Moabitish Language was Baal or some such like name which Moses writing in Hebrew calls by the Jewish name Jehovah Not that Baal and Jehovah was the same but that Balaam took his Baal a false God viz. some deifyed Prince of that part of the World for Jehovah or the True God and therefore Moses in regard to his Intention calls him by that name Nor doth the Truth of his Prophecy argue him to be a divine Prophet to whom the True God was wont to reveal himself because although he might intend to make his address to a false God yet Jehovah or the True God might take advantage from this to promote his True Religion by inspiring a false Prophet of the
III Fig. IV. A Conference WITH A THEIST PART II. CRedentius thinking himself obliged to return the Visit which Philologus had lately given him after a small walk of some half a Mile his House lying from Credentius's but at that Distance he very opportunely hears that Philologus was retired to his study after Dinner and not suffering the Servant to give him the disturbance of calling him down he with his wonted familiarity enters upon him there The Room it self was adorned with all the beautiful Paint and Figures which a skilful hand could add and the Books were Methodically ranged into various Classes under the Images of Ancient Philosophers and Poets and some other celebrated Modern Writers Nor was there wanting any Greek Philosophical or Philological Writer down from Homer to Pletho and all the Latin Classicks stood in the exactest order and the most curious binding and what yet commended them most they were chiefly of the charming Editions of Aldus the Stephani and Vascosanus Here were all the Learned Adversaria Dissertations c. of the famous Philologers of this and the last Age Trapezuntius Valla Volateranus the Scaligers and Casaubons here was a Collection of every thing curious in the Philosophy of the Moderns up to Petrach and Mirandula all the Wits of our own and the Neighbouring Nations every thing useful and delicate in the Methematicks and Poetry most singular sets of the Modern History Maps and Travels in short a well chose Collection of the most refined and pleasing Authors which may tend to render the study of a Gentleman agreeable and to highten his Genius Philologus drawing a Chair for him to sit down according to his wonted pleasantness tells Credentius he was heartly glad to see him but for Entertainment he must expect the same that he gave him the other day endeavouring always to write after so good a Copy as Credentius so that he must expect to be treated only with Discourse Adding with all that the Entertainment too of that nature would be very mean and be no tolerable recompence for that instructive Discourse he was pleased to afford him the other day which he protested had made him ever since both wiser and better Cred. I perceive Sir you retain still so much of the complemental strain that I have not yet brought you up to that plain sincerity of that Religion I am Advocate for And if you find any forcible conviction in the Arguments I then urged you must attribute that to the evident Truth of our Religion and not to my management Phil. I would not have you Sir conclude too fast neither my Head is not so full of Revelation yet as to swallow the whole doctrine of the Bible without chewing Truly Sir I am a kind of an obstinate Heathen I shall hold out my Infidelity to the last and Faith must gain upon me by Inches or not at all You indeed have defended strenuously enough the History of the Creation and the Fall but this tends no more to make a Man a Christian than to make him a Jew I expect to have the reasonableness of the New Covenant as you call it made clear to me and the Mediatorship in all its particulars I must demand an account why simple Natural Religion should not perform as acceptable a service to God Almighty as when 't is cumbered with Jewish and Christian Rites why God should not as well be pleased with a Mans doing his duty himself as for the sake of a Mediator and to what purpose a Man must be forc'd to believe the Inspiration of a few Books wrote I know not when and by I know not whom and which for the most part tell us no more but what Natural Religion told us before Therefore by your leave Credentius I will attack you 1. With the sufficiency of Natural Religion in general towards the Worship of God and a good life 2. Particulars of the Conference In opposition to the Mediatorship of Christ 3. In opposition to the Writings of the Bible Of Natural Religion And now Credentius have at you upon the first head I think I need not deâ—uce Arguments for this out of the depth of Philosophy for I dare say you will never be able to answer these four Verses of our English Poet. Natural Religion easy first and plain Riddles made it Fabulous Priests they made it gain Offrings and Sacrifices next appear'd The Priests eat roast meat and the people star'd I protest the cunning Blades had a brave time of it when they could fill their Bellies at the peoples charge who thought themselves well paid to look on and see them feed But in the mean time the poor folk were miserable befool'd when they were made to believe that they rendered the Deity more their Friend or themselves the better Men by stuffing the Priests Guts For what signifies a Fat Bullock to God-Almighty but the roguish Priests knew well enough what use to make of it when it served them thus to gormandize upon And truly their Brethren of the holy Tribe have kept up the same Craft and Legerdemain ever since It is but the same Juggle of the designing Priesthood that upholds all the superstitions in the World that maintains both the Pagods of India the Mosques of Turky and provides so confortable a maintenance for all the sanctified Gentlemen here in Europe The plain dictates of nature are a thousand times a better Rule of Life than the foolish rites prescribed by these superstitious Coxcombs that rook the people of their money by telling them strange Tales and exhibiting odd Ceremonies for them to gape at What cann't a Man Live and Die as becomes a good Man without Sacrifices and Ave Maries and Sacraments and Absolution Cann't I live as nature directs without being plagued and tormented by a parcel of Creed-contriving Sin-making Hypocrites For my part I grudge those Harpies every morsel of Bread they eat and think that Cheats and Pick-Pockets ought to be maintain'd at the charge of the Nation as well as they It vexes me to think that the generality of people should be such Cullies to part so easily with so considerable a part of their Estates to pay their Priests for Hypocrisy and Lyes and at the same time to adore their Holinesses for their Piety and Good service For my part they shall get as little of my money as ever they can and I generally tell them their own when ever I meet them I know two or three of our Neighbours that tamely deliver up their Nose to their Priests Fingers and truly you Credentius suffer them to buzze about you like so many Flies but you have sense enough to discover the Foxes Ears through the Sheeps Livery it is only your good nature that hinders you from doing any thing unkind to any one but for my part I make the Sparks know their Distance I give them no quarter when ever they fall in my way and that makes them as much scar'd
refused to comply with the Illegal demands of King James who was acting against Law and to their utmost opposed the unlawful Seditions and at last Rebellion of Factious People who were for advancing the Title of a Lawless Heir who had no pretence to the Crown by any Law in the World in opposition to two Successive Princes who had undoubted Right to and were in actual possession of it and to the injury of all the lawful branches of it So much I have thought fit to say concerning the Abuses which are frequently given to Clergy-men by Men that have not cast off all regard to Christianity but are willing to lay hold on any pretence to fall foul upon them and to wreek their Spleen But further as to Gentlemen of your perswasion who look upon our Religion to be a Fable and think you can have no tie upon you from that yet methinks Civility and common Justice which you pretend to be the greatest Advocates for should restrain you from abusing any one especially those who are used to bespeak you with all civility and respect And as for their Dues which you make a sport in defrauding them of you know by Law they have as good a Title to them as you have to your Estate and your Copy-holders might with the same Justice detain your Quit-Rents as you do their Tithes And if Religion be only a Politick Contrivance of State if the Law think fit to direct it so the Clergy by instructing Men to be Virtuous and Religious and by that means keeping Men peaceable at home have as good a Plea for the Tenth of our Estates as the Souldiers have now for the Fifth for fighting against our Enemies abroad I beg your Pardon for this long digression from our main design which yet your discourse led me to And now I shall speak to the Argument of your Poetical Friend which one would think should be irrefragable considering it is so often repeated by your Gentlemen with such Grace and Emphasis The Priests eat Roast meat and the People star'd The People partook of the ancient Sacrifices But had not the People their share of Roast meat too as well as the Priests Now here is a good Jest spoil'd for lack of understanding the Roman or Greek Antiquities or for want of reading the Books of Exodus or Leviticus For every Child knows that the Jews were obliged every Year to go to Jerusalem not to see the Priests eat the Paschal Sacrifices but to eat it themselves And 't is plain that the People eat likewise of other Sacrifices by 1 Sam. 9.13 where 't is said the people will not eat till Samuel come because he doth bless the Sacrifice And nothing of the Jewish Sacrifices were peculiar to the Priests but only the remainders of the voluntary piacular Offerings Lev. 6.16 And so in the Heathen Sacrifices after some small parts were offered to the Gods the rest made a Feast for all the Sacrificers together both Priests and People in common So Homer speaks in general of all present at that Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. Il. 1. And thus the Labour done and Dinner drest They every one do share an equal Feast And so speaking of the Wine in the Sacrifice which he makes common to all Likewise he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crowning the Bowls with Wine Which they to all present And so Virgil whom Servius and Macrobius remark to be admirably Versed in the Sacrificial Rites speaks of that Sacrifice of Aeneas in the Eighth Book of the Aeneis Vescitus Aeneas simul Trojana juventus Perpetui tergo bovis lustralibus extis Aeneas and his Trojans all do eat In order of the Sacrificed Meat But further Lylius Geraldus in his Treatise de Diis Gentium informs us out of Herodotus and others that the people were so far from not having a share at the Sacrifice that they might carry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Cuts of it home with them to their Friends so that they too might partake of the Sacrifice Which might perhaps give occasion to the like custom of the Christians in the Eucharist Euseb Eccl. Hist Lib. 5. Cap. 24.29 Nay these voracious Priests were so far from eating up the Sacrifice that many of the remaining parts were afterwards sold at the Shambles Vid. Herod Clio. Augusto Expos in Rom. which gave occasion to those scruples among the Corinthians concerning the Idolatry which St. Paul so judiciously satisfies 1 Cor. 10. Whatsoever is sold in the Shambles eat asking no question for Conscience sake c. Which Custom the Apostate Julian improved so far to be revenged upon the Christians at Antioch as to make all the food which was brought to Market to be first dedicated at a Heathen Altar Theod. Lib. 1. Cap. 14. And so much for your gormandizing Priests Phil. Well this is but a small matter to talk of But I can never forgive the Sanctimonious Brotherhood for all the mischief they have done to Natural Religion by burying its pure and divine Light in such a Load of Ceremonious Trumpery If it were not for these Inventions of Priestcraft a Man might do his duty as far as nature directs with all the ease imaginable If a Man would but take care to do what unprejudiced nature prompts him to not to overcharge her with more than she craves nor to check her in her just desires and to have as great and august thoughts as he can of the Deity he might perform the whole business of Religion to all intents and purposes All the ceremonious foppery which does so pester Mankind is owing to the Priests contrivance who would not have got so much by the free easy directions of nature as they do by long Catalogues of Articles of Faith and a fine Pageant-like-Raree-show worship For my money give me good old Pure natural Religion which was in diebus illis In pious times e'er Priestcraft did begin Before c. Cred. Natural Religion not the Tendencies of nature Which was in Vtopia or only in the Brains of the Gentlemen of your way For your notion of natural Religion is so far from being Gods Law or a Rule of Mankind that it was never dreamt of till Mr Hobbs would make his vitious qualities the rule of humane Actions and some of his Disciples had improved further upon him since 'T is true I am for that natural Religion which is the dictates of right reason as much as any one but your natural Religion is the corrupt inclination of a depraved will and disorderly Passions made out of Fear Pride Lust and a Selfish humour Men of these Principles are Temperate only for fear of the sickness of a Debauch or in hopes to live as long as the Old Gentleman of Malmesbury They forbear to kill or rob their Friend for fear of the animadversion of the Leviathan or Common-wealth or that they may not
Priesthood or Clergy to instruct them and so 't is possible to blunder out a strange way in the dark but all Men must allow 't is more easily gone with an experienced Guide But besides I have one Argument to prove the Usefullness of a Priesthood or Ministery that will reach you Gentlemen that allow no Revelation All you Theists grant to pray to God is a Part of Natural Religion and that in publick too upon special occasions as to deprecate God's Vengeance in publick Calamities and to thank him for publick mercies and the like Now you would not have all the People at Church to be charming and gabling together every one his own Prayer but for decency and Order sake one ought to speak for the rest to whom if the Publick allow any thing for his pains then you have what we call a Priesthood or Clergy So that even upon the pure Principles of Deism this Order is requisite and you must destroy your own Hypothesis by making them useless and insignificant A good and conscientious Clergy-man that makes it his business to incourage Piety and Vertue will do more good than a hundred Tully's and Seneca's and the World would be well hope up if they had no other Guides in Morality than some of those wise sober Gentlemen as you call them many of which continue lewd as long as they can and in their old Age turn Moral-mongers when they can be vitious no longer But to go on 2. Neither is your other supposition true that there was ever any Age or Nation in the World Pure Natural Religion no where practised when or where such a pure Natural Religion as you imagine without any manner of Rituous worship was ever practised I know not what secret Histories your Gentlemen may have of the Golden Age but as for us dull Believers we cann't see one word in all the ancient Books we meet withal that gives us the least hint of such a naked natural Religion as you speak of If we have recourse to the Poets to whom we are beholden for all that is known of these Golden Ages when these brave men lived they make Religion as Ritual as it is now and altogether as full of Sacrifices and Revelations Nay the account we have of the Goddess Astraea which is a principal part of the Poetical History of the Golden Age is that she was a Numen sent from Heaven to converse with Men on Earth to inspire them with Justice and Sobriety and to teach them Vertue and a good Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arat. Phoen. Although she did immortal glories share She freely did converse with mortals here She taught them Vertue as she walkt the streets She taught them Counsel in their close debates From her their Oracle they did derive Laws and the Vertues of a Social Life Which Fable by the way is but an ancient Tradition of the frequency of God's conversing with holy Men in the first Ages of the World Neither did those Golden Ages want their Sacrifices more than their Revelations Nay if we will believe the Poet Hesiod he tells us the Golden Age was particularly remarkable for their Sacrificing to the Gods and that Jupiter was angry with those of the Silver Age and took that race of Men out of the World for neglecting it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesiod Op. Dies Neither do we see any of the Ancient Poetical Heroes your Hercules's and Pollux's your brave natural Religion-Men but they are as much in at Sacrifices as other People As we see by the Examples of Priam Vlysses and Achilles and Aeneas in Homer and Virgil of Cadmus in Ovid of Perseus Theseus and all the Argonauts in Apollonius and other Poets And as there was never any Age of the World in which this superfine natural Religion was universally practised so neither was there nor is there any Part or Nation of it where it can be found All the anciently known World from India to Britain from Africa to Scythia was all full of Rites and Ceremonies To begin with our old Britains at home they were so far from professing such a pure natural Religion as you contend for that they were full of Idolatry and cruel as well as silly Ceremony Their rites were almost wholly Magical and they were so much wedded to that Art as Pliny says Hist Lib. 30. Cap. 1. ut dedisse Persis videri possint that they seemed to set a Copy to the Persians in it They adored a multitude of Idols portenta Diabolica pene numero Aegyptiaca vincentia as Gildas calls them Gildas de Excid Brit. a Company of Devilish Monsters almost exceeding the number of those in Aegypt for besides the Saxons Idols of Tuisco Thor Woden Seater c. they had the Celtick Teutates and Hesus and likewise Belenus or Bellatucadrus as appears by an ancient Inscription lately found in Westmorland dedicated Sancto Deo Bellatucadro as also another old God mentioned by Sedulius Sedul in op Pascal who was a Scotch Britain called Geada or Geta. And when we further consider the fond Ceremonies used by their Priests the Druids in gathering †Plin. Lib. 30. Cap. 1. Plin. Lib. 16. Cap. 43. Oak-branches and seeking Misletoe for their Sacrifices their cruelty in humane Sacrifices their killing the Victim * Vid. Strab. Lib. 4. upon the Altar with Arrows or binding him round with straw and so burning him a live with other barbarous and devilish Ceremonies I say when we consider all this we may very well exclude the Britains from the purity of natural Religion And if we proceed to our old Neighbours the Gauls we shall find them as deep in Ritual worship as the Britains they had the same foppery of the Druids with them which Caesar †Caes Bell. Gall. Lib. 6. says they borrowed from the Britains and those who would be exact in that Discipline travelled thither They had the same humane Sacrifices and well nigh the same Gods as Lucan informs us Lib. 1. Et quibus immitis placator sanguine diro Teutates horrensque feris altaribus Hesus Et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara Dianae The Spaniards as Macrobius tells us Macrob. Sat. Cap. 19. worshipped Simulachrum Martis radiis ornatum cum maximâ religione Neton vocantes They adored an Image of Mars adorned with Rays with very great veneration calling him Netos They had a Temple with the rites of * Strab. Lib. 4. Apollo Delphinius and Varro as Pliny †Plin. Lib. 3. Cap. 1. relates derives Lusitania from Lusus the Companion of Bacchus whose rites were celebrated there If we look upon the ancient face of Germany there is as little of pure natural Religion to be found as any where else but all
is full of Idolatrous Ceremony Bell. Gall. Lib. 6. And Caesar says they Sacrificed to the Sun Vulcan or the fire and the Moon which were the only Gods they saw but as for others ne famâ quidem acceperunt they never so much as heard of But Tacitus * Ann. Lib. 4. and †De rebus Geticis Jornandes make likewise Mars their principal God Tacitus mentions their singing Hymns to Hercules when they went to War De moribus Germ. and Paulus Diaconus speaks of their Woden whom he interprets Mercury To say nothing of the rites of Tuisco Friga c. which the Saxons afterwards transplanted into Britain If we look Southward into Africa we shall find them there busy with the rites and Oracles of Jupiter Hammon and with the worship of an abundance of their dead Kings * Tertull. Apol. Cap. 24. Lactant. Lib. 1. Cap. 15. and if we look Northward into Scythia and Sarmatia we shall find the Scythians bloody with the humane Sacrifices to their Diana Taurica or Scythica so renowned of old and the Sarmatians worshipping in strange rites one Deity called Pogwisd another Jessa a third called Lacton and Nia Marzana and Zievonia Goddesses besides two famous Deities named Zelus and Poletus which were jointly worshipped like the Dioscuri I need not make any remarks upon the Ceremonious worships of the Aegyptians Greeks and Romans for among them I am sure natural Religion was buried under Loads of Ceremonies There we shall hear of nothing but Temples and Priests and Altars Expiations Lustrations Pomps and Processions Images Hieroglyphicks Auguries Plays and a thousand other Rites which learned Men have wrote large Volumes to explain And if we go further Eastward into Persia and Syria we shall see the former employed about strange Ceremonies in the worship of the Sun keeping in the sacred Fires Sacrificing Horses to Mithras with many other rites which the Magi had invented and shall find the Syrians running after a Troop of different Gods with a different Worships Moloch Ashtaroth Baal Dagon Beelzebub Nisroch Rimmon Nebo c. Vid. Selden de Diis Syris And if you please to look upon the Books of Travels into the East and West Indies you will find altogether as much Ceremony in the Heathens worship there So that I beseech you Philologus to shew in what part of the World this natural Religion of yours lay sculking in this universal Reign of Rites and Ceremonies And if you cannot I must conclude that this story of the ancient Universality of pure natural Religion is all Philosophical Romance and never had any being but in the brains of the Gentlemen of your persuasion and those of some System-Makers and Preachers of late drawn from the scatter'd sayings and Books of Philosophers which some have fansied into a compleat System of Religion which alone was owned and practised for some Ages in the World But I think it is clear from the foregoing observations that your notion of such a simple natural Religion was never practised in the World as far as prophane History goes and as for those that allow the sacred the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel will evince Ritual Worship to be as old as Mankind it self Which will be yet clearer when it appears What is called Natural Religion was at first Revealed 3. That the Common Rules of Morality or a Good Life which we generally call natural Religion were at first revealed by God This may seem a little strange to those who are preposessed by other Opinions but it seems rather more strange to consider that those moral notions should come into the Soul by the usual ways they are generally supposed It was formerly the current Opinion of the Schools that these moral notices were Idea's connate with the Soul and in a certain manner inscribed upon it But it is very odd to think how such propositions as these Parents are to be honoured Friends are to be assisted The Marriage-Bed to be undefiled Whoredom and Drunkenness avoided 't is odd to think I say how that these propositions which are the complication of so many distinct and simple Idea's which we are sure are generally attained by experience and reason should yet be asserted to come into the mind by such an unaccountable way as this of Inscription But saying no more is meant by this Inscription than a kind of natural and universal Inspiration of the Soul or Imbution of it with these moral Principles this is altogether unagreeable to the Souls of Children Ideots and some very barbarous People who we are certain do want most of these moral notions So that of late this Opinion of Innate Ideas has been generally exploded by learned men and another taken up it may be subject to as many difficulties which attributes the origin of these moral notions to the deductions of right reason asserting that the generality of Men having the use of reason and few of them being so brutish but in their life Time they apply their minds to the consideration of these moral Duties and so by the agreeableness of them to the Social Life of Mankind do easily infer the obligation of them And so the Law natural is by this explication nothing else but a Scheme of Vertues and Vices which every Man by his own reason and Experience has found out to be such from their agreeableness and disagreeableness to Society and to the ends Man is designed for Thus I am supposed to come to know that to rob my Neighbour is unlawful because this is contrary to those * Vid. Hobb's Leviathan Pacts of fidelity we have entered into together or because this is inconsistent with that mutual †Parker 's Law of nature Love and kindness we ought to bear to our Fellow Creatures or because this violates the natural right which accrues to another by occupation ‖ Puffendorff de Jur. Nat. Gentium and which cannot be alienated but by Gift or Sale or Dereliction Now there is many a poor honest Indian who knows it is his duty not to steal as well as e'er a Hobb's or Puffendorff of them all and yet he never in his Life so much as dreamt of Pacts or Fides Data or Occupation Suppose I bargain with an honest Virginian for a Pipe of Tobacco and a Bottle of Sack to watch my Tent whilst I sleep from Wild Beasts or Banditti's now when he might cut my Throat and run away with all that I have what is the reason that the poor Fellow stays walking about as trustfully with his Bow and Arrow as if he were set Centinal by a Captain that would hang him for running away Why say most of our natural Religion-Men by frequent exercise of his reason and thinking he has come to the knowledge of the horridness of the Sin of Murder and the Baseness of Unfaithfulness But then who can ever think that this poor ignorant wretch should ever have given himself to such grave and
for I take your cases to be very different They poor People never were in a Capacity of receiving the glad Tidings of the Gospel or they were possessed with such invincible prejudices of Education under a superstitious worship that they could not receive the blessed seed to improvement which without all doubt God will make great allowances for But the Persons of your way after having received the seed of Gods word have trampled upon it you have seen the light of the Gospel and shut your Eyes upon it you have turned Renegado's to your blessed Redeemer and perfidiously deserted his Institution which in your Baptism you swore to live and die under So that you are strangely mistaken to think that your condition hereafter will be as good as the old Pagans Your cases are as wide as those of Foreigners and Domestick Rebels in a Civil War their Obedience was not expected by Christ but you have traiterously deserted him and fought against him contrary to your sworn Allegiance So that whatever mercy they may find at God's hand you can expect nothing but the utmost severity And then as for the case of the Heathen Heathens do not go to Heaven which you would willingly skreen your selves under though I cannot be so uncharitable as to think that all they are concluded under Eternal Damnation for not being of a Religion they never heard of yet I can see no grounds to believe they shall ever be Heirs of our Christian Salvation or that State of Glory which Christ has promised to his Followers To be saved or to partake of whatsoever Glories are comprehended under that name is the peculiar Priviledge of us Christians for the Scripture says plainly there is no other name given under Heaven by which we may expect Salvation but only the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that no man cometh to the Father but by him that God added to the Church such as should be saved and the like So that a Heathen has no more Title or probability to be saved than I have to be a Nobleman of Venice Because Salvation as I observed is the peculiar Christian State of Glory that place which our Saviour says he is gone to prepare for us John 14.3 So that though the Heathen may probably have other Places or States of Glory ours does not belong to them Nay it is hardly reconcileable with the distributive Justice of God to advance unregenerate Heathens to the same State of Happiness as those that are redeemed by the blood of his Son Baptized into his Cross have partaken of his Sufferings and have denied and mortifyed the dearest of their affections in obedience to his Commands What other provision God may make for them But however I doubt not but that God may in another manner make provision for the honest sober Pagans in another World for in that very Verse in which our Saviour says he goes to prepare a place for us Christians he tells us that in his Father's House are many Mansions There are many glorious Places or Seats in the Universe unto which these good People may be transferred there to enjoy a considerable happiness though very unequal to the Joys of our Christian Paradise Our Mansion or State of Happiness seems to be the choicest of all the rest one of our Saviour's own choosing and taking up In my Father's House are many Mansions if it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you It is a Metaphor taken from a Harbinger's Office And the sense is this Let not your hearts be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me In my Fathers House c. I would not have you dismayed upon my sufferings and be distrustful about your future State upon your being initiated into a new Sect of Religion as if you were not to enjoy so much happiness hereafter as the Jews or other Sects of Religious worship in the World shall for in my Father's House are many Mansions there shall be some degrees of happiness some seat of blessedness for good People of all sorts but I go and prepare a place for you I who am the beloved of my Father and the chiefest in his Glory will obtain a place of the most extraordinary happiness for you to abide in So that at last though it should be granted that you Theists that have had a Christian Education should be admitted to the state of good Pagans in another World yet you are a very narrow Soul'd People that you will aspire to no higher a degree of happiness when it lies easy before you only by maintaining your Gospel-Covenant which in your Baptism you have engaged to Phil. That is more Credentius that I have Faith to believe yet I have a great many Rubs to get over before I can come to that But however I have no abhorrence to your Christian worship I can go to your Churches upon occasion hear a Sermon and say my Prayers with you without any check of Conscience at all I have no reason to think but I might lawfully go to an Indian Pagod and worship the supreme Deity though under the representation of a Horse-faced Image I should never stick out to pray to him among Mahometans in a Turkish Mosk or hear Mass in a Popish Chappel nay I am of Opinion I might as one expresses it Summi Entis vim adorare in flosculo * An Epistle of a Deist in Przircovius his works pag. 600. adore the power of the supreme Being in a little Flower For the principal part of all Religions is the same viz. Morality and a good Life and the common notions of Good and Evil so that I do but laugh at all the little squabbles of so many Angry Sects in the World one with the other for my part I fall out with none of them for they all agree with me as far as my Creed goes so that I have no reason to forbear Communion with the worst of them Indeed most of them have added some superstructures of their own to Natural Religion which I do not approve but I can step over a hundred things of this nature for the sake of Peace and Unity And to speak freely I could never approve your Christian Zeal and earnest Prayer to have all the World of the same Christian Religion for as the King of Siam has observed that diversity of Religious Worships is one of the great Beauties of the Universe For says that wise Prince to the Person who came to him in the name of an Embassadour from the French King and proposed to him his turning Christian I wonder that Prince should so busy himself in a matter relating to God for which there is no sign that God does shew any concern himself as leaving it altogether to Man's Discretion For says he the true God who created Heaven and Earth and all the Creatures comprehended therein and who has endowed them with natures and inclinations
Fotoques and Games as the Mexicans for the rites paid to their Virachoca Nor does my conjecture stand singly alone but I have your own sacred Writings to back me in it For there are many Texts of Scripture which seem plainly to affirm that God-Almighty has revealed his Will by a Positive Institution to the Gentile World whom you look down with so much contempt upon under pretence of your superabundant privileges For Gen. 14.18 c. it is said that Melchisedeck was King of Jerusalem and Priest of the most high God and that he blessed Abraham which was a principal Office of the Mosaical Priesthood Numb 6.23 and that Abraham pay'd Tithes to him of his Spoils From whence it is plain That God had a revealed Institution before the Jews or their Forefather Abraham's time and that when Abraham is commended for keeping God's commandments and statutes and Laws Gen. 26.5 it is only these positive injunctions in the Land of Canaan which Melchisedeck was the Priest or Prophet or Dispenser of So Malachi 1.10 Who is there among you that would shut the doors of my Temple that fire should not be kindled upon mine Altar For from the rising of the Sun unto the going down thereof my name shall be great among the gentiles and in every place Incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the heathen saith the Lord of Hosts By which words it is plain That at that time the Prophet did not think the Jews dearer to God than other People and that the Heathens worship was as acceptable to him as theirs So Psal 145.18 The Lord is nigh to all them that call upon him to all that call upon him in Truth And in the same Psalm v. 9. it is said God is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works So God himself gives a Testimony of Job a Gentile that there was none like him in the Earth a perfect and an upright Man Job 1.8 So Jonas said he determined to flee to Tarsus because he knew God to be a gracious and merciful God Jon. 4.2 and who would therefore pardon even the Gentile Ninevites Besides we read in Scripture that several uncircumcised Gentiles had the gift even of Prophecy as Enoch Noah Abimelech and Balaam Nay several of the Jewish Prophets prophesy for the use of the Gentiles Ezechiel prophesies to all the Nations then known Obadiah prophesies only for the Children of Edom and Jonas principally for the Ninevites Isaias foretells the calamities and deliverance of the Aegyptians Is 19.19 and the Prophet Jeremy is call'd expresly a Prophet of the Nations or Gentiles Before thou camest out of the Womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a Prophet unto the Nations Jer. 1.5 and Chap. 48.31 he says he will howl for Moab he will cry out for Moab and v. 36. My heart shall sound for Moab like Pipes c. which pathetick expressions shew that he was sent by God a Prophet as well for the Gentile Moabites as the Jews But as for the Prophecy of Balaam that is so express that all the major and minor Prophets cannot pretend more to the Spirit of Prophecy than this one Gentile Seer So that Credentius you may make what brags you please of the Jewish and Christian Revelations but if you do not own old Balaam as much a Heathen as he was to be a very good Prophet you will want one of the most considerable proofs of Christianity Nay the Scripture gives this Man all the Characters of a Prophetick spirit He hath said who heard the words of God who saw the Vision of the Almighty falling into a Trance but having his Eyes open Numb 24.4 Now methinks it is a little unfair for you to make such an outcry about God's particular Favour to you by Revelation when those very revealed Scriptures themselves which you make such brags of allow it to the Heathen as well as you Cred. One can hardly think you Theists are in earnest when you object against the Scriptures and our Religion that God has revealed himself to other Nations as well as us No Revelation to the Gentiles for their Religions I always take you to have a mind only to be pleasant and to put a banter upon us Christians rather than to defend your own Tenents which do not seem much to be furthered by it And when Spinosa contends so mightily for it I fancy it must be only an humorsom Paradox of that odd Man and not his setled Opinion or at least the effect of a Pique he had conceived against the Jews and so was resolved to set them upon the same foot with other Mortals But that the rest of the World have no Revelation for the diverse Religions they profess will appear by considering Because Idolatrous 1. That most of the Religions in the World are Idolatrous Now it is impossible to suppose that God by a Revelation should command Men to do that which all wise Men would be ashamed to do to fall down before Stocks and stones to worship the Sun and the Moon senseless inanimate Creatures and to adore dead Men and Tyrannical Princes or even Herbs or Beasts Now though we should suppose that God was in no ways jealous of his honour and that it was indifferent to him whatsoever Thing we worshipped yet as he is the God of Truth 't is impossible he should command a false worship or instruct People in paying devotion to things as Gods which are only mean and perhaps wicked Creatures Now the far greatest part of the Unchristian World are and have been such Idolaters and therefore to make God to have revealed to them their superstitions is to make God to represent himself such as it is impossible for him to be to be delighted in a worship which is false and wicked and to be himself the Chief Author of the Imposture which is so horrid as no body will contend for 2. Other Unchristian Nations that are not Idolaters as chiefly the Mahometans profess a Religion which allows Immorality Immoral the Founder whereof was rather possessed by the Devil than inspired by God A Lewd debauched Fanatical Wretch that lived by Rapine and Murder and spent his days in Whoredom Adulteries and Sodomies Now his Religion allows its followers to propagate it by the blood of the opposers and by all manner of cruelty and barbarity against Men of other perswasions It allows Concubinacy and Whoredom and even Sodomy it self and the very rewards it proposes in another World are such infamous Lust as a good Man would be ashamed to think of in this 3. As for your Instances out of Scripture Melchisedeck because you should not too much insult over us as having wounded us with our own Weapons will you be pleased to accept this answer to the first That Melchisedeck is no proof of a Revelation among the Gentiles more than of that Universal
the point D then the Orbit of the Moon shall be inlarged to u s t equal to her former one I p i l or as great as her other she had before the Acceleration of the Earths Motion So that then the Moon being as far distant from the Earth as formerly she was those great Tides will be over and the Deluge at an End all the Waters being again sunk into the Belly of the Earth through the same Cavities by which they ascended Phil. But stay Sir this does not much mend the matter for this attributes the cause of the Flood only to the breaking up the Fountains of the great Deep which Moses likewise attributes to another cause viz. the Rain of forty days and forty nights Cred. Indeed Moses says that at the beginning of the Deluge it rained forty Days and Nights but he does not say that these Rains added any thing considerably to the Deluge of the whole World They only raised the Waters to such a height that the Ark was born up and swam upon the Waters And the Flood or Rain was forty Days upon the Earth and the Waters increased and bore up the Ark and it was lift up above the Earth Gen 7.17 But in the two following Verses is expressed the Effect of the Waters rising out of the Abyss And the Waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the Earth and the Waters prevailed exceedingly upon the Earth and all the high Hills that were under the whole Heaven were covered So that what was the Effect of the Rains to lift up the Ark Moses calls only increasing of the Waters but when he afterwards speaks of the eruption of the Abyss he says a great deal more that Waters increased greatly and prevailed exceedingly And indeed this previous Flood from the Rains or Preludium of the Deluge was wisely designed by God Almighty that the Ark might be lift up before the Torrent from the Abyss came or otherways such a mighty Current running with so great a Force would have overthrown and drowned it before it could have been lifted up But a Rain of forty Days having before made a Land-Flood great enough to bear up the Earth the fury of the roaring Torrent of the Abyss would be broken by the yielding Waters under the Ark and so would by degrees be raised to the height which the Waters rose to without Danger I will not contend that there was no more than this forty Days Rain for it is probable that it Rained the greatest part of the Time that the Waters covered the surface of the Earth for the Sea then being above as large again as it formerly was must supply a far greater quantity of vapours than could possibly be suspended in the Air and therefore must fall down in frequent or continual spouts or Rains This I take Philologus to be a possible account of the Deluge and is a sufficient confutation of them who decry it as an impossibility Phil. Well! supposing that the Absurdities of Moses his relation of the Deluge are not so great as are generally imagined yet I cannot allow him to be a true Prophet because the pretended Miracles by which he endeavoured to establish his Laws and Doctrines seem to me to be mere Artifice contrived only to beguile the silly Jews and to lead them tamely by the Nose without opposition They poor Creatures thought that God wrought mighty Miracles by his hand whilst he was only working Designs for himself to purchase himself Admiration among the Rabble or else to gain a Jurisdiction under the specious name of a Theocracy But alas these Miracles are all Craft and Collusion which any Cunning Man might seem to do If he had but such simple Inspecters Witness his pretending to receive the Law in Mount Sinai where he gave out that he conversed with God who appeared there in smoke and thundering and lightening No doubt the poor folks were strangely amazed at this terrible Scene But Moses or any other intelligent Man knew well enough that there was no great matter in it For all this wonderful Appearance was in all probability only a Volcano in that Mountain which Moses did very politically forecast that the Jews should not come to the knowledge of For if they had run gazing up the Mountain as well as he the secret would have been found out and the Miracle spoil'd But Moses very prudently commands Ex. 19.13 that a hand shall not touch the Mountain but he shall be stoned or shot through whether it be beast or man nay not so much as the Priests themselves must come up lest the Lord break forth upon them ver 24. but only Moses and Aaron who were let into the Mystery must come there Nor is this Volcano in Mount Sinai only a Conjecture but is confirmed by the observation of Travellers who still behold the Mountain full of Ashes which do plainly shew the Ruins as it were of an extinguished Aetna This Credentius is an Objection not to be bantered off for if this stands your whole revealed Religion shakes because this is the very Foundation of the Jewish and Christian Institution and if there be any Trick here as is much to be feared all that is built upon it is good for nothing Cred. There is so much false suggestion and groundless Assertion in this last Objection that it is intolerable and one had need of the Patience of that Holy Religion you are opposing to be unmoved at it 1. But 'pray Sir what By-Ends had Moses to serve by his playing this sham Prank as you do suppose in the Mount He could not get a greater Authority over them than He had before he had been their Deliverer from the Aegyptians and was their conducter in the Wilderness and had as absolute command over that People as could be desired Neither could Fame or a Desire of raising his Family put him upon any such indirect Methods For he seems to have been the most sincere and modest and most disinterested Man of all Men that ever lived He is so open and faithful in his History as to record his own Failures and those of his dearest Relations his Brother and Sister He gave the Priesthood which was the most considerable honour in that Nation away to his Brother Aaron's Family contenting himself that his own Posterity should only be ranked among the Ordinary Levites And at his Death disposed of the Government to Joshua a Stranger Neither is it credible that he would make use of such a mean trick as this which was so easy to be discovered by every bold Man whose curiosity might prompt him to venture the Menaces especially when he had established sufficiently in them an Opinion of his miraculous power by all the wonders which he had done in Aegypt and at the red Sea 2. Nor is there any tolerable ground for this supposition of a Vulcano's being formerly in Mount Sinai I know your Brother Infidels make a mighty Noise with this story but
give an account of the old Chaldean Idolaters in Abraham's and Moses his time and to be wrote as long ago as that Vid. Maimon More Nevoch Part. III. Cap. 29. Now if these Zabian Books which Maimonides and his Followers so much rely upon prove to be Forgeries then all this Zabian Hypothesis fall to the ground Now these Zabian Books which Maimonides saw were one called Haistamchus another Hattel eshmaoth or of speaking Images another called Tamtam another named Hasscharabh another of the Degrees of the Celestial Orbs and of the Ascendant Figures in each degree another Book of speaking Images a certain Book attributed to Hermes a Book wrote by Isaack the Zabian which disputes for the Law of the Zabians and his great Book of the Customs and Particularities of the Zabians Besides another Book of Agriculture Now is not this a pretty Library of Books for the Abrahamical and Mosaical Times But if they are so ancient as is pretended how came they never to be heard of but among the Jews in Aegypt or Spain about four or five hundred years ago One would have thought that some of the Writers of the Old or New Testament should have spoke of some of them or some of the Learned Fathers who understood the Orientals as St. Jerom and Origen who were so inquisitive this way methinks they should have somewhere mentioned them But to go no further some of these Books carry forgery in their very Titles The Book of speaking Images looks like the stories of the Talismans which the Arabian talks so much of about that time The Book of Celestial Orbs and Ascendants looks like a forgery about Rambam's time when the Follies of Judicial Astrology among the Arabians were at the height But Isaack the Zabian was infatuated to give himself that name pretending to be older than Abraham and yet take his Son's Name Or however his Jewish Name must needs tell all the World he was no Zabian And besides Isaack in his great Book treats of the Temples dedicated by the Zabii to Intellectual Forms whence any body would know the Book to be wrote by some one who had been bred in a School of the Peripatetick Philosophy And the Disputes in those Books about the Eternity of the World shew they were compiled by some one who had been where Aristotle's Arguments upon that subject had been bandied about I should weary you to tell you all the simple Tales which Maimonides quotes of these Books which are all composed in the very strain of the Talmud from whence any body may guess their Original They make Abraham very doughtily disputing with a great King of the Zabians That there is another God besides the Sun and that the Sun is but the Hatchet in the hand of God For which the King claps Abraham up into Prison but notwithstanding that Abraham disputes there still so that the King at last fearing lest Abraham should do mischief among his People by his subtile Disputations seizes all his Goods and banishes him to the further part of the East Now does this look like a Zabian or rather not like a Jew who had a mind to aggrandize the great Parts of his Progenitor Besides the foolishness of that Writer is betrayed by making such great Monarchies in those Ages of the World when Kingdoms were generally confined to Cities or small Provinces as appears by Abraham's fighting half a score of such Kings with 318 Men. The same Books tell you strange Tales of Adam and Seth and Noah c. which plainly shew them to be wrote by one who was acquainted with the Mosaick Genealogy That Adam was the Apostle of the Moon and exhorted Men to her Worship that Seth was a Renegado to his Father's Worship and so was Noah who condemned Image-worship That Adam went into a far Country nigh India and brought home a Tree with Flowers Leaves and Branches of Gold and likewise a Tree of Stone with the Leaves of another green Tree whose Leaves would not burn in the Fire that was so large that ten thousand Men of the bigness of Adam might shelter themselves under it and that the two Leaves which he brought with him were so large that each of them would cloath two Men. But I will tire you no longer with these insipid Talmudical Lies which methinks any body might guess a Jew to be the Author of But however what rare stuff is this to explain Scripture by One would wonder how it should come into the heads of Learned Men to think that God in framing his Sacred Laws should have any regard to such idle Tales For my part I pity them when I see them so sweating themselves in such a silly Enterprise and throwing away so much Labour and Learning to no manner of Purpose and besides the great Advantage they give to the Infidels to expose the Laws of God when they see that Christians settle them upon so slender a foundation Phil. It behoves you to be as zealous for your Religion as you can for you find we get ground upon you every day We live in a very prying Generation and 't is not laying your hand over a sore place in your Religion that will secure it now you must maintain your cause by pure dint of Argument or lose it But what say you now to your great Legislator when we shall prove that all his Celebrated Religion which he pretended to give the Jews from Heaven was only pinched from the Worship of the Heathen Aegyptians And this your own Divines are sensible of at last and by reason of the plain Evidence of the Case have given over the Cause to us For some of them have proved the Christian Religion to be all Jewish and others the Jewish Religion to be derived from the Heathen and therefore for my part I am for taking my Religion at the Fountain head and so will continue a Primitive Heathen in defiance to all innovation I have nothing to say to Christianity for the Judaical Laws are the matter now in hand and these I say were most of them the Ceremonial especially nothing but Aegyptian Rites which Moses brought over with him thence which is a considerable Argument against the Divinity of them for to be sure God Almighty would never have copied his Laws from a parcel of simple Idolaters To begin with Circumcision which is pretended to be the Characteristick of the Jews that to be sure was taken from the Aegyptians or some other Nation that Ceremony being used not only in Aegypt but in Aethiopia by the Colchi and Arabians Thus the Vrim and Thummim was enjoyned in imitation of that Locket of Jewels which hung from the Neck of the Aegyptian High-Priest mentioned by * Hist Fab. Lib. 1. c. 37. Diodorus Siculus The Linnen-Garments which the Jewish High-Priest and other inferiour ones wore were copied from the Aegyptian Priest who wore the like as Herodotus †Herod Hist Lib. 2. c. 37. and Plutarch
of God's Authority to be saucy with their Princes One of them you may find pushing with a great pair of Horns upon his Head another lying 390 days upon one side and a third marrying a Whore in the midst of his Prophetick Spirit You may see Samuel carrying himself after that presumptuous rate to King Saul as if he was a School Boy And Hanani the Prophet gives King Asa whom the Scripture remarks for a good King intolerable Language and provocation only for making a League with the King of Syria And I think the King did very well for putting the Seer into the Prison-House for his pains Now are these Men fit to be trusted with Revelation for the government of the Lives of all Mankind that are not able to govern their own actions or passions with common decency Cred. Your prejudices Philologus transport you too far in censuring the actions of the holy Prophets without considering the Customs of those times and the extraordinary Messages they were sent about There are none of their Prophetick Speeches which were delivered to the Princes of those times but what are made with all due Decency and regard to their Character but yet the Prophets having an immediate Commission from God himself they ought to have spoken with greater Boldness to them than every ordinary Haranguer who could only pretend to speak by way of Perswasion When they were commanded by God to reprimand wicked Princes and to denounce Judgments against them they had betrayed their Trust if they had not spoken the Truth with boldness and had incurred the penalty of those who feared God less than Man And as for some unusual actions which they did as Micaiah's making him Horns of Iron that was the usual way of those Times to prophesy by signs for under such Hieroglyphical representations most of the Morality and Divinity of the Eastern Nations were couched Neither were all those signs which are related in the Prophetick Writings really acted but some of them only in Vision and this in all probability was the case of Hosea when he took the Wife of Whoredoms and of Jeremy when he is said to have lain so many days on one side As for your Instances in the Prophets Samuel and Hanani Samuel had had the Administration of the Jewish Theocracy immediately under God before Saul and was a Prince when he was but a Peasant had singled him out and Anointed him King and when besides he had the command of God to rebuke that headstrong King this will bear him out in all his severity of Expressions he used towards him And as for Hanani he did very justly reprove King Asa for his relying on the King of Assyria and not on the Lord his God 'T is not his bare making a League with the King of Assyria which he is reproved for but for his putting more confidence in this than in God's Providence Besides to compass this he had used very indirect means for he purchased that King's favour by sacrilegiously taking the Treasures of the House of the Lord 2 Chr. 16.7 to make a present to him ' And though the Scripture does affirm of this King Asa that his heart was perfect all his days yet this is to be understood only of his Zeal against Idolatry yet several grievous faults he was guilty of as particularly the imprisoning this Holy Prophet and his oppressing the People at the same time v. 10. and even in his last disease it is recorded that he sought not to the Lord but to the Physitians v. 12. Phil. We are arrived now at last to a leisure to talk more particularly of the Mediatorship and a satisfaction to be made for Sins Now your whole Religion is bottomed upon the supposition of that which is all false and erroneous and inconsistent with the Nature and goodness of God For this supposes God a rough implacable Being that is easy to be offended and hard to be pleased when on the contrary nothing is so good and kind and willing to be reconciled to his Creatures Indeed the wickedness of Men who have been apt to think every one as bad as themselves has inclined them to have such hard Thoughts of God Almighty and made many of them think for many Ages ago the Deity to be a severe sort of Being and the subtile Priests found it for their Advantage to encourage the notion and hence the Practice of Sacrificing got into the World For when Men found they had done something which was displeasing to God Almighty they thought to make him amends another way and so would sacrifice a good fat Bullock or Ram at his Altar This was the first silly Logick in early and Barbarous Ages and the Priests for their profit have been improving it ever since till at last they have vamped it up into that Mediatorship and satisfaction which the Christian Religion is grounded upon But in the first and purer Ages of the World these idle worships were unknown when they worshiped God with Prayers only and Praise and never thought of appeasing the Deity with these foolish Briberies which must be so far from being grateful to him that they must needs be his Aversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Man is such a silly Wight To think that Gods should e'er delight In nasty Bits of Broiled Meat Which hungry Dogs would hardly eat And to be pleas'd in such a sort As to grant Men their Blessings for 't And this the Scripture Writers themselves are forced to own although they were bred up under Sacrifices In burnt-offerings and Sacrifices for Sin thou hast no pleasure Psal 40.7 To what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full of the fat of the burnt offerings of Rams and the Fat of fed Beasts and I delight not in the Blood of Bullocks or of Lambs or of He-Goats and the conclusion from all which the Prophet makes is that they should lay aside this Expiatory Trumpery and take up with good honest Deisin and natural Religion Put away the Evil of your doing from before mine Eyes cease to do Evil learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge the Fatherless plead for the Widow Is 1.12 c. So that you see this Sacrifice and Expiatory satisfaction is all Butcherly stuff which is neither acceptable to God nor agreeable to the sentiments of Wise Men. Cred. Expiation consistent with the Mercy of God You run away a little too fast with your Argument when you make such exclamations about the severity and implacableness of the Deity where it is asserted that he requires Expiation and Satisfaction for Mens Sins Wicked Men that are resolved to live on in a Course of Sin may flatter themselves that God has nothing in him but Mercy but I am afraid in time they will find That God in his Laws has