Crescens the Cynick Philosopher a Man proud and Ignorant and according to the humour of his Sect ill-natur'd and implacable and as Tatian who was very intimately acquainted with him and his manners describes him given up to all manner of Vice and Wickedness Now it hapned that Justin in publick Disputes had exposed the extream Childishness and Ignorance of this vain-glorious Pedant who to be revenged of him accuses him before the Prefect of the City who after he had in vain taken some pains to perswade him to renounce his Saviour and to Sacrifice to the Gods pronounced this Sentence against him and Six more They who refuse to do Sacrifice to the Gods and to obey the Imperial Edict let them be first Scourged and then Beheaded according to the Laws The Persecution at Lyons began at the Rabble as it is plainly described in the Epistle of that Church to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia In the first place say they they encountred with admirable courage and patience all the outrages and indignities of the promiscuous Rabble as Tumultuous Out-cries Scourgings Draggings Spoiling Stoning and Fettering and whatsoever else the Heady and Savage Multitude are wont to practise against their most hated Enemies And by them were they haled before the Governour 's Tribunal and by him deliver'd back to their fury which they Executed upon them with all the Arts and Circumstances of Fanatick Zeal and Barbarous Cruelty This I say was the usual Method to Sacrifice the Christians to the outrage of the Superstitious Rabble and if at any time any Prince engaged himself in the opposition of Christianity it was because that opposed the Pagan Religion But that was such an exorbitant contradiction to the common sense of Mankind and to all the first Principles of good and evil that it was impossible any Man could be in love with it after any fair and impartial enquiry about it So that what such Men acted against Christianity proceeded not from any rational and sober Counsel but meerly from vulgar custom and prejudice And therefore if M. Aurelius or any other Emperour that ought to have had more wit and temper than the Common People shewed any zeal against the Christian Religion their judgment is as little to be regarded in this case as that of the multitude because it is evident that they were acted meerly by superstitious zeal and folly If indeed they had opposed Christianity originally upon its own account the reasons of it might have deserved some consideration but when the ground of all their displeasure against it was founded upon their love of Paganism the meer absurdity of that cause is too great an exception against their understandings in this Controversie Thus supposing that M. Aurelius himself was as forward as the People in his zeal against Christianity it is evident that he was as wise too For whatever he was beside he was a great Superstitionist and to a degree of stupidity zealous for the Pagan Follies out of that vain affectation that had possest him to be accounted the second Numa of Rome which one conceit transported him to a more than childish zeal for the old Rites and Ceremonies of their Religion And this seems to have been the case of Decius and Dioclesian in setting on foot the eighth and tenth Persecutions to which they were hurried by a vehement and unlearned zeal for the Pagan Religion This in short is the truest account that I can find of all the Persecutions by which it plainly appears that Christianity was not so much opposed by its greatest Enemies for any thing they had to object against it self as because it so shamefully exposed the bruitishness of their Idolatry And yet as absurd as the Worship of the Heathen Gods was the giving Divine Worship to their Emperours was much worse For though their Gods were nothing better than dead Men yet having lived in Ages remote and almost unknown and thereby gain'd the advantageous reverence of Antiquity the common People were not aware of their Original but finding them in the possession of their Divinity they gave them the Worship due to that Title But to give Divine and Religious Worship to the Roman Emperours whose Deaths and whose Vices were so fresh in the memories of Men was such an unmanly piece of flattery as any Man that had any sense of Generosity ought not to submit to but every Man that had any sense of God or Religion ought to defie And yet so infinitely were those Men besotted with Pride and Insolence that they all had their Temples and Priests dedicated to their own Divinity excepting onely Tiberius who being a great dissembler himself chose to refuse so gross a flattery and would not so much as permit his Statue to be placed among the Images of the Gods but onely among the Ornaments of private Houses But as for all the rest they either took to themselves all the Titles and Dignities of Divinity or had them conferr'd on them by their Successours And when they were once advanced among the Gods all Men were required under pain of Death to pay them Divine honour Nay as Tertullian too truly upbraids them they were more religious toward their Emperours than their supreme Deity Majore formidine callidiore timiditate Caesarem observatis quà m ipsum de Olympo Jovem And all this though it were scarce a greater blasphemy against God than an affront to Mankind yet so base and degenerate were the spirits of Men at that time that they refused not to submit to so dishonourable a flattery Onely the Christians out of that serious regard they had to the honour of their Creatour unanimously scorn'd it with open and publick defiance And for their generous freedom herein they were as familiarly proceeded against as for the contempt of their Gods But now if this were another ground of the Heathens acting against the Christians it is so far from being any reasonable pretence that it is one of the greatest shames of humane Nature So that setting aside all that Evidence that is to be produced in behalf of Christianity the opposition made to it upon this or any of the foremention'd accounts cannot reflect the least shadow of disadvantage upon the truth or the goodness of its Cause § XLI These were the real Articles of accusation in their charges against the Christians but they were not so frivolous as their forged and counterfeit pretences were malicious For the Heathen Priests thought it not enough to enflame the rage of the People with fanatick Zeal unless they fed their Malice as all Impostors do with Lies and Calumnies But when Men are once reduced to this low and dirty Artifice in defence of any Cause it is a sign they are drawn down to the very dregs of Malice For it is onely for want of Argument that they are forced to make use of Slander which the natural ingenuity of Mankind would scorn if they could support themselves and their Party without
to give way to an upstart Sect but to renounce the Religion of their Ancestours confirm'd as well by their own Laws as ancient Custom and submit themselves and their power to the Authority of a few Galilaean Fishermen and this the Authours of that Age say was the main reason why the Christian Religion was at all adventure rejected by the Roman Senate because it would allow none other beside it self And first as for the Jewish Religion beside its very great Antiquity it was establisht by Divine Authority and therefore with plausible appearance of reason believed by the Jews to be of eternal Obligation at least not otherways reversible but with the same dreadfull signs and appearances of the Divine Presence wherewith it was at first enacted and therefore when a young Man should take upon him to cancel the onely true way of worshipping the onely true God that design seem'd so like to Blasphemy and Idolatry that his very pretending to it without any farther enquiry was whatever he could say or doe an invincible prejudice and an unpardonable crime This is evident through the whole History of his Life that the Jews every where concluded him an Impostor because he set up against Moses and then let him work what Miracles he would they would regard neither him nor them And particularly this was the case of the Controversie when he cured the Man that was born Blind when the matter of Fact was evident beyond all contradiction by the Testimony of his Parents and by the confession of all the Neighbours who knew him to have sat and begged in a certain place for many years yet notwithstanding all this the Pharisees concluded against his doing any Miracles because he was a Sinner that is as they thought a Blasphemer of Moses Law and when the blind Man argues with them that it was such a Miracle as had never been done from the beginning of the World before it was all one for that they answer all with this peremptory Assertion We know that God spake unto Moses as for this fellow we know not from whence he is So that whatever Miracles he worked they were not to be regarded because he derogated from the Authority of Moses And therefore Origen very well observes that the difficulty of our Saviour's Work was much greater than that of Moses from the great prejudices of the People against his Undertaking For Moses had to doe with the Off spring of Abraham who had all along observed the Law of Circumcision and those other Rites and Customs that he had delivered down to his Posterity and onely undertook to deliver them from a grievous Bondage and bring them into that happy Land that God had promised to their Forefathers But our Saviour was sent to a People to command them to forsake that way of Worship in which they had been educated and to prescribe a new model of Religion against an old one that had been settled by Divine Authority and therefore instead of being complyed with as Moses was he was sure to meet with all the fiercest contradiction both of Zeal and Malice And for this reason says he it was that it was so requisite that he should doe greater Miracles than Moses or any of the Prophets were recorded to have done to convince them that God had given him greater Authority and so thereby obliged them to submit to his Discipline as they had hitherto done to that of Moses and the Prophets And as the Eternity of the Law of Moses was at that time an insuperable prejudice against Christianity so is it to this very day as may be seen in the Writings of the Jewish Doctours who always lay this supposition at the bottom of their Disputes against the Divine Authority of the Christian Law But of the prejudices of the Jews I shall give a farther account when I come to shew the reasons of their Infidelity notwithstanding the Gospel brought all that evidence along with it that we pretend it did And then as for the Religion of the Gentiles beside its proud pretence to the greatest Antiquity it now valued it self upon a much prouder title of being the Religion of the Empire and by reason of the vast extent of that it was rooted in all parts of it with more strength and unity than it could have been under several Governments and there is nothing that can make People more fond of their Religion than to possess them with a belief of its Universality Now when a Religion so Catholick was settled by the Laws was own'd by the Emperours and was made the onely Religion of Power and Interest in the World its Votaries could not endure to see it treated with scorn and dishonour by an upstart Sect of Men destitute of all Power and Authority And for this reason is it that Pliny Tacitus and Suetonius inveigh against Christianity with so much scorn and indignation not that they had any concern for Religion themselves being profest Epicureans and so inwardly as great despisers of Paganism as the Christians could pretend to be But they were angry that a Religion abetted by the Emperours and the great Statesmen such as themselves were or pretended to be should be so dishonourably born down by a company of superstitious and despicable Jews And that proved another very great disadvantage to Christianity the force of Laws and the interest of Government against its reception In that Statesmen are ever jealous of all Innovations in Religion as dangerous to the present Government so that though themselves look upon all Religion as a meer design of State-craft yet they are very zealous for that which they find already establisht as that by which they enjoy their present security and therefore vigilant against all alterations as naturally tending to the subversion of the Civil State So that it is none of their business to enquire into the pleas of a new Religion but its being new is with them a sufficient reason of proceeding against it as being Sedition ipso facto against the establisht Law And this was the main reason of most of those many severe Edicts and Rescripts of several Emperours against the Christians who looked upon their numerous Assemblies upon pretence of Religion as dangerous Associations against the State of the Empire and particularly Trajan a wise and politick Prince who either because he would not give the Christians the advantage of pleading Religion or suffering for it or rather out of his particular jealousie and fear of Tumults put in execution against them the Law against the Heteriae which forbad all manner of numerous Meetings upon what account soever though onely of Friendship or Good-fellowship for which those Heteriae were first instituted so that upon pretence of this Law he seem'd not to proceed against them upon the account of Religion but as unlawfull Riots and Tumults against the State § XXII Now from the concurrence of all these mighty prejudices against Christianity it met
of him upon his knees to make him Emperour to whom Apollonius with the state and authority of a God answered I have made thee so viz. by my Interest with the Gods and he so far gratified the vanity of the Man as to seem to receive the Empire at his hands and thus was he assured of his Empire by Men of greatest Reputation for both Religions for as there was no Jew at that time to be compared to Josephus for knowledge and learning in the Antiquities of his own Nation so Apollonius was then the most famous and renowned Saint in the World for the Heathen Religion now whilst he stayed at Alexandria a Blind and a Lame Man being warn'd so to doe by the God Serapis address themselves to him for a Cure and obtain it so that considering the circumstances of the story by it self it looks so like fraud and flattery as to betray it self For the report of his having been abused into the conceit of being the Messias in Judaea being probably come to Alexandria where great numbers of Jews resided it is likely that they would not come short of their Country-men in doing honour to the Emperour and so put these two counterfeits upon the design and there are enough of such dissembling Cripples to be had in great Cities for it being foretold that the Messias when he came should among other Miracles cure the Lame and the Blind they thought it an acceptable piece of flattery thus to way-lay his Ambition or rather this design was set on foot by the Egyptians a fawning crafty and flattering sort of People but chiefly by Apollonius for the honour of that Religion for which he was so zealous and therefore by this artifice confirm'd his own predicton of the Empire by the Authority of his Gods for they were sent on their Errand by Serapis But whoever contrived it and however it pleased the Emperour's humour it at first surprised him so as to move his laughter and scorn and to refuse the attempt with a very great deal either of seeming or real Reluctancy though at last he suffer'd himself to be overcome by the great importunity of the by-standers and the assurance of the Physicians that the thing was possible and then perform'd it in publick with all imaginable pomp and solemnity either as if himself had been beforehand privy to the plot or had now smelt out the design of the Complement Now what wise Man could compare this one theatrical piece of Court-flattery with all the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles the meer suspicion of these pretended Cripples being counterfeits at least the absolute uncertainty of it destroys its credit whereas the impossibility of suspecting any fraud or flattery in our Saviour's Miracles is an undoubted demonstration of their reality Beside that the Emperour was assured by the Physicians that the Men were not past a natural Cure and so not to be compared with our Saviour's Miracles most whereof were done upon Persons naturally incurable But to wave this I cannot give so much credit to a story that smells so rankly of imposture as to suppose the possibility of its truth and therefore I shall onely desire the Reader to compare it as he finds it under so many disadvantages of suspicion with the credibility of all those motives of belief that we have produced for the History of our Saviour's Life Death and Resurrection and then leave it to his own ingenuity to judge whether it be reasonable to oppose one story so miserably suspicious to a thousand others guarded with all the advantages of proof against all possible cavils and exceptions § XXVII But the Man of Wonders is Apollonius Tyanaeus of whom they boast and insult as the true Heathen Messias in that he wrought not as Vespasian did one or two chance Miracles but his whole Life was all prodigy and equal to our Saviour's both for the number and the wonder of his Works But here first we have in part already shewn what undoubted Records we have of the Life of Jesus whereas all the credit of Apollonius his History depends upon the Authority of one single Man who beside that he lived an hundred years after him ventured nothing as the Apostles did in confirmation of its truth but onely composed it in his Study thereby as appears from his frequent digressions to take occasion of communicating all the learning he had raked together to the World Nay so far was he from incurring any loss by the Work that he was set upon it by a great Empress whose religious Zeal in the Cause would be sure to see him well rewarded And though he made use of the Commentaries of Damis the inseparable Companion of Apollonius yet he confesses that Damis himself never publisht his own Commentaries but that a Friend of Damis communicated them to the Empress which himself might probably have forged as is common in Courts to pick her pocket However as for Damis himself it is evident from Philostratus his whole Story that he was a very simple Man and that Apollonius onely pickt him up as a fit Sancho Panche to exercise his Wit upon so that upon all occasions we find him not onely baffling the Esquire in Disputes but breaking Jests upon him which he always takes with much thankfulness and more humility still admiring his Master's Wisedom but much more his Wit But after all what the Story of Damis was or whether there were ever any such Story we have no account unless from Philostratus himself and therefore we must resolve it all into his Authority alone And there it is evident that he was neither a God nor a Divine Man as his Friends boasted nor a Magician or Conjurer as his Enemies imagin'd but a meer fanatick and pedantick Pythagorean that for the honour of his Sect travel'd as many others have done into all parts of the World and when he return'd home told his Country-men that all Men renown'd for Wisedom all the World over were of the Sect of the Pythagoreans and then for the advancement of their Authority told strange and prodigious tales of their wonder-working Power Though here either he or his Historian has acquitted himself so awkardly as utterly to spoil the tale and defeat the design This Eusebius has shewn at large in his Book against Hierocles by taking apieces all parts of the Story and discovering all its flaws and incoherences but I shall content my self with proving the vanity of the whole from the notorious falshood of one particular Narration upon which depends all that extraordinary power that he pretends to and that is his conversation with the Indian Brachmans from whom if we may believe his account of himself he learnt all that he could doe more than the common Philosophers of Greece And if this prove a Romance all the rest of the History must unavoidably follow its fortune and for this little proof will serve the turn when most of the Stories are so
raised against Christianity but as for that private Opposition that it met with from Philosophers and pretendedly learned Men it was so very contemptible that it scarce deserves consideration For though one would expect to have found all the learned World engaged in a Controversie that concern'd the whole World yet they were very few that concern'd themselves against the Christian Cause and those that did so onely pelted at it with remote and far-fetcht cavils but never came up to the matter of Fact which is the onely pertinent subject in this Enquiry and if that stand firm all other Opposition falls short of the Argument and breaks its own force upon it self by endeavouring to disparage the truth of a thing that it cannot deny or to prove the same thing to be false that it cannot but confess to be true Nay so far were they from putting the matter of Fact to the question that they were all forced to take it for granted Porphyry and Celsus impute our Saviour's Miracles to Magick Hieroles and Trypho say onely that the Christians make too much of them by making a God of a divine Man Julian tells us that he did no such great matters but onely cure the Lame and the Blind So that it seems none of them were at that time hardy enough so much as to think of controuling the reality of our Saviour's Actions for fear of too much disadvantage in the Controversie Now after this it is easie to foretell with what trifling pretences they must satisfie themselves and they were so very trifling that it-will require but very little pains to shew their Vanity All the Opposition then that was made to it this way proceeded meerly either from gross Superstition or avowed Atheism The first is coincident with the former account of the publick Persecutions and was nothing else than a meer fanatick zeal for the old Pagan Idolatry And this was chiefly managed by the Pythagoreans the onely superstitious Sect among all the Philosophers who were all along so zealous of the Grecian Rites that they may properly be styled the Monks and Friers of that Religion This humour they derived from their first Founder Pythagoras himself who having learned that part of natural Philosophy from Thales and Anaximander that explain'd the mechanical contrivances of Matter and Motion to which alone those Philosophers pretended he quickly perceived either by the sagacity of his own Mind or the instruction of Pherecides that there was some intelligent Being in Nature that was the cause of the order and harmony of Things And it was this that so strongly possest him with the notion of a Deity whom he defined to be a Mind diffused through all Nature from whom all things receive their Life and Activity As not being able to understand how the natural effects that are constantly and every where visible in the World could be brought to pass but by the present and immediate assistance of such a power And now having his Mind thus throughly touched with a sense of the Divinity and finding the Orphean Rites and Constitutions at that time the most sacred Solemnities of Religion in the World he grew very zealous of them as the most religious Symbols of Divine Worship Neither was his zeal satisfied with the superstition of his own Country but he travel'd into all parts of the World to inform himself of their several ways of worshipping their Gods And then composed a Service of his own partly out of the Orphean partly out of the AEgyptian partly out of the Chaldean partly out of the Eleusinian and partly to mention no more out of the Samothracian Rites which together with his own theurgick Ceremonies must make up a compleat Rhapsodie of all the Superstition and Idolatry of the Heathen World And though some of his Followers Leucippus Democritus and Epicurus apostatised so far from his Institution as to fall into the rankest and most audacious Atheism yet all that persevered in their Master's Discipline were sure no doubt to be most of all strict in his Religion And it was onely this Sect of Philosophers who were Men rather devout than learned that all along gave authority and reputation to the old Heathen Idolatry And therefore when Christianity began to bear it away it could not be expected but that they should appear the most forward Champions to defend their Fanes and their Temples their Altars and their Oracles against the new and prevailing Religion The first and the ablest Champion was Porphyrie a Man at that time eminent for Wit and Learning but so entirely eaten up with fanatick zeal for his Religion that he had not patience so much as to hear of any thing that opposed it and this set him all on fire against Christianity For being by nature of a fierce and angry temper insomuch as he attempted to cut his own Throat as he describes himself in the Life of Plotinus and withall very much inclined to Austerity and Devotion for he was a very strict observer of the Pythagorean Rules this fixt him in his fanatick and superstitious zeal than which there is nothing more insuperable Though when this happens to be join'd with a natural eagerness of temper it grows into meer fury and outrage and so transports Men out of the use of their natural Understandings And this seems to have been the case of Porphyrie not onely from that description that he gives of himself and that account that his Friends give of his Life but also by that Character that is given of his Writings against the Christians which is described by the most impartial Writers as full of rage and bitterness Though how he performed what he undertook is not so certainly determinable in that not onely his own Book but all those that were written against it are utterly perisht But by those fragments that remain of it in the Writings of the Ancients it does not at all appear that he ever ventur'd to deny the matter of Fact of our Saviour's Miracles but granted them so far as to impute them to the power of Magick But how vain that pretence is we have already shewn at least the whole of the Controversie depends upon the truth of the matters of Fact that are recorded of our Saviour none of which I do not find that he ever undertook to controul and as long as that stands firm all other Opposition is but trifling However he was a Person so infinitely superstitious that his Opinion can be no prejudice against the cause of Christianity because he was at no liberty to make any enquiry into the truth of its pretences And of the same Kidney was Hierocles especially if he were of which there is little doubt the same zealous Person that was first Judge at Nicomedia and afterward Prefect of AEgypt under Dioclesian and a great Agent in his bloody Persecution however he was a zealous Orphean and extreamly addicted to the old Pythagorick Superstition But whatever he was otherwise his work
vanity of their Principles before we can hope to work them to any effectual Reformation And though I think it an imprudent thing to be disputing the Fundamentals of Religion to the common People if it could be avoided because it commonly rather weakens than confirms their Faith and makes them think that to be onely problematical which before they supposed to be unquestionable yet when they have raised the dispute among themselves and have by chance for they never judge of any thing upon due enquiry because they never make it run away with the wrong side of the Controversie they are to be reduced by better Information And that is the design of this following Treatise to demonstrate to them these two great fundamental Truths viz. The evident obligation of the Law of Nature and the Divine Authority of the Christian Religion which alone will scatter away all their little Principles and pretences of Scepticism and Infidelity and if it do not work so effectually upon them as to reduce them to a right sense yet it will at least destroy the rudeness and confidence of their Impiety and force them to be more decent and modest in their Wickedness by letting them see that what they supposed an high attainment in wisedom was the effect of extream ignorance and meer want of enquiry for there is nothing in the World so lamentably dull and silly as the Atheistical Philosophy And now when we have spoil'd their pedantry that was the onely thing that spoil'd them we have half reduced them by letting them see that it is not for them to be philosophising And that when all is done it would turn to a much better account as to their own design if instead of bewildring their fancies in the Leviathan they would learn the Lord's Prayer the Creed and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar Tongue For after all their labour after philosophick knacks and curiosities they are certain to loose their vanity and instead of being admired for their learning as they design onely make themselves despised for their conceited folly An Ass will never become a Lion's Skin nor a Mechanick a Philosopher's Cloak And yet I must confess that I have scarce any hopes of reclaiming such of the multitude as are already tainted with this plague For I know by too much experience that there is but one thing in the World more inflexible than Ignorance steel'd and hardned with Wickedness And therefore my onely design is to step in between the dead and the living the infected and the sound and if it be possible to give some stop to the contagion or at least to keep the Disease from descending to Posterity For as for this unhappy Age it is so universally overspread with Vice and Wickedness that it is not reasonable to expect that the Principles of Vertue and Religion should ever find any just entertainment in it But certainly undebauched Posterity will judge more impartially and such I know is the power of Truth upon the minds of Men that if it can but gain Audience it will at last prevail upon all that are disengaged from Prejudice and disdain not to attend to the results of sober Reason And that is the aim of this ensuing Discourse that whenever Vertue shall begin to lift up its head and recover its right I may give some little assistance to its Restauration And both as a Clergyman do something towards promoting the Happiness of the Souls of Men and as an Englishman towards recovering the ancient Reputation of my native Country for Civility Justice and Integrity As for the Law of Nature which is the Argument of the First Part I must confess there has been much talk in the World about it but very little said The Civilians Canonists and School-men have attempted little more than to define it and in that they have fail'd too Even Grotius himself has so far mistaken it as to suppose it obligatory without the supposition of a Deity Puffendorf has indeed of late hapned upon its right definition in general but has neither described its particular Branches nor demonstrated any of the grounds and reasons of its Obligation And the Authour of the Book De Principiis Justi Decori once or twice started the right notion of it but quite lost it in the chace by quitting his own scent to follow Mr. Hobbs's cry Among the Ancients both Greeks and Romans I find as little perform'd seldom any thing more than meer Definitions and positive Assertions and at most some witty and fancifull reasonings in the Platonick Writers What was done by Tully in his Books De Republicâ where as he informs us in his Book De Legibus it was copiously treated of is not now to be known that excellent Treatise which himself valued much above all his other Writings being unfortunately perisht but by those fragments that are remaining of it I am apt to think that this Loss has been competently compensated by the learned and judicious Treatise of our Country-man Dr. Cumberland upon this Argument who has not onely hit upon the right Notion of the Law of Nature but has in a method heretofore proper onely to mathematicks demonstrated its obligation But his Discourse being every where interwoven with mathematical logical metaphysical and physiological terms and notions I meet with very few that have been able to master its sense and therefore I have taken his main notion alone stript of all accessional Ornaments of Learning and prosecuted the demonstration of it my own way in a familiar style and an easie method As for the proof of the whole matter it depends upon the supposition of an Authour of Nature for unless that be antecedently granted we cannot so much as proceed to enquire after the Law of Nature Because if he never contrived the Nature of Things it is evidently in vain to search for his design in the Contrivance And herein I have a very considerable Advantage of the learned Authour that I follow for he beginning at the Dispute of the Law of Nature was forced to presume upon the Supposition of its Authour which without any Presumption I demand and challenge For having first proved all those physical Ends and Designs that he has discover'd of his Providence in all parts of Nature if after that any moral Ends and Designs discover themselves in the same things it cannot be doubted but that they are the effects of the same Providence and that plainly connects the proof of one with the demonstration of the other Now as to the former I have run through all parts of Nature and all sects of Philosophers and shewn that no one thing in the World could ever have been as it is but by the ordering of Providence and that all their several Attempts to give any other account of the Nature of Things are intolerably childish and beyond all things ridiculous And this may be presumed without any breach of modesty because Nature it self is its own demonstration
if one be true all is true if one false all is false So that if there be a Deity there must be a Law of Nature and if a Law of Nature a future State And on the contrary if no future State then no Law of Nature and if no Law of Nature no Deity So that the proof of all the rest ultimately resolves into the proof of a Deity and that being the most evident thing in Nature it gives the same evidence to all other Principles that are so inseparably connected with it And having brought our Argument to that head there we may safely leave it and challenge the assent of Mankind to both the other till they can rationally quit themselves of the belief of that And 't is for this reason chiefly that I have waved all physical Arguments for the Soul's Immortality because how valid soever they may be they cannot be so certain nor indeed any thing else as the existence of a Deity which is the most certain thing in Nature and of which I have as good assurance as of my own Being Beside I am quite tired out with the dulness of Mechanical Philosophy with which I must have engaged if I had undertaken the Physical Argument but alas when they are not able to give any tolerable account of a Stone 's falling to the Earth by meer Mechanism what wretched work are they like to make of it when they would make out all the Actions of humane Understanding by the fortuitous workings of Matter And when Mr. Hobbs tells us that Reflection upon our own Thoughts is nothing but the Reaction of one parcel of Matter upon another the Notion is just as wise and philosophical as if the witty old Gentleman had told us That when one bowling Stone beats back another the repercussion is Understanding I know some attempts of the same kind have been made by wiser Men but as long as they terminate in meer Matter and make the Brain any more than the Instrument of Conveyance between the operations of the Mind and the Body their discourse is full as wise as if they would undertake to turn Custards and Mince-pies into Philosophers or Statesmen And therefore I cared not to meddle with this part of the Argument because I must confess I was ashamed to be caught at Childs play However if there be any Mechanism as no doubt there is it is Divine Mechanism but as for that I will not be so presumptuous as to pretend to fathom it and though it were easie enough from philosophick Reasons Observations and Experiments to demonstrate that God has actually made humane Nature something more Noble yet because there is nothing in all natural Philosophy so evident as the Being of the Divine Providence and because the future state of Mankind is so apparently connected with it that alone far exceeds the evidence of all other demonstration And I have so much the rather pursued this Argument because though I find it suggested by several Authours both ancient and modern yet it is not that I know of prosecuted by any If I would have been more copious than was absolutely necessary after I had shewn that there was no account to be given of the Providence of God in the Government of Mankind without the supposition of a future State I might have run through the whole Series of humane Affairs and shewn not onely how just but how wise the Providence of God is in the management of all things upon this Supposition But alas when it is once proved that Divine Providence cannot be justified without it it will immediately and of it self clearly prove how excellently it is quitted by it All Objections from the real Vanity of this World and the seeming inequality of Justice towards good and bad Men are clear'd up by the certainty of a future reserve But the proof of this being so easie and obvious after the proof of the other it is needless to treat of it apart because it does not so much follow upon it as go along with it and at the same time we perceive that Providence cannot be justified without it we cannot but see how admirably it is justified with it Thus far may we advance by following the nature of Things and the conduct of natural Reason and it is a sufficient declaration of the will of God to Mankind supposing that he has endued them with a faculty of Understanding and that they are pleased to make use of it for if he has the connexion of these things is evident enough to any Man that will observe it but if he will not he is not capable of any kind of Information no blindness more incurable than when Men will not see But as bright as the light of Nature shines it is but a dimm thing if compared to that great glory that is reveal'd in the Gospel there Life and Immortality are brought to Light so as to be made evident not onely to our Reasons but our very Senses our belief of it is founded upon visible experiment and ocular demonstration And that is the Argument of the Second Part to demonstrate that the original proof of it is on all sides so evidently confirm'd and so advantageously guarded against all Objections that it is not possible for the wit of Mankind to have laid the same design so as to have made it more unquestionable For that is an undoubted proof of its being a contrivance of the Divine Providence in that if we would onely suppose that the Providence of God should set such a design on foot we cannot comprehend how it was possible to recommend its truth to the World with greater Advantage And as it was at first attended with all imaginable Evidence so is the Testimony whereby the knowledge of it is conveyed down to us so undoubted and uninterrupted that if we our selves had been Eye-witnesses of it we could scarce have had a greater assurance of its truth and reality in brief there are so many and so forcible Arguments to prove it apparently true that I cannot think it too much confidence to affirm that it is scarce possible to be false And therefore for the more effectual demonstration of it I have gone that way to work to make out its proof from the monstrous and infinite absurdities of Unbelief and shewn that it must believe every thing that is incredible all the contradictions to humane Nature and humane Affairs I have laid the whole stress of my Argument upon the Evidence of the matter of Fact and for its greater advantage I have leapt over fourteen Centuries and taken a prospect of things in the same posture in which they stood the three first Ages of the Church For then the History of our Saviour's Reformation was as certain and undoubted to the Men of that Age as the change of Religion under Henry the Eighth is or can be to the Men of this And here I have so closely traced the Tradition of it
hope of Immortality The vanity of Epicurus his great Antidote against the fear of Death viz. That Death cannot hurt us because when that is we are not p. 106. § XXII All the other Receits prescribed by the Philosophers against the fear of Death represented and exploded p. 113. § XXIII Without a future State no sufficient foundation for Vertue First Not for Temperance p. 120. § XXIV Secondly Not for Justice nor Magnanimity p. 124. § XXV The vanity of the stoical Philosophy represented upon its Principles neither Happiness nor Vertue without a future State p. 131. § XXVI An account of the Platonick and Peripatetick Morality out of Tully And first his consolatory Discourses in his first Book of Tusculane Questions against the fear of Death proved vain and ineffectual p. 139. § XXVII The same shewn of the Remedies prescribed in his second Book for the alleviating of Pain p. 147. § XXVIII The same shewn of the Prescriptions of the third and fourth Books against Grief and Trouble under the calamities of Life and all other perturbations of the Mind p. 151. § XXIX An account of the fifth Book where he forsakes the Peripatetick Philosophy as insufficient to his purpose and what good reasons he had so to doe p. 157. § XXX The defect of his own new way of philosophising proved in general p. 162. § XXXI That great and glorious Maxime of his Friend Brutus That Vertue is sufficient to its own Happiness proved to be a vain and empty saying without Immortality The Argument concluded p. 167. PART II. A Demonstration of the Divine Authority of the Christian Religion from the undoubted Certainty of the Matter of Fact and the uninterrupted Tradition of the Church § I. THE great advantage of the Gospel above the Law of Nature pag. 175. § II. The Evidence and Certainty of the Christian Faith demonstrated from the infinite and intolerable Absurdities of Unbelief p. 179. § III. This particularly proved according to our Saviour's own Advice in the Article of his Resurrection p. 182. § IV. The impossibility of the Apostles being false in their Testimony of it demonstrated from the first Instinct of humane Nature love of Life and desire of Self-preservation p. 184. § V. The same proved from its contradiction to all the principles of Prudence and common Understanding p. 190. § VI. The same proved from its inconsistency with and contrariety to their own design in publishing Christianity to the World p. 193. § VII The undoubted Truth of the Scripture History if written by those Persons whose names it bears p. 199. § VIII That it could not be written by any other demonstratively proved p. 204. § IX The Books of the New Testament whose Authority was sometime disputed proved to be of Apostolical Antiquity p. 207. § X. Mr. Hobbs's Witticism against the Divine Authority of the Scriptures that the Canon was first compiled by the Council of Laodicea confuted p. 210. § XI The concurrence of Jews and Heathens with the Testimony of Christian Writers p. 112. § XII Josephus and Saint Luke reconciled about the Tax of Cyrenius and the Death of Herod Agrippa p. 215. § XIII The famous Testimony of Josephus concerning our Saviour vindicated from the exceptions of Tanaquil Faber and other Criticks p. 222. § XIV The Testimony of Phlegon concerning the Eclipse at the Passion asserted p. 229. § XV. Pontius Pilate his Narrative concerning our Saviour to Tiberius and Tiberius his Opinion of it cleared p. 230. § XVI The Story of Agbarus proved genuine p. 235. § XVII The impossibility of the Apostles prevailing upon the Faith of Mankind if their Story had been false p. 239. § XVIII The speedy propagation of Christianity in all parts of the World described Philo's Therapeutae proved to have been Christians p. 241. § XIX The first disadvantage of Christianity if it had been false its being a late matter of Fact p. 251. § XX. The second disadvantage of Christianity was its contrariety to the Atheism and the Luxury of the Age in which it was published p. 256. § XXI The third disadvantage of Christianity was its defiance to the establisht and inveterate Religions of the World both Jewish and Heathen p. 259. § XXII The wonderfull success of Christianity notwithstanding all other disadvantages not to be ascribed to any thing but the greatness of that rational Evidence that it gave of its Truth p. 263. § XXIII That the Apostles planted the Christian Faith with so much speed by the power of Miracles and that it was not possible to have done it any other way p. 266. § XXIV The continuance of the same power to the next following Ages asserted and with the greatest Assurance appeal'd to by all the Advocates of Christianity in their publick Writings p. 275. § XXV The vanity of the Objection of the Ancients against the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles that they were wrought by Magick p. 283. § XXVI The vanity of the Miracles opposed by the Heathens to our Saviour particularly that of Vespasian in curing the Lame and the Blind p. 287. § XXVII An account of the evident Imposture of Apollonius Tyanaeus from his own Historian Philostratus p. 293. § XXVIII The Evidence of the Christian Faith from meer humane Tradition and that first publick by the uninterrupted succession of Bishops in the chief Churches from the Apostles p. 300. § XXIX The same proved by private Tradition and first of Saint Clement Bishop of Rome p. 308. § XXX Secondly of Saint Ignatius with an account of himself and his Epistles p. 311. § XXXI Thirdly of Saint Policarp Pothinus and Papias The wisedom of the Ancients vindicated as to the Paschal Controversie p. 320. § XXXII Of Hegesippus The purity of the primitive Church vindicated against all Innovators And Hegesippus his History against the cavils of Scaliger p. 328. § XXXIII Of Justin Martyr Irenaeus and a great number more p. 338. § XXXIV The Objection from the Infidelity of great numbers of Men in that Age answered the first ground of the Infidelity of the Jews was their invincible Prejudice in honour of Moses p. 343. § XXXV Their second great Prejudice was their expectation of a great Temporal Prince for their Messias and how they were crossed in it by our Saviour p. 349. § XXXVI Atheism the ground of the Sadducees opposing Christianity and fanatick Pride and Arrogance of the Pharisees p. 357. § XXXVII The Heathens opposed Christianity for the sake of Idolatry The Neronian Persecution onely a trick of State to secure himself from the fury of the Multitude by delivering up the Christians to it p. 363. § XXXVIII Domitian's Persecution founded upon jealousie of State against the Line of David Hegesippus vindicated in his account of it against Scaliger The jealousie both of the Emperours and the Senate about the Messias p. 370. § XXXIX An account of the following Persecutions and of the injustice and unreasonableness of their several Proceedings against
his natural Abilities and no Man will ever pretend in his behalf that he wanted sufficient Means for making the discovery And thus it is in the first and fundamental Principles of good and evil they are so legible in the whole Contrivance and all the Appearances of Nature they are so necessary to the Being and Preservation of Mankind their Equity is so apparent and their Convenience so obvious in every Action of humane Life that no man can reflect upon any thing either within or without him but it must make him sensible of their Obligation and he that does not perceive it is guilty of the same unconceivable Stupidity as the Man that should pass through the World without ever knowing that twice two make four § III. For there are but two Rules of humane Actions either the greater or the smaller Morals as the Platonists divide them The first takes in all the great and fundamental Principles of Morality whose evidence is so notorious that it is not possible for an Upright man not to discern their Goodness and Obligation and whose Usefulness is so common and diffusive and so necessary to the good of all Mankind that it is not so much as possible for any Society to subsist without some regard to their Authority and in these great and fundamental Measures of good and evil all Men and all Nations agree the most civil and the most barbarous People consent in the first Principles of natural Religion and the first Provisions of natural Justice We have no reason to believe there are any Corners in the World void of all Notices of a Deity and all sense of Humanity and though some men that may tell us any thing what they please are pleased to tell us that there are yet they give us very little ground to credit their Report because their Converse in those places was so very short and their Entercourse with those People so very imperfect and withall their Languages so utterly unintelligible to one another it is easy enough to suppose the Inhabitants might have divers Notions of which Strangers were not capable of making the least Observation no nor so much as any Enquiry at least it is sufficient to destroy the Credit of their Testimony concerning their Manners and Customs when the best Information they were capable of was so imperfect and so incompetent But however suppose there were any part of Mankind so desperately debaucht as to live without all sense of God and good Manners yet there are none so much as suspected of so great a degeneracy but such as give us too manifest Tokens of extreme Sottishness and Stupidity as to all the other Necessities and Conveniencies of Life and that live altogether like the brute-Beasts heedless and regardless of themselves and their own Natures without making any reflections upon their own Minds or emproving any observations from their own Experience Now I will not deny but that it is possible for Creatures so utterly supine and negligent to be ignorant of the most common and most obvious Notions of things For all Knowledge is the effect of some Attention and if Men will not attend they deprive themselves of all means of Information If they will not make use of their Faculties it is not the certainty nor the evidence of Truth that can force or obtrude an Impression upon their Minds and though perchance it is possible that the Almighty Power of God may overcome their Dulness yet this is violent and preternatural and it is not to be expected that he should alter the course of Nature only to repair our wilfull Sottishness for that were to destroy the Principles of all Morality and to make us uncapable of all practice of Good and Evil by forcing i. e. destroying our Wills And therefore humane Kind must be govern'd in an humane way and not be overpowred by any such forcible and vehement means as may offer violence to its Liberty So that when the Divine Providence has done all that is fit or necessary to bring them to the knowledg of their Duty it must after all be left to their own Power and the freedom of their own Choice whether they will or will not make use of the means that he has left them for that purpose And therefore as to this it matters not whether the natural Law be written upon the Mind of Man or the nature of Things For wheresoever it may be recorded or howsoever collected it cannot be drawn forth into use and practice without the help of Reflection And though it were properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain number of Propositions imprinted upon the Heart or Conscience of Man yet he may as easily take no notice of what is legible within him as not observe what is plainly deducible from the whole frame and constitution of Nature without him in that the knowledg of both depends entirely upon his own Animadversion So that if the Author of Nature have made any sufficient discovery of his Will and Pleasure either by Instinct or by the Order of Nature that is a sufficient Provision for the due government of Mankind and the common welfare of the World and though there are some few in it so monstrously dull and sottish as not to take the least notice of the most obvious Truths yet that is meerly the defect of their own Will and not any default of his Wisdom and it is enough to secure the common good that their usefulness is so great and notorious that it cannot but be observed by all that make any use of their Understandings And thus is the Consent of Nations a great proof and confirmation of the Laws of Nature for though their differences are numberless as to casual and arbitrary Customs and as to their municipal Laws and their more remote and less usefull Rules of Morality yet as for the great and fundamental Laws of Justice and Religion they are vouch't by the Catholick Consent and Practice of all known Nations both Civil and Savage The belief of a Deity the obligation of Oaths love to Parents and gratitude to Benefactors and to doe to all Men as we would be done to our selves are catholick and obligatory all the World over and are the Laws of Nations as well as Nature or as Aristotle expresses it are of the same force in all places as fire burns every where alike and is of the same use in Greece and in Persia. And these if attended to will provide competently for the great necessities and the main duties of Mankind and from them may easily be derived all other emergent and subordinate Rules of Good and Evil though it is not to be expected they should be ratified with the same consent of Nations and require an equal Obligation in all times and all places because their Usefulness is neither so great nor so certain and by consequence not so likely to be attested with the same agreement of Voices For where the Evidence is not
very easie and though there might be an hundred other ways of solving it that we cannot know at this distance yet I could not lightly pass it over because it is the onely material difference between Josephus and the Holy Scriptures For though he passes by some remarkable things that are there recorded yet in all other cases where he happens upon the same thing he makes the same Narration For the onely place beside in which he may seem to differ is in the Death of Herod Agrippa which he says hapned at the appearance of an Owl but Saint Luke by the invisible stroke of an Angel And that an Owl might then by chance appear is possible but that the meer sight of it should affect him after such a wonderfull manner is not credible notwithstanding a German Soothsayer had foretold that it should be the certain Omen of his Death That indeed might not a little disturb his Fancy but it could not naturally in a moment putrifie his Bowels into worms and rottenness But it is too manifest that Josephus through the whole course of his History too much endeavour'd to imitate the Greek and Roman Historians whose constant custom it was to ascribe all extraordinary Calamities to some portentous Omen Otherwise it is not conceivable that so strange and unheard of a misery should all on a suddain seise upon a Man in the height of all his Glory and in the very act of so great a Blasphemy without some miraculous and invisible Power So that there is scarce a greater Instance upon Record of an immediate Divine Infliction than in the miserable Death of this prophane Man And thus having cleared the Parallelism between Josephus and the Evangelists as to the most material passages of the Histories of their own times I now proceed to that particular passage of his concerning our blessed Saviour which is so full a Testimony of the Truth of the Gospel History that our learned Criticks think it too great for a Jew to give and for that reason principally suppose it to have been soisted into him in after times § XIII But upon what just grounds this surmise is built let us now consider and first let us set down the passage it self which is to this purport At this time lived Jesus a wise Man if yet it be lawfull to call him a Man for he wrought many wonderfull Works and instructed such as were willing to entertain the Truth and drew after him great numbers both of Jews and Gentiles This was Christ who being accused by the Princes of our Nation before Pilate and afterwards condemn'd to the Cross by him yet did not those who followed him from the beginning cease to love him for the ignominy of his Death For he appear'd unto them the third day after as the Divine Prophets had foretold the same and divers other wonderfull things of him and to this day the race of Christians as they are call'd after his name continue And now here first It is excellently observed by Huetius that it is very strange that so diligent a Writer as Josephus should never make the least mention of the History of so famous a Person as Jesus of Nazareth for if he has not done it here he has done it no where And yet whatever he was it is certain that under the Government of Pontius Pilate there was such a Man that pretended to be the Messias that drew great numbers of Disciples after him that instituted a new Sect of Religion that occasion'd great commotions in Judaea that was reported to have taught such peculiar Doctrines and to have done so many and so great Miracles And now after all this how is it credible that Josephus should never hear of so remarkable a Person or not think him worthy so much as to be taken notice of in his History For whatever Opinion he had of him whether good or bad it is not to be supposed that he could wholly omit to mention him in the History of that time especially when he has not omitted any of the false Pretenders to the Messiahship so that though he had thought him an Impostor he could not have wholly baulk't some mention of his History Nay when he gives so exact a description of John the Baptist and of Saint James whom to make the better known he describes by being the Brother of Jesus who is call'd the Christ how is it possible that he should never give any account of Christ himself So that how much soever it may appear incredible that Josephus should make any honourable mention of him it is much more so that he should make none at all And now when after this we come to weigh the Objections against this Testimony that have made so much noise and talk of late in the World they are so very trifling as scarce to deserve I am sure not to need any Answer For beside some Grammatical Observations in which the Criticks exercise an arbitrary Power and from which they make what determinations they please some for the Affirmative and some for the Negative the whole force of the Objection is resolved into this one Principle that Josephus in this Paragraph spoke his own sense and wrote not as an Historian but as a Confessour whereas it is evident from his own story that he was a Man of no very settled Principles according to the humour of the Age and of the Place that he lived in and so was no otherway concern'd in any Controversie than barely to deliver matter of Fact So that whereas he seems to assert that Jesus was the Christ they might as rationally conclude that Pontius Pilate believed him to be so too when he crucified him because he put this Title upon his Cross Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews and when he was solicited by the chief Priests not to write the King of the Jews but that he said I am the King of the Jews he would not yield to their importunity but answer'd them peremptorily What I have written I have written From hence I say our learned Criticks might after their rate of drawing conclusions infer that Pontius Pilate seriously believed him to be the King of the Jews that is the Messias Whereas it is evident in it self that he onely used the common form of speech when he gave him that Title which he pretended to And of the same nature is that expression of Josephus when he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This was the Christ that is this was he that was call'd the Christ a Title so appropriated to him in common speech that it was familiarly given to him by his greatest Enemies And therefore we do not make use of this Testimony of Josephus as if we design'd to gain any credit or authority from his Opinion but onely to prove from it that there was such a transaction then on foot and that there was a party of Men in the World at that time who attested the truth of all
those things that were reported concerning Jesus and if they did so we have in the Premises sufficiently proved the validity of their Testimony And that is all the use that we can pretend to make of these foreign Witnesses to evidence that there was such Testimony then given and if there was then its being given in such circumstances as it was is more than enough to maintain it self without their farther assistance Now this being premised in vain does Tanaquil Faber insist upon it that the most zealous Christian could not speak more magnificently of Christ than this unbelieving Jew For what wonder is that when the unbelieving Jew onely reports the sense of the zealous Christian In vain does he urge that Josephus was of the Sect of the Pharisees which Sect of all others bore most spleen and hatred to our Saviour For of what Sect soever he was he was far from being any of the greatest Zealots and as far from being a serious Jew as a good Christian how else could he have been so prophane as to apply all the Prophesies of the Old Testament concerning the Messias to the Person of Vespasian an Heathen and an Idolater But beside this our Authour forgets himself in objecting Josephus his being a Pharisee when a little after he informs us out of Josephus himself that he had passed through all the Sects of the Jews and had at last enter'd himself into the Discipline of Banus a Disciple and Successour of John the Baptist. And it is no wonder that a Disciple of that Institution should speak favourably of Jesus so that if we should suppose him in good earnest in his Character of our Saviour it would be no very hard supposition but that he should describe him by those Titles that his own Disciples gave him he could not avoid it of what Sect soever he were as he would quit himself like a faithfull Historian And though after his entring himself into the Discipline of Banus he join'd as himself informs us with the Sect of the Pharisees yet that was onely in outward shew and upon a political account they being then the most powerfull Party among the Jews so that by their assistance he first prefer'd himself to publick Employment and at last obtain'd the Government of all Galilee which he was so far from ruling like a Jewish Zealot that in all things he behaved himself like a Roman Gentleman and the main thing objected to him by his Enemies was his indifferency and unconcernedness as to the Ceremonies of their Religion Again in vain does our learned Critick aggravate that Jesephus should give our Saviour the Title of God when that is more than the Jews themselves believed of their Messias For it is evident that he onely uses a very common and almost proverbial form of speech nothing being more frequent with the Greek and Latin Writers whose schemes of speech Josephus every where endeavours to imitate than to give the Title of Gods to all Great and extraordinary Persons so that when Josephus gives our Saviour this Title it is the same thing as if he had styl'd him Hero or something that though a Man yet by his miraculous works seem'd greater than a Man Lastly in vain does he urge that if Josephus had believed our Saviour to be the Messias he would have explain'd to the Greeks for whose sake he wrote in their Language what was the Nature and the Office of the Messias So probably he would if he had been an Apostle and designed to convert the World to Christianity but when he writes of him onely as an Historian what concernment had he upon that occasion to run into so great a digression He told the plain Story as he had it from the Disciples of Jesus and left it to the Reader to judge of its truth or falsehood But still our Critick is much more severe in his next Injunction when he requires of the Historian that if he believed Jesus to be the Messias to have given an account of John the Baptist's being his Forerunner For whether he believed it or not I cannot see what reason or obligation he had for so doing unless it is not possible to give a compendious Character of a Person without setting down every particular circumstance of his Life and Actions But now our learned Authour advances from his Arguments to his Authorities And first of all Origen expresly asserts that Josephus did not believe Jesus to be the Christ. And I know no body that affirms he did but yet could he not give him that Title that was so familiarly given him unless too he asserted the justice of the Title All that he affirms is onely that this was the Man that was at that time call'd the Christ though he happens to express it by saying this was the Christ a very common form of speech among the Greeks to put 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was for was called And if so I hope an Historian might relate the Opinion that was had of him without declaring his own In the next place Justin Martyr and Tertullian says our Authour wrote against the Jews and if this passage had been extant in Josephus in their times it is searce credible that they should altogether overlook so remarkable a Testimony This is the hard condition that our Criticks have of late put upon all Authours to quote all that ever they reade and to think of every thing that is pertinent to their Cause but this seems too severe an imposition upon the memories of Mankind And yet supposing these Fathers were not ignorant of this passage of Josephus to what purpose should they have alledged it when it is their evident design to dispute against the Jews purely out of the writings of the Prophets and by them alone to prove Jesus to be the Christ. And if so what does the Testimony of Josephus signifie to confirm the truth of that which they had already proved by the Testimony of God himself So that these Authours were so far from being obliged by their Cause to hale in this passage that they could not but have brought it in very impertinently In short it is enough that in those Writings they appeal onely to Divine Authority and then it is no particular neglect of Josephus if he be past by as well as all other Authours of his rank and condition And thus have I given a full and exact account of all those weighty Objections that have been levied against this passage of Josephus and so leave it to all wise Men to judge whether our learned Criticks might not have better employed themselves than to raise so much noise against it to so little purpose And now having dispatch't this great Testimony of Josephus I might add to him Suetonius Tacitus the younger Pliny Seneca who give us the same relation of the great pretences of Jesus and the greater prevalency of his Religion But their Testimonies have been
were written by the first Authours of the Sect and that they could be none other is plain enough because there were no other Books beside those of the Old Testament peculiar to any Sect among the Jews But in the next place it is objected That Philo affirms that his Therapeutick Sect prayed onely twice a day whereas it is very well known that the primitive Christians had their several other hours of Prayer Yes and so they might have and Philo not know it However their most solemn seasons were Morning and Evening Prayer when as Philo tells us they resorted to their consecrated Chapels and that being their publick Devotion he therefore takes notice of that alone whereas their other hours of Prayer were rather set apart for private Devotion which was more or less frequent according to the zeal of the Votaries But Philo says he affirms that this Sect composed Hymns and those in various Measures and yet this custom is very well known not to have been used in the Christian Church till after the Reign of the Antonines It may be so in the Greek and Latin Churches but in a Church purely Jewish as it is certain this was and is so agreed to have been by all hands this custom was used from the beginning Neither was it any new Invention of the Christians but continued by them in imitation of the ancient Jewish Church But lastly says he The Men of this Sect according to Philo's description were very numerous and scatter'd all the World over whereas at that time there was but a very small number of Christians And it must be confessed that so they were if compared either to the rest of Mankind at that time or to their own multitude in after-ages And yet their numbers were very great if consider'd as they were by Philo as a philosophick Sect and so at that time Christianity was more observable than any other Sect spreading every where so fast and whereever it came prevailing so much But if this great and famous Sect that Philo speaks of were not Christians our learned Authour would have done very well to consider how it is possible that such a peculiar Sect of Men should at that time have been disperst through all parts of the habitable World and never be so much as taken notice of by any Writer of that Age but onely in this little Pamphlet of Philo. At least considering the exact agreement of the description it self to the Christians and the utter silence about any other Sect to which it might agree that seems to me no less than a demonstrative proof that it must be intended of them and of them alone And beside the evidence of the thing it self the reason of the Name is obvious enough for though as Eusebius says it is not much material to enquire whether Philo himself coind this Name as most agreeing with the manners of the Persons that he describes or whether the Christians might not have that Name given them in that place from the beginning the Name of Christians not being then used in all places yet it is but a synonymous word with that of Christians especially when turn'd out of the Hebrew into Greek for the word Jesus indifferently signifies either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Saviour or Healer and therefore it was easie for Philo who was an Hebrew-Greek to interpret it by the Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Healer especially considering its near affinity both in sound and signification to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to heal so that the meaning of the Appellation is that they were the followers of Jesus i. e. the Healer And thus having recover'd this ancient Church from the perverseness of learned Men I shall conclude this Argument with an excellent passage of Irenaeus a very early Writer in these Western parts of the World Though says he there is a vast variety of Languages in the World yet the Tradition of the Christian Faith is one and the same in all places in Germany in Spain in France in the East in Egypt in Lybia in the remote as well as in the middle parts of the World and as there is but one Sun in the Universe so are all Men every where that are disposed enlightned by the same Truth Of the Unity of this Tradition I shall discourse in its proper place at present it is enough to our purpose that we have from hence a very early Testimony of its Universality § XIX This then being so that the Christian Religion prevailed as never Doctrine did let us a little consider what extraordinary advantages it had to recommend it self to the good Opinion of Mankind and here it is at first view apparent that it laboured under all the possible disadvantages in the World excepting onely its own naked and unassisted Truth so that had it not been for that undeniable evidence of proof that it brought along with it of its Divine Authority it was impossible it should ever have gain'd one proselyte over to its belief And here the first thing to be consider'd is that the whole frame of the Christian Faith is built upon a matter of Fact and that in it self so incredible that it could not have been believed had it not been vouched by some Testimony so unquestionable as to surmount its own incredibility For the Story was plainly this That under the Prefectship of Pontius Pilate there was a poor young Man in Judaea of mean Birth and no Education who pretended to be sent from God to cancel that Law which God himself had establisht by Moses to reform all the World to bring in a more perfect rule of Life and a more excellent way of Worship and that for a proof of his Commission he pretended to a power of working Miracles and often cured the Blind the Lame the Leprous and sometimes raised the Dead but by this means drawing great multitudes after him the Governours of the Jewish State grew jealous of his designs and so apprehended him as a disturber of the publick Peace and an enemy to the establisht Religion and for those crimes condemn'd him to the ignominious death of the Cross and that they took care that he should suffer with all the aggravations of shame and disgrace in sight of all the People of Jerusalem and yet notwithstanding that his heart-bloud was let out with a Spear whilst he was hanging upon the Cross he rose again the third day conversed familiarly with his Disciples and at last in the presence of great numbers of them ascended up into Heaven Now this Story was in it self so strange and prodigious so without precedent so full of appearing inconsistencies so contrary to the prejudices of the Jews and the opinions of the Greeks and withall so publick and so notorious that if it had not been certainly true it could never have been believed and if it had been false must have been demonstratively confuted For the passages
him and after that he is kill'd he shall rise the Third day yet they understood not that saying Mark 9. 3. One would think the saying were as plain as words could make it but though they understood the Grammatical sense of them yet they were so possest with this Jewish Prejudice of his being a great Temporal Prince that nothing that seem'd inconsistent with it could enter into their heads so that the meaning of those words they understood not that saying is that they understood not how they could be reconcil'd to those Prophesies that they had of the Kingdom of the Messias And therefore upon occasion of all such Discourses they still minded him of the recovery of his Kingdom and when those hopes were buried in his Grave then all their expectations utterly dyed together with him Saint Peter thinks of returning to his old trade of Fishing And we trusted say the two Disciples that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel Luke 24. 21. And after they were assured of his Resurrection the very first thing they were sure to put him in mind of was the interest of his Crown Lord wilt thou not at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel Acts 1. 6. These were the big and swelling expectations of the whole Nation of the Jews concerning their Messias but whilst they were eagerly gazing upon the outward pomps and glories of the World the Providence of God so orders it that their Prince should slip into it cloathed in all the dresses of meanness and humility that he might have nothing to recommend him to Mankind but meer evidence of truth Every circumstance of his Birth Life and Death was design'd cross to all the Grandeur and Vanity of the World Thus was he born not at Jerusalem the Imperial City but at Bethlehem the least among the Cities of Judah not in the Town but in the Suburbs in a poor Cottage not in the dwelling House but in the Stable among Beasts and Beggars Rags were his onely Imperial Robes and his first Throne a Manger And instead of posting away Curriers to the Courts of Rome or Persia the Message of his Birth is imparted to a few plain and honest Pesants they were Shepherds a simple and innocent sort of People that made the first Address and did the first Homage to this Infant Prince And the whole progress of his Reign was but agreeable to this humble Coronation he was subject to his poor Parents and as some who were no incompetent Witnesses tell us wrought at his Fathers Trade and got his living by making of Ploughs and Yokes And after he enter'd upon his Office and declared who he was he chose for the principal place of his residence Galilee the most ignoble part of all Judaea not onely because it lay most remote from Jerusalem the place of their Court and Temple but because it was inhabited by a mixt sort of People and thence commonly styled Galilee of the Gentiles partly in that lying next to them and having more commerce with them they were not so coy of admitting them into their Kindreds as the other Jews and partly in that it was inhabited by some of those Jews that return'd from the Captivity who settled there among the Gentiles that had during the Captivity placed themselves in it so that the Galileans were lookt upon as a sort of Mungril Jews and a Galilean was little better than a name of reproach whence the Proverb Shall Christ come out of Galilee And as he chose the worst part of his Country for the chief place of his Residence though at times he shewed himself in other places but still under the disadvantage of a Galilean so he chose the meanest of his Country-men for the Ministers of his Kingdom Fishermen a poor and beggarly sort of People and yet they were made so much the poorer by being his Disciples We have left all says Peter to follow thee and this mighty all was nothing but a few tatter'd Nets but yet with them were they able to get a small maintenance for their Families whereas when they left their Trade to follow him they became perfect Beggars for the Foxes have holes c. Nay what was still a greater condescension he conversed not onely with the meanest but as his Office required with the worst of Men Publicans and Sinners the most hated and most scandalous Persons insomuch that his Enemies took advantage from it to reproach himself as a Person that lived a Life of Looseness and Debauchery And thus he past on through perpetual Affronts Reproaches and Calumnies till he purposely went up to Jerusalem to deliver up himself into the hands of his Enemies and with what Scorn Insolence and Cruelty he was there treated and with what Meekness Patience and Humility he there behaved himself I need not here represent They indeed put upon him a royal Robe but it was in Derision they crown'd him but it was with Thorns they bowed the Knee before him bâ—â— it was in Mockery and they writ him King of the Jews but it was upon his Cross where he suffer'd himself to be executed with two Thieves and that in the midst of them as the greatest Villain of the three All which as he suffer'd for other weighty ends so not least of all in order to his Resurrection partly because that being design'd as the ground-work of his Religion the Providence of God took particular care to make it stand upon its own unassisted Evidence and for that purpose not onely laid it so very deep but clear'd away every thing that might seem to give it the least Assistance partly because being the most material Article of our Faith and withall most difficult to be believed God was pleased to confirm its truth by sensible Experience As Arnobius has very well observed Cumque novitas rerum inaudita promissio audientium turbaret mentes credulitatem faceret hoesitare virtutum omnium Dominus atque ipsius mortis extinctor hominem suum permiserit interfici ut ex rebus consequentibus scirent in tuto esse spes suas quas jamdudum acceperant de animarum salute nec periculum mortis aliâ se posse ratione vitare When the strangeness of the Doctrine and the greatness of the promise of immortal Happiness amazed Men's Minds and stumbled their Belief the Lord of all Power and Conquerour of Death permitted his humane Nature to be slain that from his Resurrection and those things that followed after his Death they might be assured of the truth of their Faith as to the future Salvation of their Souls Now this humble Appearance of Jesus being design'd so utterly cross to the proud and revengefull expectations of the Jews who thirsted for the coming of their Messias onely to be avenged of all their Enemies it did not onely raise their prejudice â—ut their indignation against him But especially when he took upon him the great Prerogative of the Messias and
thing and after that when Men reported that to have been done which they knew impossible to be done what followed but away with them for idle Cheats and Lyars And therefore without ever examining them they thrust them into Prison with all manner of scorn and indignation Acts 5. 17 18. Secondly as for the Pharisees who were of the greatest power and reputation with the People they were a strange sort of ignorant supercilious and conceited Fanaticks And there is no temper of Mind so fixed and stubborn as religious Pride and Self-conceitedness 't is of all Illusions the most delightfull to the minds of Men and when they are once throughly possest with it it barrs up their Understandings against all Arguments it takes away the use of their natural Faculties and to go about to convince them of their folly and hypocrisie is onely to provoke their rage and choler This was the state of the case between our Saviour and the Pharisees They pretended to the strictest Piety and valued themselves at a mighty rate beyond all other Men for the singularity and exactness of their devotion And yet this they placed not in any conformity to the Divine Laws but in the observation of some vain Customs and Traditions derived from their Forefathers Now this being so gross and so foolish an Imposture our Saviour set himself particularly to represent its vanity and took all occasions to convince them that they had utterly forsaken the Law of Moses for which they pretended so much reverence and that the Customs they were so fond of were no part of his Religion because no where injoin'd in his Law but meer arbitrary conceits of their own devising And this it was that raised their displeasure against him to so great an height of hatred and indignation that a Person who pretended to so great an Office and Authority as that of the Messias should represent them so contemptibly in his publick and constant discourses to the People And therefore instead of considering the nature and truth of his Doctrine they all along set themselves to trapan him in his Discourses and minded nothing else but to pursue their revenge against him and never rested till they had wrecked all their malice upon him as the mortal Enemy of their Sect. Now 't is no wonder that Persons of this complexion were so strangely blinded against all that evidence that our Saviour gave of his Divine Commission For none so blind as those that will not see and none so wilfull as those that are in love with themselves and no self-love so doting as that which is grounded upon a false conceit of Sanctity and Religion And yet notwithstanding this some of the more ingenuous among them as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were overcome by the Divinity of his Works and afterward even Gamaliel himself was startled at them For the advice he gave to let the Apostles alone seem'd to have proceeded meerly from the unsettledness of his own Mind that was not then throughly satisfied concerning the truth or falshood of their pretences And the truth is his advice took with the Sanhedrin not from the reason of the thing but the authority of the Man for otherwise it was but very foolish Counsel that if this Work be of Men it would of its own accord come to nought for by that principle they must give liberty to all the Impostors in the World to disturb as much as in them lies the publick peace and quiet of Mankind But when it was doubtfull as it then seem'd to him lest haply by punishing the Apostles they might be found to fight against God upon this supposition it was not onely wise but pious advice to stay for a little farther tryal of the Cause before they undertook its utter extirpation And it is not a little observable that though some of the Pharisees were shockt out of their Prejudices the Sadducees were all impregnable for we no where reade that any of them were ever converted to the Christian Faith and the reason is plain because their first Principle supposed its truth utterly impossible and then they would not so much as enquire after it or hear any thing concerning it But the Pharisees not lying under this invincible Prejudice were notwithstanding all their other great hindrances in some capacity of conviction So that though we find that notwithstanding they were at first the fiercest Enemies to our Saviour's Doctrine yet afterwards they were out-stript by the Sadducees in their zeal and fury against it For as in the Gospels the Pharisees are every where noted as his most implacable Enemies so in the Acts of the Apostles after our Saviour's Resurrection the Sadducees are remarked as their most bitter and vehement Prosecutors And now this I think may be a sufficient account of the Incredulity of the Jews notwithstanding our Saviour gave all that Evidence of his Authority that we pretend he did And it is obvious enough to any Man that understands humane Nature to apprehend how easie a thing it is for Men not onely byassed but pressed down by all these Prejudices to avoid or neglect the force of all the Arguments and Demonstrations in the World § XXXVII And thus having described the several unreasonable Prejudices that withheld so many of the Jewish Nation from embracing of the Christian Faith we proceed now in the last place to the grounds that the Heathens went upon in their Opposition to it And these were as much more absurd and unreasonable than those of the Jews as was their Religion For that the Jews had some appearance of pretence against our Saviour's alteration in Religion we have already shewn in that it was own'd by himself to have been establisht by Divine Authority But as for the War that the Heathen World raised against it they grounded it upon such false Principles as though Christianity it self had been false betray their own folly and absurdity Atheism and Contempt of God and all Religion was their master-objection against the Christians and the onely thing they set up and contended for in opposition to it was their own wretched Idolatry and Superstition both which are too great demonstrations of an invincible prejudice and inflexible partiality And they are both so very absurd that which is most so 't is very hard to determine For whatever the Christians were guilty of it is certain that they were at the greatest distance from Atheism of any party of Men in the World And as for the Religion of the Gentiles it was so grosly wicked and foolish that it was impossible for any wise Man to embrace it without affronting both God and his own Conscience This was the true state of the Controversie between them they never enter'd into the debate of the matter of Fact or so much as once enquired into the merits of the Cause but for this reason alone they reputed all Christians as vile and profligate Persons because they would not join
illic reperietis primum Neronem in hanc sectam cum maximè Romae orientem Caesariano gladio ferocisse Sed tali dedicatore damnationis nostrae etiam gloriamur Qai enim scit illum intelligere potest non nisi grande aliquod bonum à Nerone damnatum Tentaverat Domitianus portio Neronis de crudelitate sed qua homo facile coeptum repressit restitatis etiam quos relegaverat If you search your own Records you will find that Nero was the first Emperour that imbrued his hands in Christian Blood but we glory in the hatred of such an Enemy as Nero for whoever knows the Man cannot but know that it must be some very great good thing that Nero hates And Domitian too a piece of the same cruelty made the same attempt but having in him either some little humanity or the inconstancy of Mankind for which of these Tertullian means by his qua homo is altogether ambiguous he desisted from his design and revoked his own proscriptions § XXXIX The Third Persecution hapned under the Reign of Trajan and was set on foot upon variety of designs all which were very remote from any fair Inquiry into the cause of Christianity it self The first was the old jealousie of our Saviour's Kindred and the Line of David and this as Hegesippus informs us was started by the Jews and the Gnosticks against Symeon the Son of Cleophas the Brother of Joseph then Bishop of Jerusalem and that at a time when all the Royal Family of Judah wer sought after and dispatched out of the way as pretended Rivals of the Empire And for this reason was this good Old man put to death in the Hundred and one and twentieth year of his Age. The Second motive of this Persecution was the Emperour's great jealousie of those Societies call'd Heteriae that had often created great mischief and trouble to the Empire and therefore for the prevention of such disturbances he strictly forbad all manner of associations and publick meetings and in this point of Government he was so peremptory that when Pliny moved him to erect a Corporation of Smiths at Nicomedia as a great convenience to the City he would by no means be induced to allow it Now the Assemblies of Christians being grown numerous they fell under the edge of this Law and it was accordingly executed against them by the Governours and Pro consuls in their several Provinces It is commonly supposed that this Edict against these Illegal Societies was published on purpose to ensnare the Christian Meetings and it is possible it might be so yet there is no ground for it in History but on the contrary it is manifest that this Emperour was possest with a particular jealousie against all kinds of Assemblies as appears in the foremention'd case of the Smiths of Nicomedia And that he had no particular design against the Christians is evident from his answer to Pliny's Letter by which he inform'd the Emperour how he had executed this Edict in his Province against them and what numbers he had punished for their obstinacy against the Law but having made enquiry into the design of their meetings he was sufficiently satisfied of the innocence of the men and therefore desires directions from him after what manner he should proceed against them or whether at all The Emperour upon this account that he received of the peaceableness of the Christians takes off the severity of his Edict against them and gives instructions that they should not be sought for as being really innocent yet if they were accused and Convicted they should be punished according to Law that is for the good example of Government This seems to have been all that Emperour's design in his Laws and Proceedings against the Christians otherwise certainly he would never have remitted the Execution of a Law of which he was so tender onely for their sakes But because this was the first Prosecution in which we meet with any thing like legal Proceedings against the Christians I shall give an account of all the unjust and unreasonable methods of procedure against them both in this and the following Persecutions and so without troubling the Reader with a distinct Narrative of every one give him a true State of the grounds and reasons of all and from thence it will evidently appear that they proceeded not upon any sober enquiry but were meerly driven on by brutish folly and madness The heads of their accusation then were either real or feigned the feigned were apparently the contrivances of malice and the real were as apparently the charges of folly as I shall shew in each particular The first and great charge of all was the Christians contempt of their Gods and Religion But here the cause of Paganism was so foul and brutish that it was the most dishonourable abuse that ever was put upon humane nature and were not the matter of fact undeniably evident it would have been incredible that Mankind should ever sink into such a senseless stupidity The Barbarous People whom the Greeks and Romans so much despised Worshipped onely the Heavenly Bodies but these Polite these Civilised these Philosophical Nations deified the worst of things and the worst of men and replenisht Heaven with such a rout of Deities as made it look more like a Jail full of Rogues and Villains than an Habitation of Gods and they relate such foul things of them that one would scarce believe such ill reports of the vilest of Men and if their Enemies would have set themselves to have contrived Stories that might render them odious and contemptible the blackest calumnies they could have fastned upon them must have fall'n short of the extravagance of their own Reports And as were their Gods such was their Worship too all lewdness and Debauchery and such things were acted in their Temples as were not allowed in the publick Stews The foulest uncleannesses were their highest Devotions How lascivious and obscene were the Ceremonies of Cibele Priapus Flora and Venus who were Worshipt with nothing but the vilest Lust and Wantonness So foul and beastly were the celebrated Mysteries of Bacchus that the Senate of Rome it self was at last forced to banish them out of Italy as the foulest example of Lust and Debauchery In short the prodigious Stories that they told of their greatest Deities Saturn Jupiter Ceres or the Mother of the Gods as much exceeded the wickedness of Mankind as Heaven is higher than the Earth Though the truth is they represented them much worse than they were whilst they made them work Miracles to compass their brutish ends for when all is done they were neither better nor worse than Mortal Men. Saturn and Jupiter were known Tyrants in Crete Apollo a common Fidler the Muses Servant Maids AEsculapius a Tooth drawer in Arcadia Venus a known Strumpet to Cinyras King of Cyprus not long before the Trojan War These and like these were the Gods they Worshipt and how this folly first
trick upon himself as to think of bringing down the History of Moses below the known times of Greece As for the Eternity of the World which follows next I shall not answer him here because if it were true as I have elsewhere proved it false it runs too far from the present Argument of the truth of our Saviour's History And as for Moses his commanding the Jews to Worship Angels I scorn to answer it because it is so impudently false when the great Commandment of his Law is to Worship one God alone and when himself had but a very little before objected this as a singularity in the Jews against all the World beside And then as for our Saviour's being a Magician I hope I may now let that pass too without being suspected as guilty of any Omission And as for his Meanness and Poverty I think I have sufficiently accounted for that too already in that it was but suitable to the design of the Divine Providence that he should be sent into the World stript of all Worldly advantages that he might subdue it purely by the power of Truth And therefore that alone is to be consider'd in this Enquiry whether he wrought such Miracles in Confirmation of his Doctrine or not if he did the meanness of his condition is no objection against the truth of his Miracles if he did not he is to be rejected for a much worse objection Nay this is so far from bringing any real disadvantage upon the Christian cause that it brings a considerable accession to its demonstrative proof and evidence In so much that without it it must have ever been lyable to suspicion for if he had appear'd with Kingly splendour and all the advantages of earthly power the strange and wonderful entertainment of his Doctrine might have been imputed to Worldly Interest and not to the force of truth and Men would have followed him for politick Ends and not for any Conscience of Religion And therefore to be secure of the Integrity of his Disciples he gives them no secular Encouragement nay on the contrary ensures to them all the miseries of humane life in their propagation of the Christian Faith His Institution was pure Religion and conscience towards God was its onely Obligation and therefore it was but agreeable to its own intention that it should carry along with it no other recommendation And thus I remember when Julian objects the meanness of our Saviour's condition in that he was born a Subject of the Empire which as he fancies was below the dignity of the Son of God St. Cyril answers that if he had appear'd with Imperial Power and by virtue of that commanded the Obedience of Mankind Men must have submitted to him for Worldly Interest and not out of any sense of duty or Religion and he had been just such another Deity as Caligula and the rest of their Emperours were who forced Men in spite of themselves to give them the shew of Divine honour by their own Laws And whereas you object sayes he that he was subject to Caesar what is that to the purpose when he did such things as neither Caesar nor any other Man ever did He raised Men from the Dead did any of your Caesars ever doe so What then if he were subject to Caesar it is evident from his Works that he was greater and they alone demonstrate him to have been the same Person that he pretended to be So that being the Son of God he scorn'd all your outward pomps and shews of Majesty and would receive no honour but what reflected upon him from the glory and greatness of his own Works To which might be added Origen's reply that it is no wonder for Men that have all the advantages of Birth and Fortune to make themselves considerable in the World but this is the thing that is most wonderful in Jesus that a Person so obscure upon all Worldly accounts should raise himself to so great a fame and reputation that a Man so poor and meanly Educated and never instructed in the arts of Eloquence should take upon him to convert the World to a new Doctrine to Reform the Religion of the Jews and to abolish the Superstition of the Greeks and yet that without any force or Artifice he should so speedily effect what he undertook this sayes he is a thing singular in him and was never done by any Man that I know of in any other Age. Nay farther beside the obscurity of his Life and all other things designedly laid to Eclipse his Glory his ignominious death one would think should have put it out for ever and that even those that he had deluded in his Life-time should then have been convinced of the grossness of the Imposture And therefore it is most wonderful of all that if the Apostles had never seen our Saviour after his Resurrection or had no assurance of his Divinity how it could ever come into their minds to leave their Country and expose themselves to all hazards and hardships to publish and propagate the belief of a known falsehood So that we see that the meanness of that State in which our Saviour appear'd is so far from being any material Objection against his Divine Authority that upon several accounts in the last result of things it lyes at the bottom of itsdemonstration In the next place he flouts at the Relation of the appearance of the Holy Ghost and the voice from Heaven at our Saviour's Baptism as a thing in it self absurd and incredible But here the Epicurean forgets that he is a Jew in that there are many Relations of such appearances in the Old Testament which yet if this objection hold good every Jew is bound to believe false and impossible But to treat with him as an Epicurean why is it impossible Because all Stories of God's concerning himself in Humane affairs are undoubted Fables An admirable way this of confuting a matter of fact onely by saying that it is impossible upon a precarious Principle of our own So that the last result of this rude objection against the Faith of the Evangelists is onely this that it cannot be true because there is no such thing as a Divine Providence But he adds that there was no witness of it but onely John the Baptist his Companion in wickedness And this is another unhappy mistake of a Man that sustein'd the Person of a Jew when all the Jewish Nation even the greatest Enemies to Jesus had a very great Reverence for John the Baptist. And yet it is not his Testimony that we rely upon for the truth of the Story but the truth of the Evangelists that have Recorded it they knew what Evidence they had of its reality and we know what evidence we have of their sincerity And now having discharged all his little Topicks of Calumny against our Saviour's own Person in the last place he falls foul upon his Apostles and that with the same unhappy success For
of so ridiculous a surmise And he has no ground to bear him out in it but onely his Epicurean conceit that the Resurrection from the dead is a thing impossible But as for that we will not dispute it with him at present though it is evident that according to the Principles both of their own and all Philosophy it is altogether as easie and conceivable as the generation of a Man The matter of Fact what has been is the onely Argument of our debate and we will not go so far about as to dispute its possibility when we have demonstrated its actual certainty And yet in the conclusion of all Celsus after he has taken so much pains and that in the Person of a Jew to prove the impossibility of a Resurrection is so wretchedly sottish as to declare his own belief of the Resurrection even of the Body to eternal Life and that the first proof and specimen of it is to be given to the World by the Messias In the third Book he begins to dispute in his own Person and first objects that the dispute between the Christians and Jews was of no moment in that both believed that there was to be a Saviour of the World and onely differ'd in this whether he were already come or were yet to come And yet this beside the gross absurdity of the Objection it self is a meer contradiction to all the former Discourse by the personated Jew For if the difference between the Jews and the Christians were so small as he pretends then all the sad out-cries and invectives of the Jew against the Christians were onely clamorous Nothings But this is objected like an Atheist that lookt upon these and all other differences about Religion as trifling Fooleries And therefore Origen in answer to it shews him the excellency of both in the Worship of the supreme Deity as opposed to the folly and impiety of the Heathen Idolatry But beside that as for the difference between the Jews and the Christians concerning our Saviour nothing but extreme ignorance could have objected its Vanity For is it nothing whether he were the promised Messias the Son of God the Saviour of the World the Judge of Mankind as the Christians believed or whether he were a bold Impostor that pretended to these great Titles onely by virtue of magick Art as the Jews believed If the first were true that commands the obedience of all Mankind to his Laws as the onely terms of Salvation and if so then nothing could more concern them than to be satisfied in its truth and reality So that it is so far from being a trifling Controversie as Celsus foolishly objects that there was never any Controversie started in the World of greater concernment to Mankind But the Epicurean's real meaning is that all Controversies about Religion are trifling because all Religion is a Cheat and if it be so then indeed it is but a childish thing to contend about it But otherwise if there be a Providence that governs the World then certainly if any thing in the World does it highly concerns all Men to inform themselves of those certain rules of Duty that he has prescribed to their practice But against both Religions the Epicurean objects that they began in Sedition the Jewish against the Egyptians and the Christian against the Jews But in the first he supposes the Jews to have been originally Egyptians which because it is a vain and proofless presumption can prove nothing And yet it is much more vain to charge Christianity with Sedition because all Sedition either designs or acts some violence against the Government whereas it is evident that our Saviour allowed no Weapons to his Followers but Sufferings and has threatned no one offence with greater severity than endeavours of disturbance to the civil State under pretence of Religion So that it is plain that if his Religion be true it could not have been brought in more inoffensively to the powers of the World And therefore it cannot with any ingenuity be charged with Sedition till its truth or falsehood be first determin'd For that is the onely Controversie in this matter which if Celsus and his Partisans had but the courage to undertake they would have had no need of these petty and remote reflections The next Cavil is that the Christians affected nothing but singularity Very likely this when so many of them travel'd into all parts of the World with the extreme hazard of their Lives to convert if it were possible all Mankind to Christianity But though they seem'd to agree at first they afterward divided into Factions But this is an objection against the levity of humane Nature not the truth or excellency of Christianity For beside what Origen answers that there was never any thing of great reputation in it self or usefulness to the World about which Men did not raise disputes and make parties I would onely ask him Whether supposing the truth of Christianity it was not in the power of Men to raise Controversies about it if it was then their doing so is no objection against it if it was not that is to say no Religion can be true unless it bring a fatal necessity upon all that pretend to it to be both wise and honest which is such an awkerd condition of things as destroys not onely all the Principles of Religion but of humane Nature it self But says he they scare the People with Fables and Bugbears Tell what says Origen beside future Rewards and Punishments We indeed believe that there is a sovereign Governour of Mankind and that hereafter he will sit in Judgment upon all our Actions And in this belief we instruct the People out of the holy Scriptures and exhort them to live as they ought that must give an account of themselves to the great Governour of the World These indeed are Fables to an Atheist and an Epicurean but not to any Man that believes any thing of the Providence of God or the Obligations of Religion And that is the thing that Celsus writes against not meerly Christianity onely he is fiercest in his opposition to that because it is so full a check to his impiety though otherwise the main of his Objections that he levels against that aim as directly against all Religion And thus the Bugbears of a future State with which he here upbraids Christianity are common to all Mankind but onely his own Sect. And though he would make us believe that he would not for all the World take away the Opinion of Rewards and Punishments in the next Life this Vizor is too ridiculously put upon an Epicurean 't is too gross a contradiction to himself and he renounces his first Principle to impose upon the People but though they indeed may easily be imposed upon by any thing as they were by his Master Epicurus who frequented their publick Sacrifices to make himself sport at home with the folly of their Superstition yet he should never
Doctrine But how much greater violence do these Men offer to the convictions of their own Reason and Conscience that submit to the Authority and yet despisé the Obligation of his Laws This is more palpable Blasphemy and the Man that is guilty of it is so much worse than a professed Infidel as Judas was worse than a common Pharisee He in some measure believed his Master to be the true Messias and yet betrayed him and so is every vicious Christian guilty of the same traiterous Wickedness He believes our Saviour to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the World and yet behaves himself towards him as if he really believed him a Cheat and an Impostor This Man sins knowingly against all the Obligations of his Duty and his Conscience and every act of disobedience is not onely an Affront to his Reason as it was in the Pharisees but to his Faith as it was in Judas What a strange contradiction is a vicious Christian both to himself and his Profession 'T is so great that to me I must confess it is an unconceivable instance of Sottishness that any Man should in good earnest believe that the Divine Providence should after such a miraculous manner engage it self for the contrivance and procurement of Man's Felicity and that to this purpose the Son of God himself should come into this lower World to carry on the work of our Redemption and should suffer all the Agonies of an ignominious Death for the expiation of our Sins and when he had recover'd us into a capacity of Happiness and put us into a condition of peaceable entercourse with his Father he should prescribe to us some Laws of Life to keep and continue us in that state into which he had redeemed us and that to secure all he had enforced them by the most powerfull motives of obedience and establisht their obligation upon no less Sanction than the certain assurance of Happiness or Misery in the Life to come I say to me it is an unconceivable brutishness that any Person who seriously believes these things should act so grosly against his own Interest against all the reasons of things and against the strongest inducements both of his Hopes and Fears as to live in a daring and habitual disobedience to any of the Laws of Christianity What an intolerable aggravation must it be of their Wickedness whilst it is committed against all the endearments of Love and Goodness and all the inducements of Interest and Ingenuity i. e. against all the obligations that it is possible to lay upon the Minds of Men. And to this purpose the Apostle discourses very appositely Heb. 2. 3 4. How shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation which at the first was published by the Lord and was confirm'd unto us by them that heard him God also bearing witness to them with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost Here lay the emphasis that aggravated the neglect of their Salvation that God had sent his own Son into the World to preach and to procure it that he had given us the greatest assurance of it by the undoubted Testimony of Eye-witnesses and that he had farther confirm'd the truth of their Testimony by the wonderfull gifts of the Holy Ghost and the undeniable power of Miracles After all these Motives and all this Assurance if any Man can be so wretched as to neglect so easie conditions of so great Salvation how is it possible he should escape the just reward of his desperate and incurable stupidity For what should prevail upon such Minds as are proof against such Motives And yet as strange as this appears what do we find more vulgar when a wicked Believer is so far from being thought a Monster in our Age that there is scarce a greater Prodigie in it than an entire true Christian. The true spirit of our Religion seems to be fled to Heaven with its primitive Professours and there is scarce any such thing as real Christianity to be found in the World i. e. a serious and habitual conformity to all its Laws and whatever Men may doe or pretend without this it may be Humour or Faction or any thing but Religion No design how great soever less than this was worthy our Saviour's Embasly and when the Son of God was sent on an Errand into the World it could not be of any less concernment than its Reformation The last scope of all the mystery of Godliness is onely to oblige all Mankind to be good and vertuous and the Man that will not be so defeats all the love and wisedom of Heaven in sending the Holy Jesus into the World And therefore let me challenge my Reader as he would not frustrate the whole design of our Saviour's Birth as he would not baffle the truth of all those Prophesies concerning the innocence and the purity of the Lives of Men under the reign of the Messias and as he would not hereafter with that his Saviour had never been born nor himself neither that he would be carefull for his own part to answer the end of his Incarnation and let him see by the vertue and holiness of his Life that he was born to some purpose and that he died not in vain Nay let me challenge all Christendom not to give him occasion to complain Have I deserted Heaven and all its glories and exposed my self to all the shame and misery upon Earth have I wrestled with all the malice of Men and Devils have I lived and died in disgrace and suffer'd all sorts of affronts and ill usages to restore the practice and reputation of Vertue to this lower World And is this all the Issue of the travel of my Soul that I have onely founded a new Faction of Men in the World that are not to be distinguisht from the rest of Mankind by any thing else than that they signalize themselves by the name of Christians Is this all the purchase of my Bloud to be onely followed by a few wicked and vicious Proselytes I had as good have suffer'd the World to continue in its degenerate state of Heathenism as doe and suffer all that I have done onely to give a new name to those parts of it call'd Christendom without reforming their old manners I neither design nor accept any other separation of my Church from other parts of Mankind than what is made by the Vertue the Innocence and the Holiness of their Lives Without this all their pretended Faith in and Zeal for my Institution is to me no better than scandal and impudent Hypocrisie and serves to no other purpose than to aggravate their Impiety and increase their Punishment And in truth what can more provoke our Saviour's displeasure than Christian Wickedness This brings disgrace and dishonour upon his Religion and prostitutes it to the scorn of Atheists and Infidels It breaks through all the best Rules of Duty and strongest Obligations to Obedience
unquestionable proofs in the World § XX. This is the first invincible Impediment of Christianity supposing it had been false but whether true or false it labour'd under many other great disadvantages that it could never have surmounted but by the irresistible evidence and certainty of its truth And the first is its contrariety to the Vice and Wickedness of that Age in which it was first divulged The World being at that time as is evident from the Records that are left of it extreamly debaucht both in its Manners and Principles For Julius Caesar having violated all the Laws of his Countrey and overthrown the old Government that had always kept up a generous sense of Vertue and Integrity and by that means chiefly raised it self to that vast Greatness that afterwards so much exposed it to the attempts of ambitious Men. For though that spirit began to work in the time of Marius and passed down through all the great Men Cinna Sulla and Pompey all of them struggling for the sole Sovereignty of so vast an Empire the design was never compleatly compassed but by the boldness and activity of Julius Caesar. Now the success of the Caesarean Faction that were generally Atheists and Epicureans against the Patriots of the old State that were as generally eminent for Worth and Honour Vertue and Integrity and Zeal for the publick Good made the thriving Principles and Practices quickly come into Fashion and Reputation with the World And after the Death of Brutus we find no such thing as an ancient Roman but what he said in passion was seriously and universally embraced as a great truth That Vertue was nothing but an empty name So that if we survey the Roman History before and after the Usurpation of Caesar it does not look like the History of the same Nation the former abounding with the bravest examples of Gallantry and Magnanimity whereas in the latter we are generally entertain'd with no other politicks than Fraud and Treachery Even the admired wisedom of the great Augustus himself was no better than craft and dissimulation And though his Successour Tiberius be particularly remarqued for that Vice it was onely because he was not able to act his part so artificially as his Predecessour had done who dyed with that particular comfort to himself that he had so skilfully played the Comedy of humane Life and certainly of all Princes upon Record he had the most subtile faculty of appearing highly honest without any design of ever being so In short under his Reign all the Principles of Atheism and Impiety were prevalent in the Court of Rome that then prescribed Manners to the best part of the then known World neither were their Practices disagreeing to their Principles for as they cast off all restraints of Vertue and Modesty so they entirely devoted themselves to Luxury and Sensuality and studied nothing else than to emprove their bruitish Pleasures to the utmost extravagance of Enjoyment And as was the great Court of Rome so were all the other lesser Courts of their several Prefects and Governours And that not onely by imitation but by the natural baseness of the Men themselves Scarce any but the worst of Men that is Epicureans and Vilains by Principle being prefer'd by J. Caesar to Authority in the Empire though things grew much worse under the Tyranny of Mark Anthony a Man kneaded up of Lust and Malice and the onely reason why he was not more of each was because he was all both for he would never unless for the sake of his Lust quit his Cruelty nor ever unless to satisfie his Cruelty forsake his Lust and as himself was made up of all manner of Baseness so he would advance none to preferment but such as had recommended themselves to his good liking by their more than ordinary Wickedness And for that reason it was that Judaea and the parts about it were at that time more over-run with Vice and Debauchery than in any former Age in that Herod one of the vilest Men that ever lived had by the patronage of Mark Anthony obtain'd their Government and by a long Reign over them after his Patron 's Death under Augustus had familiarised all manner of the most licentious Wickedness to the People even so much that one half of the leading Men even among the Jews themselves that had been so famous through all Ages for their reverence to their Religion were no better than open and avowed Atheists Now how was it possible for such a Doctrine as Christianity that consists of Precepts of Chastity and Sobriety of Truth and Honesty of Kindness and Charity and of renouncing the Pleasures of this Life for the Rewards of another to make its way into such a wicked World as this Men of atheistical Principles are of all others the most stubborn and inflexible they scorn all manner of better Information and will not endure to enquire into the truth of any thing that might possibly undeceive them so that there is no way to overcome Persons so prejudiced and so conceited unless we can by the meer evidence of things force them into conviction And as for Men of luxurious Lives they have neither Mind nor Leisure to attend to any thing that may reclaim them It is Pain to them to think of parting with their Pleasures they will labour to preserve them upon any terms and as long as they are able to resist no information shall be able to fasten on them and therefore when the Christian Religion so suddenly reformed infinite numbers from all sorts of Vices it must have brought along with it a real Evidence equal to its pretended Authority for as it pretended to a Divine Commission by virtue whereof it required strict Obedience to all its Commands so it must have proved the reality of its Commission by such certain Evidence that it was not possible for the most refractory Persons to withstand its force and therefore when we find such multitudes so wonderfully prevail'd upon to quit their most beloved Lusts and Vices we have reason from thence onely to conclude that they were more than convinced of the undeniable truth of its pretences § XXI The next disadvantage of Christianity was its bold and open defiance to the establisht and inveterate Religions of the World For of all prejudices those of Religion are the strongest and the older they are the deeper root they take And therefore when its Enemies could plead the antiquity of many hundred years against it it could not but be a very difficult task to perswade them out of such an ancient Prescription It s meer Novelty was an Objection of no small force but when a new and upstart Religion would not be content with its own Authority but must disgrace all the settled Religions in the World and refuse its own settlement unless they may be utterly extirpated this could not but seem too sawcy a demand especially to Princes and great Men to require of them not onely