promised Land and others those when they were re-established by visible Miracles To convince the incredulity of a People who were wholly devoted to their Senses God took a long extent of Ages in which he distributed his Miracles and his Prophets that so he might often renew the sensible Testimonies by which he attested his holy Truths In the New Testament he tooks another conduct He would no more reveal any thing anew to his Church after Jesus Christ In him was perfection and fulness and all the Divine Books that have been composed in the New Testament were made in the times of the Apostles That is to say that the Testimony of Jesus Christ and of those whom Jesus Christ hath been pleased to choose for the Witnesses of his Resurrection hath been sufficient for the Christian Church All that has come since has edified it but it has not been looked upon as purely inspired by God but what the Apostles have written or what they have confirmed by their Authority But in that difference which is found between the Books of the two Testaments God hath always observed that admirable order of making things to be written just at the times when they happened or at least when the memory of them was very fresh And so those that knew them wrote them those that knew them received the Books which bore witness of them and both the one and the other have left them to their Posterity as a most precious and invaluable Inheritance and they most carefully and piously have preserved them And thus was formed the Body of the Holy Scriptures as well the Old as the New Testament Scriptures which from their Original have been regarded as true in the whole as given by God himself and which have been also kept with that great Religion that it was thought none could dare to alter the least Letter of it without a strange Impiety And thus it was that they came down to us always holy always sacred always inviolable the one kept by the constant Tradition of the Jews and the other by the Tradition of the Christians so much the more certain as it was confirmed by the Blood and Martyrdom as well of those who wrote those Divine Books as of them that received ' em St. Austin and the other Fathers demand upon whose Faith we attribute the profane Books to certain Times and Authors Aug. cont Faust 11. 2. 32. 21. 33. 6. Every one readily answers that the Books are distinguished by the different Relations they have to the Laws Customs and Histories of a certain Time by the Stile it self which bears impressed the Character of particular Ages and Authors and more than all that Iren. 1.2.17 Tertul. adv Marc. 4. l. 4 5. Aug. de utilit ced 3. 17. cont Faust Manich. 22. 79. 28. 4. 32. 33. Cont. adv leg Porph. 1. 20. c. by the publick Faith and by a constant Tradition All these things concur to the establishment of the Divine Books to distinguish the Times and to mark out the Authors of them and the more Religion there was in preserving them entire the more indisputable is the Tradition which preserved them for us Thus hat it been always acknowledged not only by the Orthodox but also by Hereticks and even by Infidels Moses has ever passed in all the East and afterwards in all the World for the Legislator of the Jews and for being the Author of those Books that are attributed to him The Samaritans who had received them from the ten separated Tribes have as religiously kept them as the Jews You have seen their Tradition and their History Two People so opposite took them not one from the other but both received them from their Common Original in the Times of Solomon and David The ancient Hebrew Characters which the Samaritans still retain do sufficiently shew that they have not followed Esdras who changed them Thus the Pentateuch of the Samaritans and that of the Jews are two compleat Originals independant one on the other The perfect conformity that is seen in the substance of the Texts justifies the Sincerity of both those People They are faithful Witnesses that agree without understanding one another or to speak better who agree together notwithstanding all their Enmities V. sup 1. part p. 24 25 34 49 59 63 80 86 87. and which only Immemorial Tradition of both Parties hath united in the same mind Those therefore who say tho' without any reason that those Books being lost or having never been were set up or composed a new or altered by Esdras besides their being contradicted by Esdras himself as may very well be observed in the course of his History are likewise so by the Pentateuch which is even now at this day to be seen in the hands of the Samaritans so as it had been read in the first Agas by Eusebius of Cesaria St. Jerome and the other Ecclesiastical Author so as those People had kept it in their Original and a Sect so weak as that seems not to continue so long but to bear this Testimony to the Antiquity of Moses The Authors that wrote the four Evangelists received no less assured Testimony from the unanimous consent of the Faithful the Heathens and the Hereticks That great Number of various People who received and translated those Divine Books as soon as they were made agree in their date and in their Authors The Heathens have not contradicted this Tradition Nor Colsus who attacked those Sacred Books even in the first beginning of Christianity nor Julian the Apostate tho' he was neither ignorant of any thing nor omitted any thing that might descredit them nor has any other Heathen ever suspected them to be supposititious but on the contrary they have all given them the same Authors as the Christians The Hereticks although they were confounded by the Authority of those Books yet durst not say that they were not of the Disciples of our Lord. Nay some of those Hereticks saw the beginnings of the Church and before whose eyes were written the Books of the Gospel So that fraud if there could possibly be any would have appeared too near to have been successâ—ul 'T is true after the time of the Apostles and when the Church was already spread over the face of the Earth Marcion and Mannes always the most rash and the most ignorant of all the Hereticks notwithstanding the Tradition coming from the Apostles coâ—tinued by their Disciples and by the Bishops to whom they had left their Chair and the Conduct of the People and unanimously received by all the Christian Church were so bold as to say that there Evangelists were supposititious and that that of St. Luke which they preferred to all the others they knew not why since it came by no other way had been falsified But what proofs gave they of this nothing but meer Visions no positive Matters of Fact All the reason they gave was that what was contrary to their
Sparks of it in the Old Testament Solomon said that the Dust should return to the Earth as it was Eccles 12.7 and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it The Patriarchs and the Prophets lived in that Hope and Daniel had foretold that there should a time come Dan. 12.1 2 4. that those who slept in the Dust of the Earth should awake some to everlarting Life and some to shame and everlasting Contempt But at the same time that those things were revealed to him he was commanded to seal up the Book even to the time of the End to let us understand that the full discovery of these Truths was reserved for another Season and another Age. But though the Jews had in their Scriptures some Promises of eternal Happiness and that towards the time of the Messiah's coming in which they were to be declared they spoke much more of them as appears by the Books of Wisdom and the Maccabees yet however this Truth gained so little Reputation among the antient People that the Saducees without ever knowing it not only were admitted into the Synagogue but also were advanced to the Priesthood It was one of the Characters of the new People to lay down as a Foundation of Religion the faith of a future Life and that was to be the Fruit of the coming of the Messiah Wherefore not being satisfied with telling us that a Life eternally happy was reserved for the Children of God he hath told us wherein it consists The happy Life is to be with him in the glory of God his Father John 17. the Life of happiness is to see the glory which he hath in the bosom of the Father from the beginning of the World the Life of happiness is that Jesus Christ is in us in his Members and that the eternal Love which the Father hath for his Son extendeth it self to us he fills us full of the same Gifts In a word the Life of happiness is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent but to know him in that manner which we call a clear sight 1 Cor. 13.9 12. 2 â—p 3.2 face to face the sight which reforms in us and perfects there the Image of God that according as St. John says We shall be like unto him because we shall see him as he is That sight shall be followed with an Immense Love and unexpressible Joy and a Triump that shall have no end Rev. 7.12.19.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. An eternal Alleluja and an eternal Amen shall be heard to resound through all the heavenly Jerusalem and all Calamities shall be done away and all Desires shall be satisfied there shall be nothing else to do but to sing Salvation and Glory and Honour and Power unto the Lord our God and to fall down and worship him who sits on the Throne for ever and ever With these new Rewards it was but neâ—essary that Jesus Christ should propose to us new Ideas of Vertue more perfect and purified Practices The End of Religion the Soul of Vertues and the Abridgment of the Law is Charity But until Jesus Christ was come into the World we may say that the perfection and the effects of that Vertue were not throughly known It was truly and properly our blessed Saviour that taught us to place our Satisfaction in God alone To set up the Kingdom of Charity and to reveal to us all the Duties of it he lays before us the Love of God even to the hating of our selves and continually persecuting that Principle of Corruption which we all carry about with us in our hearts He propounds to us the Love of our Neighbour even to the extending that beneficent Inclination to all men including therein even those that hate and persecute us he proposes to us the moderating of our sensual Desires even to the absolute cutting off our own Members that is to say that which gives us the most lively and sensible impressions He proposes also to us submission to the Will of God even to the rejoycing at the Sufferings he lays upon us as also Humility and that too to the loving of Reproaches for God's sake and to the believing that no Indignities how injurious soever can make us so vile in the eyes of men as we truly are in God's sight by our shameful and abominable sins Upon this foundation of Charity it is that all the conditions of Humane Life are perfected It is by that that Marriage is reduced to its primitive form the Conjugal Affection is now no more divided so holy a Society is only terminated by Death and Children do not now see their Mothers cast out for entertaining of a Step-dame in their places Celibacy is set forth as an Imitation of the life of Angels which is wholly and entirely taken with God and with the chast delights of his Love Superiours do learn that they are the Servants of others and devoted to their Good and Inferiours do acknowledge the wise order of God in their lawful Powers although they abuse their Authority this very thought sweetens to us the hardships of Subjection and under the most troublesome Masters Obedience is not at all troublesome to the true Christian. To these Precepts he superadds Councils of eminent perfection to renounce all pleasures to live in the Body as if we without the Body to forsake all things to give all we have to the Poor that we may possess nothing but God to live upon a little yea almost upon nothing and to expect that little too from Divine Providence But that Law which is most proper to the Gospel is that of bearing his Cross The Cross is the true Trial of Faith the true Foundation of Hope the perfect purifier of Charity in a word the true way to Heaven Jesus Christ dyed on the Cross he bore his Cross all the while he lived 't is by the Cross that he would have us to follow him and he hath promised to reward it with Eternal Life The first to whom he particularly made this Promise of Everlasting Rest was a Companion of his Cross This day saith he Luke 22.48 thou shalt be with me in Paradise Immediately after his Expiration on the Cross the Veil which covered the Sanctuary was rent from the top to the bottom and the Heaven was opened to holy Souls It was after he came from the Cross and from the horrours of his Punishment that he appeared to his Apostles glorious and a Conquerour over Death that they might thereby learn and understand that it was by the Cross they were to enter into his Glory and that he would shew no other way to his Children Thus in the Person of Jesus Christ was given to the World the lively Image of an accomplished Vertue who had nothing nor did expect nothing here in this World who received from men only continual Persecutions yet he never ceased doing of them good and for all that on whom
paid to him Porphyry said so expresly and what is that else but to abolish all Religion and to leave him wholly without Worship whom however we acknowledge to be the God of Gods But what then were those Sacrifices which the Gentiles offered in all the Temples Porphyry had found out the secret of them There were Porphyr 2. de abstin Lab. aapud Aug. 8. de Civ 13. says he impure Spirits Deceivers Evil doers who through an extravagant Pride would needs be accounted as Gods and would make themselves be worshipped by men It was convenient to gratifie them for fear they should do us any hurt Some more gay and jolly were wroâ—ght upon by Speâ—tacles and Plays the more melancholy and reserved Humours of others were pleased with fat Odours and delighted in bloody Sacrifices What does it signifie to refuse these Absurdities there was so much that the Christians gained their cause This was certain that all the Gods to whom the Gentiles offered up Sacrifices were Evil Spirits whose Pride attributed the Godhead to themselves so that Idolatry to look upon it in it self seemed only to be the effect of a brutish Ignorance but to come up to the Source and Original of it it was a work brought from far driven on to the last Excesses by malicious Spirits 'T was what the Christians had always pretended what the Gospel had taught and what the Psalâ—ist so truly sang in these words Psal 96.5 for all the Gods of the Nations are Idols but the Lord made in Heavens And behâ—ld here the strange blindness of Mankind Idolatry tho' it was reduced to extremity and confounded by it self yet it was kept up in the World It was only to cloath it with some probability and explain it in words which carried a sound with them that charmed the ear and was enough to captivate the mind Porphyry was admired Jamblicus his follower was esteemed as a man divine because he had the art of wrapping up the Sentiments of his Master in terms that were seemingly very mysterious tho' in truth they were of no weight at all Julian the Apostate as cunning as he was was taken by those appearances which the Heathens themselves relate Enchantments whether true or false which the Philosophers boasted of their ill-understood Austerity their ridiculous Abstinence which even made it a crime to eat living Creatures Ennap Maxim Oribas Chrysanth Ep. Jul. ad Jamb Am. Marcell l. 21 23 25. their superstitious Purifications in a word their Contemplation which evaporated it self in vain thoughts and Chimâ—ra's and their words as little weighty as they seemed pompous and swelling put the cheat upon the World But yet I do not speak the bottom of all The holiness of the Christians behaviour the contempt of the Pleasures that it commanded and what is yet more than all the Humility which made up as it were the whole of the Christian Life these things offended Mankind and if we can comprehend it Pride Sensuality and Libertinism were the only Guards and Defences of Idolatry The Church was every day pulling it up by the Roots by her Doctrine but yet more by her Patience Yet those wicked Spirits who were never weary of deceiving men and who had plunged them into Idolatry were not now forgetful of their Malice They started up those Heresies in the Church which you have heard of The curious and inquisitive men and by that means vain and fickle and lovers of novelty would fain get to themselves a name among the faithful and could not be contented with that sober and temperate Wisdom which the Apostle had so much recommended to the Christians They launched too deep into those Mysteries which they pretended to measure out to our weak conceptions New Philosophers that mingled Humane Reasonings with Faith and undertook to lessen the difficulties of Christianity being able to digest all that folly which the World found in the Gospel Thus successively and with a kind of Method were all the Articles of our Faith assaulted the Creation the Law of Moses a necessary Foundation of ours the Divinity of Jesus Christ his Incarnation his Grace his Sacraments in short every thing occasioned matters for those scandalous Divisions Orig. lib. 5. cont Cels Celsus and others reproached us for them Idolatry seemed to ride in triumph It looked on Christianity as a new Sect of Philosophy which had the fate of all others and like them dwindled away of it self into several other Sects The Church seemed to them but a Humane Work that was ready to fall of it self And they concluded that it was not necessary in matters of Religion to refine more than our Ancestors nor to attempt to change the World In this Confusion of Sects which boasted themselves to be Christians God wanted not his Church He knew how to preserve to it a Character of Authority which Heresies were not able to master It was Catholick and Universal it continued throughout all times and extended it self on all sides Jer. 3.1 2 3 4. Tertul. de Carn Ch. 2. de praescrip 20 21 32. 36. It was Apostolick the Progress Succession the Chair of Unity and Primitive Authority belonged to it All those who had forsaken it first had acknowledged it and could not efface the Character of their Novelty nor that of their Rebellion The Heathens themselves looked on it as that which was the Stem the whole from whence all the parcels were detached the ever-living Trunk which the loâ—â— off Branches however left entire Celsus who reproached the Christians for their divisions into so many Schismatical Churches which he saw rise up yet observed one Church distinct from all the rest and always stronger which he also called for that reason the great Church There are some Orig. lib. 1. says he among the Christians who do not acknowledge the Creator nor the Traditions of the Jews meaning the Marcionites but goes he on the great Church receives them In the trouble which Paul of Samosata stirred up the Emperour Aurelian easily knew which was the true Christian Church to which belonged the House of the Church Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 7. c. 30. either because it was the place of Prayer or else the House of the Bishop He adjudged it to those who were in Communion with the Bishops of Italy and that of Rome because he always saw the Gross of Christians in that Communion When the Emperour Constance embroyled all in the Church the Confusion he made in it by protecting the Arrians could not keep Ammianus Marcellinus as much a Heathen as he was from confessing that that Emperour strayed out of the right way of the Christian Religion Am. Marcel l. 21. simple and particular by it self both in his Dogmata and Conduct And it was because the true Church had a Majesty and a Right which the Heresies could neither imitate nor obscure but on the contrary they bore testimony to the Catholick Church tho' at the same time
perswade a whole Nation even the old Men who had seen that Prophet and had always looked for that miraculous Deliverance which he had foretold them of Esdras and Nehemiah could not have written the History of their Time some other must have done it in their Name and those who have made all the other Books of the old Testament would have been so esteemed by Posterity that the other Falsifyers would have gained little Credit to their Imposture No doubt but they would have been ashamed of so many Extravagancies and instead of saying that Esdras had of a sudden brought to light so many Books so different one from the other by the Characters both of Stile and Time one must affirm that he might have inserted into them the Miracles and Predictions which made them to pass for Divine An Error more gross still than the former since that those Miracles and those Predictions are so interspersed in all those Books so often inculcated and repeated with such different turns and so great a variety of powerful Figures in a word they have so constituted the whole Body of them that if we have ever but so much as opened those holy Books we must see that it was a great deal more easy perfectly to make a new Model of them than to insert in them those things which the Incredulous are so much puzled to find there And tho' it should be granted them whatsoever they ask yet the miraculous and divine Parts are so much the Foundation of those Books that they must be yet acknowledged whatsoever Aversion any may have to them And admit that Esdras might have added afterwards the Predictions of those things that had already happened in his time yet those which were fulfilled since which you have seen in so great a number who should superadd them God it is possible might have bestowed on Esdras the gift of Prophecy that so the Imposture of Esdras might seem the more probable and they might rather have a false one to be a Prophet than Isaiah or Jeremiah or Daniel Or else every Age might have had a prosperous Counterfeit who might impose upon the Faith of a whole Nation and that new Impostors thro' an admirable Zeal of Religion might have continually been adding to the divine Books after that the Canon might have been closed that they might be spread abroad with the Jews over all the Earth and translated into so many strange Languages Would not this have been out of eagerness of Desire to establish the Religion the way utterly to destroy it Would a whole Nation so easily suffer a Change of what they verily believed to be Divine whether thro' Conviction of Reason or thro' the power of Error Could any one hope to persuade Christians nay or Turks to add but one single Chapter either to the Gospel or to the Alcoran But perhaps the Jews might be more docile than other People or not so Religious as to preserve their holy Books What Monsters of Opinions must come into their Minds to make then willing to shake off the Yoke of divine Authority and not to regulate their Sentiments no more than their Manners but by their distorted Reason Let none say that the discussion of these Matters is perplexing and troublesom For if it should be so they must either lay the Charge of it on the Authority of the Church and the Tradition of so many Ages or else push on the Examination to the utmost Extremity and never believe they can be rid of it but say they require still more time than will be given to their Salvation But certainly not to turn over the Books of both the Testaments with an endless Labour we need only read the Book of Psalms where are collected so many antient Songs of Gods People to see there in the most divine Poetry that ever was the immortal Monuments of the History of Moses of that of the Judges and Kings imprinted by Song and Measure in Men's Minds And for the new Testament The bare Epistles of St. Paul so Lively and Original so strong as to time both of the Affairs and Motions which then were and in short of so pointing a Character those Epistles I say received by the Churches to which they were addressed and from thence communicated to other Churches will be sufficient to convince all honest Minds that every thing in the Scriptures which the Apostles have left us is according to the Original So likewise do they support one another with an invincible Force The Acts of the Apostles are but a continuation of the Gospel their Epistles suppose it necessary but that all may agree together both the Acts and the Epistles and Gospels do every where own the antient Books of the Jews St. Paul and the other Apostles are continually alledging what Moses hath said Act. 3.22.7.31 32 c. Rom. 10.5.19 what the Prophets have said and writ after Moses Jesus Christ calls to witness the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms as Witnesses who all depose the same Truth When he hath a mind to explain his Mysteries Ibid. 27. John 5.46 47. he begins at Moses and all the Prophets and when he tells the Jews that Moses wrote of him he lays down for a Foundation what was most certainly believed among them and brings them back to the very Spring Head of their own Traditions But however we will see what can be opposed to this so acknowledged an Authority and to the Consent of so many Ages For since in our days Men have been so presumptuous and daring as to print in all sort of Languages Books against the Scriptures we ought not to dissemble or conceal what they alledge for the decrying its Antiquities Therefore what say they to justify the Pentateuch's being supposititious and what can be objected to a Tradition of three thousand Years standing upheld by its own Power and by the course of things Nothing of Consequence nothing that is positive nothing that is of weight and substance Some little Chicaneries and Quarrels they have at Numbers Places and Names and such Observations that in all other matters are reckoned at most but as vain Curiosities uncapable of reaching the stress of the Case are here alledge to us by way of Decision of an Affair the most serious that ever was There are say they Difficulties in the History of the Scripture No Question to be made on 't which yet there would not be weâ—e the Books less antient or had they been supposititious and made as they are so bold to say by a cunning and industrious Man If they had not been so Religious as to give it us as they found it but had taken the liberty to correct it where it did not please them There are Difficulties which arise by length of time when places have changed their Name or Condition when Dates are forgot when Genealogies are no further known when there is no remedy for the Faults which a Copy
Sacrifice to Libertinism Now can you believe that impiety did not lead them without any necessity in the World into all these Absurdities you have seen if against the testimony of Mankind and against all the Rules of good Sence it strives to take away from the Pentateuch and the Prophecies their constantly avowed Authors to dispute their dates with them For the dates are all in all as to this matter for two reasons First because Books that were full of so many miraculous deeds which are seen in them attended with the most particular Circumstances and advanced not only as publick but as present if they had been capable of being false would have carried their own Condemnation with them and instead of keeping themselves up by their own weight they wouâ—d long ago have fell of themselves Secondly because their dates being once fixed we can no more efface the Infallible mark of divine Inspiration which they bear impressed in the great number and the long course of memorable Predictions which we find them filled withal 'T is to shift off these Miracles and these Predictions that the wicked have run themselves into all these Absurdities that have surprized you But let them not think they shall escape God He hath reserved for his Scriptures such a mark of Divinity as can never suffer any prejudice 'T is the relation there is between the two Testaments They do not dispute at least that all the old Testament was written before the new here there is no new Esdras which can perswade the Jews to invent or to falsify their Scripture in favour of the Christians whom they Persecuted There needs no more By the relation of the two Testaments we prove that both are Divine They have both the same design and the same Consequence The one prepares the way to that Perfection which the other shews openly to all the World the one lays the Foundation the other finishes the Building in a word the one foretells what the other shews us accomplished Thus all the times are united together and the eternal design of divine Providence is revealed to us The tradition of the Jews and that of the Christians make together but one and the same Progress of Religion and the Scriptures of both Testaments are but one and the same Body and one and the same Book And because the discussion of the particular Predictions tho' in it self it be full of Light depends on many Deeds which all the World cannot equally understand God hath therefore chosen some of them which he hath made plain to the most Ignorant Those illustrious those bright and conspicuous Facts of which all the World is a witness are those Facts which I have here endeavoured to make your Highness comprehend that is to say the desolation of the Jews and the Conversion of the Gentiles happening together and both precisely at the same time as the Gospel was Preached and Jesus Christ appeared These three things united in order of time were yet much more so in the order of God's Decrees You have seen them go together in the old Prophecies but Jesus Christ the faithful Interpreter of the Prophecies and of the Will of his Father hath still better explained unto us that Bond of Unity in his Gospel He does it in the Parable of the Vine-yard so familiar in the Prophets The Father of the Family had planted this Vine that is to say the true Religion founded upon his Covenant and had let it out to Husbandmen that is to say to the Jews Matt. 21.38 And that he might receive the fruits of it he sent several times his Servants who are the Prophets But these unfaithful Husbandmen cause some to be put to death his goodness leads him to send them his Son and yet him they treat worse than they did his Servants At last he takes away his Vineyard from them and gives it unto other Husbandmen he takes away from them the Grace of his Alliance to bestow it on the Gentiles These three things ought therefore to concur together the sending of the Son of God the Reprobation of the Jews and the Calling of the Gentiles There needs no further a Commentary upon the Parable which the event has it self interpreted You have seen the Jews confess that the Kingdom of Judah and the State of their Commonwealth began to fall in the time of Herod and when Jesus Christ came into the World But if the Alterations which they made to the Law of God have brought upon them so visible a Diminution of their Power their last Desolation which yet continues must be the Punishment of a fat greater Crime That Crime is plainly their Ingratitude against their Messiah who came to instruct them and to make them free And it is from that time too that an Iron yoke has been over their heads and they have been long ago crushed with it but that God keeps them to acknowledge one day and to serve that Messiah whom they have crucified You then already see one averr'd and publick Fact that is the total Ruine of the State of the Jews at the time of Jesus Christ The Conversion of the Gentiles which was to happen at the same time is no less averr'd neither At the same time when the ancient Worship was destroyed in Jerusalem with the Temple Idolatry was attacked on all sides and the People who for so many thousands of years had forgot their Creator were now wakened from so long a seeming death of sleep And that all things might accord the Spiritual Promises are displayed by the Preaching of the Gospel in the Time when the Jews who had only received the Temporal ones being openly reproved for their Incredulity and made Captives over all the face of the Earth had no longer any worldly Grandeur to expect Then was Heaven promised to those who suffered Persecution for Righteousness sake the Secrets of the Future Life were preached and the true Blessedness was shown for from that abode where Death reigns where Sin and all manner of Evils do abound If we do not discover here a design always kept up and always followed it we see not here one and the same order of the Counsels of God who prepared from the beginning of the World what he finished in the fulness of time and who under different Estates but with a Succession still constant perpetuated to the eyes of all the World that holy Society by whom he would be served we deserve to see nothing and to be delivered up to our own hardness as to the most just and rigorous of all Punishments And that this Course of God's People might be conspicuous to the most undiscerning God made it sensible and palpable by Matters of Fact which none could be ignorant of unless he purposely shut his eyes against the Truth The Messiah expected by the Hebrews he came and he called the Gentiles as it had been foretold The People that owned him as come were incorporated with
wise goes staggering reeling and as it were besotted because the Lord hath shed the Spirit of Dizziness and Confusion in all her Councils She no longer knows what she does she is lost to her self But that Men may not herein be deceived God repaireth when he seeth good the stragling Senses and he that insulted over the Blindness of others falls himself into more Egyptian Darkness and often times without any thing else to confound his Sence and Understanding than his too long Prosperities Thus it is that God Reigneth over all People Let us no longer talk of Chance or Fortune or speak of it only as a Name wherewith we conceal our Ignorance That which is Chance in respect of our uncertain Councils is a concerted Design in a higher Council that is to say in that eternal Council which circumscribes all Causes and all Effects in one and the same Order Thus all concurs to the same end and it is for want of understanding the all that we find of Chance or of Irregularity in particular Accidents and Emergencies By that is verified the Saying of the Apostle 1 Tim. 6.15 that God is the blessed and only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Blessed whose Repose is unalterable who seeth every thing to change without changing himself and who makes all Changes by an Immutable Council who gives and who takes away Power who transfers it from one Man to another from one House to another from one People to another to shew that they have it only by way of Loan and that it is he alone in whom it naturally resides Wherefore all Governors find themselves the Subjects of a greater Power They aâ—t more or less than they think for and their Councils have ever more had unforeseen Effects They neither are Masters of the Dispositions which Ages past have made in their Affairs nor can they foresee what Coâ—rse the times to come will take so far are they from being able to force it He alone holds all things in his Hands who knows the Name of that which is and that which is not yet who presides at all times and anticipates all Councils Alexander little thought he laboured for his Captains nor that he ruined his House when he gained his Conquest When Brutus animated the Romans with such an excessive Love of Liberty he as little thought he was casting into their Minds the Principle of that unbridled and masterless Licence by which the Tyranny he designed to destroy was one day to be re-established with greater Severity than under the Tarquins When the Caesars flattered the Souldiers they had no designs of giving Masters to their Successors and to the Empire In a word there is no humane Power but what do what it can serves for other Designs than it aims at at present God alone knows how to bring about all things according to his own Will Wherefore every thing is surprising if we only look to particular Causes and yet nevertheless every thing goes on in an orderly manner This Discourse makes you see it clearly and not to speak of other Empires you see by how many unforeseen Councils but yet always connected in themselves the Fortune of Rome hath been carried on from Romulus down to Charlemain Your Highness might perhaps have thought I should have told you somewhat more of your own Country and of Charlemain who was the Founder of the new Empire But besides that his History makes a part of that of France which you your self have wrote and which you have already so far proceeded in I reserve to make you another Discourse of that wherein I shall be necessarily obliged to speak to you of France and of that great Conqueror who being equal in Valour to those which Antiquity hath the most boasted of doth yet exceed them in Piety in Wisdom and Justice That some Discourse shall discover to you the Causes of the prodigious Successes of Mahomet and this Successors That Empire which began two hundred Years before Charlemain may find its place in that Discourse but I though it would be much better to shew you in one continued Series its beginning and its declension So that I have no more to tell you in this first Part of my Universal History You will discover all the Secrets of it and you will have nothing to do but to observe in it all the Progress of Religion and that of the great Empires down to Charlemain Whilest you will see almost all fall of themselves and Religion only support it self by its own Strength you will easily then discern what is solid Grandeur and where a wise and considerate Man is to place all his Hopes A TABLE TO THE FIRST PART OF THIS DISCOURSE I. EPocha Adam or the Creation First Age of the World Pag. 1. II. Epocha Noah or the Deluge Second Age of the World Pag. 4. III. Epocha The Call of Abraham Third Age of the World Pag. 7. IV. Epocha Moses or the written Law Pag. 11. V. Epocha The taking of Troy Fourth Age of the World Pag. 15. VI. Epocha Solomon or the Temple finished Fifth Age of the World Pag. 17. VII Epocha Romulus or Rome founded Pag. 25. VIII Epocha Cyrus or the Jews re-established Sixth Age of the World Pag. 43. IX Epocha Scipio or Carthage Conquered Pag. 71. X. Epocha The Birth of Jesus Christ Seventh and last Age of the World Pag. 89. XI Epocha Constantine or the Peace of the Church Pag. 110. XII Epocha Charlemain or the re-establishment of the new Empire Pag. 149. A Table to the Second Part. THE Course of Religion Pag. 155. I. The Creation and the first Times ibid. II. Abraham and the Patriarchs Pag. 178. III. Moses the Law written and the bringing of the People into the promisid Land Pag. 189. IV. David the Kings and the Prophets Pag. 209. V. The times of the second Temple Pag. 247. VI. Jesus Christ and his Doctrine Pag. 267. VII The Descent of the Holy Ghost the Establishment of the Church the Judgments of God both on the Jews and on the Gentiles Pag. 298. VIII Particular Reflections upon the Punishment of the Jews and upon the Predictions of Jesus Christ who had taken Notice of it Pag. 316. IX Two memorable Predictions of our blessed Saviour are explained and their Accomplishment justified by History Pag. 330. X. The Progress of the Jewish Errors and the manner how they explain the Prophecies Pag. 345. XI Particular Reflections on the Conversion of the Gentiles The profound Councils of God which resolved to convert them by the Cross of Jesus Christ The Arguing of St. Paul upon this manner of their Conversion Pag. 366. XII Divers ways of Idolatry Sense Interest Ignorance a false respect of Antiquity Policy Philosophy and Heresies came to its Succor but the Church triumphs over all Pag. 376. XIII General Reflection on the Progress of Religion and the Relation there is between the Books of the Scriptures Pag. 401. A Table to the Third Part. THE Empires Pag. 437. I. That the Revolutions of Empires are regulated by Providence and serve to humble Princes Ibid. II. The Revolutions of Empires have particular Causes which Princes ought to study Pag. 445. III. The Scythians the Ethiopians and the Egyptians Pag. 447. IV. The Assyrians both antient and new the Medes and Cyrus Pag. 475. V. The Persians the Grecians and Alexander Pag. 48â— VI. The Roman Empire Pag. 505. VII The Successive Changes of Rome Explained Pag. 543. FINIS