diseases and work such other Miracles as Christ and his Apostles did Had they by Enthusiasm been mistaken in the Doctrines which they taught certainly God would never have wrought such wonderfull Works by their hands as give testimony thereto 4. Several of the principal Articles of our Faith depend upon such matters of fact as allow no Room for Enthusiasm to take place in them as that of the Resurrection of our Saviour from the dead his Ascension into Heavem and the descent of the Holy Ghost in the gift of Tongues For in such things as these which Men see with their eyes and hear with their ears and feel with their hands as one of the Apostles did the very Wounds of our Saviour after his Resurrection no Enthusiasm can ever lead Men into a mistake For can it possibly be said that it was only by Enthusiasm that five hundred Men together saw Christ after he was risen again from the dead or that it was by Enthusiasm that his Apostles saw him ascend up into Heaven from Mount Olivet in the presence of them all at noon-day or that it was only by Enthusiasm that the same Apostles on the day of Pentecost received the gift of Tongues by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them so as to be able to converse with all the several Nations then at Jerusalem in their own Languages without ever having learned any thing of them To say that Men could any way be mistaken in such things as these will be to deny the certainty of sense and overthrow the foundations of all manner of knowledge whatever It must therefore be said as to these particulars as it must also of all the Miracles of our Saviour which give Testimony to the Doctrines which he taught That his Apostles who testified them unto the World and upon the credit of them built up that Religion which they delivered unto us did either see them really done as they relate or they did not see them If they did see them no Enthusiasm could ever make them be mistaken therein and if they did not they must be altogether as bad Impostors as Mahomet himself in testifying them unto us and what but as great Wickedness as his could ever induce them so to do SECT IV. IV. The next Mark of an Imposture is That it must unavoidably contain in it several palpable falsities whereby may be made appear the falsity of all the rest For whoever invents a Lye can never do it so cunningly and knowingly but still there will be some flaw or other left in it which will expose it to a discovery and no Man who frames an invention can ever secure it herefrom without two qualifications which no Man can have and they are 1st A thorough knowledge of all manner of Truths And 2dly Such an exact memory as can bring them all present to his Mind whenever there shall be an occasion For to make the Lye pass without contradiction he must make it put on a seeming agreement with all other Truths whatever And how can any one do this without knowing all Truths and having them also all ready and present in his mind to consider them in order thereto And since no Man is sufficient for this no Man is sufficient so to frame a Lye but he will always put something or other into it which will palpably prove it to be so For if there be but any one known Truth in the whole scheme of Nature with which it interferes this must make the discovery and there is no Man that forgeth an Imposture but makes himself liable this way to be convicted of it This is the method whereby we distinguish supposititious Authors from those which are genuine and fabulous Writers from true Historians For there is always something in such which disagrees from known Truths to make the discovery some flaw always left in spight of the utmost care and foresight of the Forgerer that betrays the cheat Thus Annius's Imposture of his Berosus Manetho and Megasthenes became detected and so also we know the Tuscan Antiquities of Inghiramius to be a cheat of the like nature And by the same rule is it that we receive Sallust Tacitus and Suetonius for true Historians and reject others as Writers of Fables and of no authority with us And if we examine the Alcoran of Mahomet by the same method nothing can be more plainly convicted of Falsity and Imposture than that must be by it For although in that Book he allows both the Old and the New Testament to be of divine authority yet in a multitude of instances he differs from both I mean not in matters of Law and Religion for here his design is to differ but in matters of fact and history which if once true must evermore be the same They have a fetch indeed to bring him off by saying that the Jews and the Christians corrupted those holy Books and therefore where he relates things otherwise than they do he doth there restore Truth and not vary from it But certainly this will not hold where by a very gross blunder he makes the Virgin Mary the Mother of our Saviour to be the same with Miriam the Sister of Moses For this would be to put the Gospel so close upon the heels of the Law as to allow no time for the taking place of this latter before it would have been totally abolished by the former But which most discovers his Imposture are the monstrous Mistakes which he makes in the Moral part thereof For he allows Fornication and justifies Adultery by his Law and makes War Rapine and Slaughter to be the main part of the Religion which he taught which being contrary to the Nature of God from whom he says he received it and contrary to that Law of unalterable and eternal Truth which he hath written in the hearts of all of us from the beginning the obvious Principles of every Man's reason convict him of falsehood herein and thereby manifestly prove all the rest to be nothing else but an abominable Impiety of his own invention And were the Religion of Jesus Christ as delivered to us in the New Testament an Imposture like this it must have the same flaws therein that is many falsities in matter of fact and more in doctrine and all his Prophecies would be without Truth in the Original or Verification in the Event And when you can make out any one of these particulars against it then we will be ready to say the same thereof that you do That all is Cheat and Imposture and no credit or faith is any longer to be given thereto And 1st as to the matters of fact contained in the History of the New Testament whoever yet convicted any one of them of falsehood or whoever as much as endeavoured it in the age when the Books were first written when the falsehood might have been best proved had there been any such in them and the doing hereof would have so
so great a wickedness both against God and Man as to have imposed a cheat upon us in that Religion which they delivered unto us SECT III. III. And if they had been such wicked persons as thus to have imposed upon us a false Religion for their own interest both their wickedness and the interest which they drove at must necessarily have appeared in the very contexture of the Religion it self and the Books of the New Testament in which it is contained would have as evidently proved both these against them as the Alcoran doth against Mahomet every Chapter of which yieldeth us manifest proofs both of the wicked affections of the Man and the self-ends which he drove at for the gratifying of them For first when a Man proposeth an end of self-interest and invents a new Religion and writes a new Law on purpose for the obtaining of it it 's impossible but that this End must appear in the Means and the Imposture which was invented of purpose to promote it must discover what it is For in this case the new Religion and the new Law must be calculated for this End and be all formed and contrived in order thereto otherwise it can have no efficiency for the obtaining of it nor at all answer the purpose of the inventor for the compassing of what he proposed and if it be thus calculated ordered and contrived for such an End that End cannot but be seen and discovered in those Means For the End and Means prove each other that is as the nature of the End proposed shows us what Means must be made use of for the obtaining of it so do the nature of the Means which we use discover what is the End which they drive at And as far as the Means have a tendency to the End so much must they have of that End in them and it is not possible for him that useth the one long to conceal the other And therefore nothing is more obvious and common among us than by the courses which a man takes to discern the end which he would have As Mahomet invented his new Religion to promote his own ends so the Alcoran in which it is contained sufficiently proves it there being scarce a leaf in that Book which doth not lay down some particulars which tend to the gratifying either of the ambition or the lust of that Monster who contrived it And had the first Founder of our holy Christian Religion or they who were the first propagators of it any such end therein the Books of the New Testament in which it is written would have as palpably shown it But here we challenge all the enemies of our Faith to use their utmost skill to make any such discovery in them They have already gone through the strict scrutiny of many ages as well as of all manner of adversaries and none have ever yet been able to tax them herewith For instead of being calculated for the interest of this World their whole design is to withdraw our hearts from it and fix them upon the interest of that which is to come And therefore the doctrines which they inculcate are those of mortification repentance and self-denial which speak not unto us of fighting bloodshed and conquest as the Alcoran doth for the advancing of a temporal Kingdom but that recouncing all the pomps and vanities and lusts of this present World we live soberly righteously and godly in the presence of him that made us and instead of pursuing after the perishable things of this life we set our hearts only on those Heavenly riches which will make us great and glorious and blessed for ever hereafter For as the Kingdom of Christ is not of this World so neither do those Books in which are written the Laws of this Kingdom savour any thing thereof The Mammon of this World and the Righteousness which they prescribe us are declared in them to be totally inconsistent The Old Testament indeed as being under the Dispensation of carnal Ordinances which were the shadows only of those things after to come under the Gospel treated with Men suitably thereto And therefore we find much of this World both by way of promise as well as threat to be proposed therein But it is quite otherwise with the New For in that Revelation being given to the perfecting of righteousness all things were advanced thereby from Earth to Heaven and from flesh to spirit And therefore as the whole end of it is to make men spiritual so are we directed thereby to look only to spiritual and heavenly Blessings for the reward hereof Had our Saviour proposed victory or riches or carnal pleasures to his followers as Mahomet did then indeed his Law would have sufficiently savour'd of this World to make Men suspect that he aimed at nothing else thereby But he was so far herefrom that instead of this the whole tenour of his doctrine runs the quite contrary way we Being told of nothing else through the whole New Testament but of tribulations afflictions and persecutions which shall attend all such as to this World who faithfully set their hearts to become his Disciples and the experience of all ages since hath sufficiently verified the prediction And indeed the very Religion which he hath taught us is of that holiness that according to the course of this wicked World it naturally leads us thereinto And how then can it be said that any thing of worldly interest can be contained either in this Religion or those holy Books in which it is written I cannot deny that there are some Men so crafty and cunning in pursuing their interest that it shall not easily be discerned in the Means what it is which they drive at for their End But how great a compass soever such may fetch about to the point which they aim at or in what by and secret paths soever they make forward towards it yet if the Means which they make use of have any tendency thither they can never be so totally blended but there will always appear in them enough of the End to make the discovery to any accurate observer and at length when the plot grows ripe for Execution and the designer begins to offer at the putting himself in possession of what he proposed as all such designers must at last the whole scene must then be laid open and every one will be able to see thereinto And therefore if you will have it that the Holy Apostles and Evangelists who were the first penners of the New Testament were such cunning and crafty men as to be able thus artfully to conceal their designs in those Books which you suppose they wrote of purpose to promote them which cannot reasonably be imagin'd of men of their education and condition in the World they being all except St. Paul and St. Luke of the meanest occupations among the people and totally unlearned yet if they contrived those Books with any tendency towards those designs and
a false Religion for the promoting of their own interest as that interest must have appear'd in the contexture of the Religion it self and in those Books in which it is written so also must their wickedness For Words and Writings being the outward expressions of our inward conceptions there is that connection between them that although the former may often disguise the latter they can never so totally conceal them but every accurate observer may still be able through the one to penetrate into the other and by what a man utters whether in speech or writing see what he is at the bottom do what he can to prevent it There are indeed some that can act the Hypocrite so cunningly as to dissemble the greatest wickedness under words writings and actions too that speak the quite contrary But this always is such a force upon their inclinations and so violent a bar upon their inward passions and desires that nature will frequently break through in spight of all art and even speak out the truth amidst the highest pretences to the contrary And there is no Hypocrite how cunningly soever he may act his part but must this way very often betray himself For wickedness being always uppermost in such a Man's thoughts and ever pressing forward to break forth into expression it will frequently have its vent in what that Man speaks and in what he writes do what he can to the contrary the care caution and cunning of no Man in this case being sufficient totally to prevent it Furthermore there is no Man thus wicked that can have that knowledge of Righteousness as thoroughly to act it under the Mask with that exactness as he who is truly righteous lives and speaks it in reality His want of experience in the practice must in this case lead him into a great many mistakes and blunders in the imitation And this is a thing which generally happens to all that act a part but never more than in matters of Religion in which are many Particulars so peculiar to the Righteous as none are able to reach them but those only who are really such And supposing there were any that could yet there will ever be that difference between what is natural and what is artificial and between that which is true real and sincere and that which is false counterfeit and hypocritical that nothing is more easie than for any one that will attend it to discern the one from the other And therefore were Jesus Christ and his Apostles such persons as this charge of Imposture must suppose them to be it 's impossible but that the Doctrines which they taught and the Books which they wrote must make the discovery and the New Testament would as a standing Record against them in this case afford a multitude of instances to convict them hereof That the Alcoran doth so as to Mahomet nothing is more evident a strain of Rapine Bloodshed and Lust running thorough the whole Book which plainly proves the Author of it to be altogether such a Man as the charge of Imposture must necessarily suppose him to be And were the first Founder of our holy Religion or the Writers of those Books in which its Doctrines are contained such Men as he both their Doctrines and their Books would as evidently prove it against them But here I must again challenge you and all other the Adversaries of our holy Religion to shew us any one particular in it that can give the least foundation to such a charge any one word in all the Books of the New Testament that can afford the least umbrage or pretence thereto Let what is written in them be tried by that which is the Touchstone of all Religions I mean that Religion of Nature and Reason which God hath written in the hearts of every one of us from the first Creation and if it varies from it in any one particular if it prescribes any one thing which may in the minutest circumstance thereof be contrary to its Righteousness I will then acknowledge this to be an argument against us strong enough to overthrow the whole Cause and make all things else that can be said for it totally ineffectual to its support But it is so far from having any such flaw therein that it is the perfectest Law of Righteousness which was ever yet given unto Mankind and both in commanding of Good as well as in forbidding of Evil vastly exceeds all others that went before it and prescribes much more to our practice in both than the wisest and highest Moralist was ever able without it to reach in speculation For 1st As to the forbidding of Evil it is so far from indulging or in the least allowing us in any practice that savours hereof that it is the only Law which is so perfectly broad in the prohibition as adequately to reach whatsoever may be Evil in the practice and without any exception omission or defect absolutely fully and thoroughly forbids unto us whatsoever may have but the least taint of corruption therein and therefore it not only restrains all the Overt-acts of iniquity but also every imagination of the heart within which in the least tends thereto and in its Precepts prohibits us not only the doing or speaking of Evil but also the harbouring or receiving into our Minds the least thought or desire thereafter whereby it so effectually provides against all manner of iniquity that it plucks it up out of every one of us by the very roots and so makes the Man pure and clean and holy altogether without allowing the least savour of Evil to be remaining in him and every one of us would be thoroughly such could we be but as perfect in our Obedience to this Law as it is perfectly given unto us And 2dly As to the commanding of Good its prescriptions are That we imploy our Time our Powers and all other Talents intrusted with us to the best we are able both to give Glory unto God and also to show Charity unto Men and this last not only to our Friends Relations and Benefactors but in general to all Mankind even to our Enemies and those who despightfully use us and persecute us and hereby it advanceth us to that highth of perfection in all holiness and goodness as to render us like the Angels of Light in our Service unto God and like God himself in our Charity to Man For it directs us in the same manner as the Angels to worship and serve our God to the utmost ability of out nature and in the same manner as God to make our goodness to Men extend unto all without exception or reserve as far as they are capable of receiving it from us And can any Man think it possible that a Religion which so thoroughly and fully forbids all Evil and in so high and perfect a manner prescribes us all Good could ever be the product of a wicked mind The fruit is too good to proceed from so corrupt
Religion also and that the whole method of the old Roman Religion was regulated and stated by them but that Numa founded any new Religion is what I utterly deny For Numa left no other Religion behind him in Rome at his death than that very same Heathenism which he found there at his first coming thither to be King For the City having been then but newly founded and the People made up of a Collection of the refuse and scum of divers Nations there gathered together they were as much out of order in matters of Religion as in those belonging to the Civil Government and all that Numa did when he came to reign over them was to make Laws to regulate both and therefore as he founded several wholsome Constitutions for the orderly governing of the State so also did he for the regular worshipping of the Gods then acknowledged among them without making any essential alteration in the Religion afore practised by them For had he done so then the Religion of the Romans must have differed from the Religion of the other Cities of Italy which we find it did not For they communicated with each other in their Worship as they did also with the Greeks And in truth the old Roman Religion was no other than the Greek Heathenism the same which was practised in Greece and in all those Countries which were planted with Colonies from thence as almost all Italy was at that time And therefore the Romans as well as the rest of the Cities of Italy looked on Delphos as a principal place of their worship with the same veneration that the Greeks did and had frequent recourse thither on Religious accounts as the Roman Histories on many occasions acquaint us And this Religion Numa while he lived among his Sabines being accurately versed in and also a diligent practicer of it on his coming to Rome and finding the Romans all out of order in that little which they had of it for during the Reign of Romulus they minded little else but fighting and therefore had not leasure or perchance any great regard for this matter he not only instructed them more fully in it according as it was received in the Neighbouring Nations but also framed several rules and constitutions for their more regular and orderly practice of it which did no more make the old Heathenism of the Romans to be a new Religion than the body of Canons given us by King James the First for the more orderly regulating of our Worship and Discipline makes our Religion a new Christianity Only Numa the better to make his Constitutions to obtain among those barbarous people for whom he made them pretended to have been instructed in them by a divine Person and in this he practised a pious fraud but was by no means guilty of such an Imposture as we are now treating of For he taught them no new Religion but only the very same Greek Heathenism which he had received with the rest of the People of Italy from their forefathers and really believed to be that very true Religion whereby God was to be served and therefore notwithstanding the deceit he made use of he might from the end which he proposed and which he really effected thereby to the civilizing of a very barbarous sort of people be still reckoned a just and good Man and to give him his due he really was one of the most excellent Personages of that age in which he lived and first sowed among the Romans the seeds of that vertue with which they so eminently signalized themselves for so many Ages after But 3. Jesus Christ and his Apostles took on them not only to be Messengers sent of God but also to teach a new Religion to the World and therefore if they were Impostors they must be so in the largest and fullest sense both in respect of the Religion it self as well as the means whereby they promoted it And in this case there could be nothing to excuse them from being altogether as wicked as I have alledged Where the Religion is true or really believed so to be there is a pious intention in the end which may speak some goodness in him that useth fraud to promote it and such a goodness as greatly exceeds the obliquity of the fault which he committed about it and therefore although he cannot on the account of the Good be excused from the Evil for it is always a scandal to Religion to be promoted by Falsehood yet still he must be reckoned more commendable from the one than faulty from the other and in this case there will still be room enough left from the goodness of the End design'd and the Piety of the intention to denominate the Man good and righteous in the main notwithstanding the fault committed in using such means to bring it to effect But where the Religion is all Forgery and Falsehood as well as the means of promoting it deceit and fraud the Imposture then becomes so totally and perfectly wicked without the least mixture of good therein as must necessarily denominate the Authors and first Propagators of it to be perfectly wicked also If you say that such a perfect Imposture as this can have any good End for the sake whereof the Authors of it may be freed from that charge of Wickedness which I lay upon them that good End must be either the honour of God or the benefit of Men. But how can God be more dishonoured than by a false Religion or how can Men be more mischiev'd than by having the practice of it imposed on them whereby they must thus constantly dishonour and consequently offend and lose the favour of him that made them An Imposture in this case hath that aggravation from the object it is about as well as from the perfection of iniquity which is in the act that supposing it could be made productive of any good End that good would be so vastly over-balanced by the Wickedness of the Means that it would be of no weight in comparison thereof or at all avail to the rendering of those that shall make use of it less wicked than I have said But when a Man can thus far proceed in Wickedness towards God as to be the Author of constant dishonour unto him in a false Worship and towards Men as to ensnare them into all that mischief which must be consequential hereto it must necessarily imply such a thorough disregard of both as every good intention in respect of either must be inconsistent with And therefore if it be possible that such a wicked Imposture can ever be made the Means to a good End it is scarce to be conceived how they who are so wicked as to be the Authors of it could ever intend any such good thereby But further If the Authors of such an Imposture as we are now treating of can be less wicked than I have said on the account of any good which you pretend they may design thereby
render upon him and what more worthy of us and perfecting of our nature than that Law for the conduct of our lives which he hath delivered unto us and what can be more holy pure and perfect than the Precepts thereof Here the sublimity and vast extent of the matter give scope large enough for the wisest of Men to bewilder and lose themselves in errour and mistake and yet convince us but of any one such in the whole extent of our Religion and that alone shall be sufficient to prove the Imposture you would charge it with and I will yield you all you would have for the sake thereof But it is so far herefrom that I durst make you your selves the judges whether it delivers any thing else unto us of the nature and excellencies of God but what the reason of every man although barely that alone through that cloud of ignorance and errour which the Fall hath over-spread us with could never clearly make the discovery must now when thus discover'd ever justify and admire whether it prescribes us any one particular relating to his worship but what is most agreeable to those his excellencies and whether the Precepts and Laws therein laid down unto us for the governing of our lives and conversations be any other than what do all correspond so exactly with every thing which the rational dictates of our nature direct us to that they take them all in without omission or defect and improve them to the utmost with errour or mistake in the least circumstance that belongs unto them If you say that all this might be attained to by humane wisdom and study I answer supposing it could yet looking on our Saviour barely as a Man and his holy Apostles without any other assistance than that of their own natural endowments how possibly could they reach so high To do this requires that vast compass of knowledge in all the things of Nature Law and Morality as it is not possible to conceive Men of their education and low imployments in the World could ever have arrived unto If you examine what other Men have done by humane wisdom and study only you will find those of the most elevated Genius and sublimest Understanding could never with their utmost industry and search attain unto what you suppose herein or that the highest knowledge of Men could ever reach that perfection in any of the particulars above-mentioned in which the Gospel of Jesus Christ delivers them unto us For what blunders and absurdities do the wisest of the Philosophers lay down concerning the Deity what errours and follies have they taught and practised concerning his worship and what mistakes have those who exalted Morality to the highest pitch among Men made therein Plato in his Common-wealth allowed the common use of Women Aristotle asserts it to be natural and just for the Greeks to make War upon the Barbarians for no other reason but that they are so and both he and Tully place Revenge among their virtues And whoever had vaster capacities for humane knowledge or ever went higher by the abilities of natural reason and understanding only in the search thereof than those Men Yet still being no more than Men they could not avoid putting something of the infirmities of Man even into that wherein they made appear their highest perfections errour mistake and ignorance being so natural unto all of us that neither the greatest the wisest nor the best among us can be totally free therefrom And therefore had Christ and his Apostles no other help in the Doctrines which they taught but that which is humane they must also in like manner have put that which is humane thereinto and the infirmities mistakes and errours that attend humane nature would have appeared in all that they delivered unto us But the doctrines which they taught and the Books in which they delivered them unto us being so totally free from all such errours and mistakes as I have already shown that they are this directs us to look higher than Man for the Founder of this Holy Religion and the Original Author of those Books in which it is contained and necessarily prove that only he who is infinite in knowledge and infinite in all other perfections could thus give us a Law so exactly like himself thoroughly perfect in the whole and infallibly true in every particular thereof SECT V. V. Another Mark of Imposture is That where-ever it is first propagated it must be done by craft and fraud and this is natural to all manner of cheats For the end of such being to deceive craft and fraud are the means whereby it is to be effected In this case a Lye must be made to go for a Truth and an appearance for a reality and to compass this a great deal of Art must be made use of both to dress up the Cheat that it may appear to be what it pretends and also to cast such a mist before the eyes of Men that they may not see it to be otherwise and that especially where the cheat is an Imposture in Religion For whoever comes with a new Religion to be proposed to the World must find all men so far prejudiced and pre-possessed against it as they are affected to the old one they have before professed and therefore when Men are educated or any otherwise fixed and setled in a Religion and all mankind are in some or other they are not apt easily to forego it but it must be something more than ordinary that must bring them over to another contrary thereto When the new Religion really comes from God as the Jewish Religion first and after the Christian did it brings its Credentials with it the power of Miracles to make way for its reception For when Men find the Omnipotency of God working with it they have from thence sufficient evidence given them from whom it comes and there is need of no other means to induce them to believe but that the Religion which God doth in such a manner own and attest must be from him But where there is no such power accompanying the new Religion to gain credit thereto the defect hereof must be made up by somewhat else to draw over the people to its belief and this is that which must put all Impostors upon craft and fraud in order to the compassing of their ends But that Jesus Christ and his Apostles made use of no such craft or fraud to induce Men into the belief of that holy Religion which they taught and consequently could be no such Impostors will be best made appear by going over all those ways of craft and fraud which Mahomet served himself of and by showing you that none of them can possibly be said to have been practised by any of them For Mahomet being one of the craftiest cheats that ever set up to impose a false Religion on mankind and the only person that ever carried on his wicked design with success you may be
People so indifferent in Religion first to manifest himself unto For the Jews were so far from being weary of that Religion which they had so long professed when he first appeared in his Mission among them that they were then grown into the contrary extreme a very extravagant bigottry and superstition concerning it so that nothing was more difficult than to withdraw them from it nor could any thing be more offensive to them than an offer tending thereto and so it continues with them even to this day And the case was not much otherwise as to all the rest of Mankind the Gentiles being then grown almost as tenacious of their Idolatry as the Jews of their Law and Learning was in that Age among both at the highest pitch that ever it was in the World and consequently Men were never less disposed than at that time to receive a new Religion or ever better able to defend their old And therefore had Christianity been an Imposture it could never have escaped in such an Age as that a full detection or ever have been able to have born up against it such inquisitive Heads and piercing Wits as were then in the World would have sifted it to the bottom dived into its deepest Secrets and unravell'd and laid open the whole Plot and the prejudiced World would immediately have crushed it to pieces thereon so that it should never more have appeared among Mankind But the truth of our holy Religion was such that it boldly offered it self to this trial and it seems to have chosen such an Age as this first to come into the World of purpose to undergo it that so it might be the better justified there by And justified by it it was for although it were opposed by the utmost Violence of the prejudiced World they could get no ground of it though it were throughly examined and diligently searched into by the acutest and subtilest Wits of those Ages in which it first appeared they could never discover any fraud or make out the least flaw therein but in spight of both it triumphed by its own naked Truth only over all manner of opposition and by God's Mercy continues still so to do even to this day That a cheat and a fraud in a thing of this nature should be imposed on Men totally ignorant and illiterate or that such as they when void of all manner of Religion as the Men of Mecca for the most part were when Mahomet began his Imposture among them should be easie to imbrace a new one is no hard matter to conceive but that an Imposture should be received and obtain such prevalency over Men in so learned and discerning an Age as that wherein Christianity first appeared in the World or that they who where then so zealously addicted to the Religion they had been educated in whether Jews or Gentiles should ever have been induced to forsake it for a new one founded only on a cheat and fraud is what morally speaking we may very well reckon impossible 7. Mahomet offered at no Prophecies that he might not run the hazard of being confuted by the Event But Jesus Christ delivered many clear and plain Prophecies several of which respected that very Age in which he lived and were all in their proper time as plainly verified by the completion of them 8. Mahomet offered at no Miracles in publick although continually called upon and provoked to it by his opposers For not being able to work any true ones or would not hazard himself to a discovery by those which were Counterfeit And therefore all those things which he would have go for Miracles that is his Converse with the Angel Gabriel his Journey to Heaven and the Armies of Angels that helped him in his Battles are only related by him as things acted behind the Curtain of which there was no other witness but himself alone and consequently there could be no witness on the other side ever to contradict them But Jesus Christ and his Apostles having the real power of working Miracles did them openly in the sight of thousands where all manner of opportunity was given to every spectator to examine into them and try whether they were true or no and therefore had there been any cheat or fraud in them it is not possible to conceive how they should have escaped a discovery And yet no such discovery could ever be made which was so convincing an argument of their truth and reality that even the bitterest enemies of our holy Religion from the first yielded in this particular and both Jews and Heathens allowed all those miraculous Works which are related of our Saviour and his Apostles in the Books of the New Testament to have been really and truly wrought by them as hath been afore-observed And indeed the evidence was too manifest to be denied since those very blind that received their sight those dumb that were enabled to speak those deaf that were restor'd to their hearing those lame that were made to walk and those dead that were raised again to life lived many years after to be as standing Monuments of the truth of those things which no one could contradict And therefore the Opposers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ have all along rather chosen to invalidate the authority of those Miracles than deny the truth and reality of them For they allowing the matters of fact object that there are other Powers lower than the divine that are able to bring them to pass and therefore although those Works were wrought they do not yet prove either the persons or the doctrines which they taught to come from God and consequently can give no such evidence as that which we insist upon from them for the truth of that Religion which we profess That others by Magick Art have done the same things That the Scriptures themselves tell us so of Jannes and Jambres and Simon Magus and profane Writers of Apollonius Tyanoeus Apuleius and others that both Moses and Jesus Christ knew this very well and therefore forewarn'd their Disciples against it telling them that false Prophets should arise who should show signs and wonders to deceive if possible the very Elect and that they should take care not to hearken to them And therefore say they if signs and wonders can be wrought by false Prophets how can they be evidences for the true Or how can we at all rely upon them for the verifying of any doctrine which they deliver unto us Or if those Miracles which were wrought by them who are sent of God be only true Miracles and all others false ones how shall we distinguish the one from the other so as by them to discern whether the doctrines be of God or no But these Difficulties will be easily removed and the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles as they are allowed to be truly wrought by them so also will they as truly prove the Doctrines which they taught to come from God if you
A DISCOURSE For the Vindicating of Christianity FROM THE Charge of Imposture OFFER'D By Way of LETTER To the Consideration of the DEISTS of the Present Age. By Humphrey Prideaux D. D. And Arch-Deacon of Suffolk The Second Edition LONDON Printed by J. H. for W. Rogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1697. A LETTER TO THE DEISTS c. Gentlemen IF I am not mistaken the Reason you give for your Renouncing that Religion ye were baptized into and is the Religion of the Country in which ye were born is That the Gospel of Jesus Christ is an Imposture An Assertion that I tremble to repeat But whether that Gospel be right or ye are in the right that deny it will appear from the Consideration of the Nature of an Imposture and from the Life of that most infamous Impostor whom we as well as you acknowledge to be such which I have before given you the exact Picture of And if you can find any one lineament of it any one line of all its filthy features in the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ I durst say so sure I am of the contrary that for the sake hereof I will give you all you contend for and yield you up the whole Cause And therefore that we may throughly examine the Matter I will lay down in the first place What an Imposture is 2dly What are the inseparable Marks and Characters of it And 3dly That none of these Marks can belong to the Gospel of Jesus Christ And when I have done this I hope I shall convince all such of you who have not totally abandoned your selves to your Infidelity That the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that sacred Truth of God which you are all bound to believe An Imposture taking the word in the full latitude of its signification may denote any lye or cheat whereby one Man imposeth upon another But it is most frequently used to express such cheats as are imposed on us by those who come with false Characters of themselves pretending to be what they are not in order to delude and deceive And when this character which is thus falsely assumed is no less than a pretended Embassy from Heaven and under the credit of it a New Religion is delivered to the World as coming from God which is nothing else but a Forgery invented by the first Propagators of it to impose a cheat upon mankind it amounts to be an Imposture in that sense in which you would have the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be such And in this sense it is to be understood in the Controversie between us so that the whole Question which we are to examine into is Whether the Christian Religion be a Truth really given unto us by divine Revelation from God our Creatour or else a meer humane invention contrived by the first Propagators of it to impose a cheat upon mankind And when I have fully disproved the latter part of this Question that the Christian Religion cannot be such an invention contrived to cheat and impose upon us that will sufficiently prove the former that it must be that divine Truth which all we that are Christians firmly believe it to be That it is possible such a cheat may be imposed upon Men cannot be denied It is sufficiently proved in the foregoing History which is a very full instance of it and I have laid it before you for this very purpose that you may therein see clearly delineated and displayed in all its proper colours the whole nature of the thing which you charge our holy Religion with All that I contend for is That if Christianity be such an Imposture as we all acknowledge the Religion of Mahomet to be it must be just such another thing as that is with all the same Marks Characters and Properties of an Imposture belonging thereto and that if none of those Marks Characters or Properties can be discovered in it it must be a clear eviction of the whole charge and manifestly prove That our holy Religion cannot be that thing which you would have it to be For our only way of knowing things is by their Marks and Properties and it is by them only that we can discover what the nature of them is It is only by the Marks and Properties of a Man that we know a Man from another living Creature for we cannot see the Essences of things And so it must be only by the Marks and Properties of an Imposture that we can know an Imposture from that which is a real truth when attested unto us And as where we find none of the Marks and Properties of a Man we assuredly know that cannot be a Man how much soever any one may tell us that it is So where we find none of the Marks and Properties of an Imposture we may assuredly know that cannot be an Imposture how much soever you or any other like you may assert it so to be Now the Marks and Characters which I look on to be inseparable from every such Imposture are these following 1. That it must always have for its end some carnal interest 2. That it can have none but wicked Men for the Authors of it 3. That both these must necessarily appear in the very contexture of the Imposture it self 4. That it can never be so framed but that it must contain some palpable falsities which will discover the falsity of all the rest 5. That where-ever it is first propagated it must be done by craft and fraud 6. That when entrusted with many conspirators it can never be long concealed And 7. That it can never be established unless backed with force and violence That all these must belong to every Imposture and all particularly did so to Mahometism and that none of them can be charged upon Christianity is what I shall now proceed to shew you of each of them in their order SECT I. I. That every Imposture must have for its end some carnal interest is a thing so plain and evident that I suppose it will not need much proof For to impose a cheat upon mankind and in a matter of that great importance as all that have any Religion hold that to be is a thing of that difficulty to compass and of that danger to attempt that it cannot be conceived why any one should put himself upon such a design that doth not propose some very valuable advantage to himself in the success To cheat one Man is not always so easie a matter or is it without its mischiefs and inconveniences in the discovery But to enterprize a cheat upon all mankind and in a thing of that importance as the introducing of a New Religion and the abolishing of the Old one to which so many both by custom and education will be always zealously affected be it what it will must be an undertaking of the greatest difficulty and hazard imaginable For whoever engageth himself in such a plot of Imposture must unavoidably
meet with many strong oppositions to struggle with in the management of it which will continually put his thoughts upon the rack to find out devices to surmount them and his body to incessant pains and labour to bring them into Execution and for the effecting hereof he must have some confidents to assist him some to help forward the design whom he must trust with the secret of it and the more he hath of such the more he hazards all to a discovery And all this while his mind will be fill'd with anxious cares and his thoughts distracted with many uneasie and affrighting apprehensions as is usual with Men on wicked designs about the success and every failure will expose him to that terrible revenge from those he attempts to declude as such a villainy whenever detected most justly deserves This was Mahomet's case all the while he was propagating his Imposture at Mecca and so it must be of every other such Impostor also And when a man puts himself upon all this the nature of the thing manifestly leads us to conclude he must propose something to himself hereby which may make him amends for all in the result For when so much is put to hazard men do not use to do it for nothing There must always be some great interest in the bottom of such a design something that the undertaker values at a more than ordinary rate to make him engage in so exceeding difficult and dangerous an enterprise For where-ever the venture is great it must be taken for granted there is an end proposed which in the estimation of the venturer is equivalent thereto What it was that put Mahomet on his Imposture the foregoing History of his life sufficiently shews it was his ambition and his lust To have the soveraignty over his Country to gratify his ambition and as many women as he pleased to satiate his lust was what he aimed at and to gain himself a party for the compassing of this was the grand design of that new Religion which he invented and the whole end and reason of his imposing it on those he deluded thereinto And whoever pursues the like method must certainly have some such end in it it being totally incredible that any one should take upon him the trouble fatigue and danger of carrying on such a cheat only for cheating sake But here we challenge all the enemies of that holy Religion which we profess to find out any thing like this in the Gospel of Jesus Christ any thing that savours of worldly interest either in him the first Founder of our Faith or in any of his holy Apostles who were the first Propagators of it Vaninus one of the most zealous Champions of Impiety that ever appeared against the Christian Cause for he died a Martyr for it hath attempted this but after the most accurate and diligent search which so keen an Adversary could make he was forced to give up the Point and plainly acknowledge that in the whole series of the History and actions of our Saviour he could not find any thing that he could charge with secular interest or design to blast him or his Religion with And if you will renew the same attempt though you extend the inquiry much farther even to his Apostles and all the rest of his Disciples who first preached this holy Religion to the World and take in to your assistance all the enemies of it after the strictest scrutiny that you can make you will never have any better success herein For had our Saviour's design been to seduce the People for his own interest he must have taken the same course that other Seducers do He must have flattered them in their humors and formed his doctrines to their fancies courted those that were in greatest authority and esteem with them and made it his business mostly to preach against and decry those who were least in their favour and studied and practised all other such arts of popularity whereby he might best insinuate into their good liking and gain that interest with them as might be sufficient to serve his purpose and obtain the end proposed These were the methods whereby Mahomet first propagated his Imposture and these are they which all others must take whose purpose it is to deceive the People But our Saviour in every particular acted contrary hereto which sufficiently proves that he had no such design to compass For he freely preach'd against whatever he found blameable in the people spared not their most beloved errours or framed his doctrines to indulge them in any one evil practice how predominant so ever amongst them and was so far from courting those in the greatest authority and esteem with them that he was most sharp and bitter against them above all others whom they most idolized I mean the Scribes and Pharisees For he on all occasions detected their Hypocrisies and laid open their evil practices and in the severest manner rebuked and condemned them for their iniquity therein even to the preferring and justifying before them the wicked Publicans who for their exactions and oppressions upon the people in their gathering the publick Taxes were held among them the most hated of men and the worst of sinners And therefore though his Miracles often drew their admiration and their applause on the one hand his doctrines and his preachings as fast alienated them from him on the other so that those very same Men who for the sake of the former followed him often in multitudes and were ready to acknowledge him to be the Messias were as violently set against him at other times for the sake of the latter and at last crucified him on the account thereof And is it possible to conceive that he who took all those courses so contrary to the humour of the people without regarding how much they tended to exasperate them against him should have any interest or design of his own to serve himself of them When our Saviour took upon him to be the Messias that was promised had he done it only as an Impostor to promote a secular interest and design of his own he would certainly have assumed that character according to those Notions in which the Jews expected him For in this case the expectation of the people must have been the grand motive to the Imposture and their looking for such a Messias to come the main inducing reason of his putting himself thereon and therefore to be sure had he been an Impostor he would have offered himself to them no otherwise than just such a Messias as their notions of him would have him to be and there are two special reasons which in this case would have determined him hereto 1. Because those notions offered to him the highest secular interest that could be attained unto And 2. Because the suiting of his pretensions exactly according to them would have been the readiest and most likely way for him to carry the interest whatever it was which
derogate either from the excellency which they conceived of it or that opinion which they then had and still retain that it was to be immutably observed by them to the end of the World The case of Mahomet with his Men of Mecca was quite otherwise he found no such zeal in them for their old Religion to struggle with they themselves were then grown so weary of it that the generality of them had in a manner totally exchanged it for no Religion at all at that time Mahomet first began to propagate his Imposture among them they having then for the most part given themselves up to the opinions of the Zendikees who in the same manner as the Epicureans among the Greeks and too many now-a-days among us acknowledged the Being of a God but denying his Providence the immortality of the soul and a future state did at the same time deny all manner of necessity of paying any worship unto him And no wonder then if such Men who placed their All in this World were easily brought over to a Sect whose chief aim was at worldly prosperity and worldly pleasure in the Religion which they professed This Mahomet was well enough aware of before he started his new Religion among them and it seems to have been the greatest encouragement which emboldned him to venture on that attempt However since they still retained the outward form of their Religion after they had deserted the substance of it he found even from hence that opposition to his design that to make it go down he was forced to retain all those Rites and Ceremonies in his new Religion which they had been afore used to in their old and in order hereto he chose to make some dangerous alterations in his first establishments as particularly in that of the Kebla rather than ruffle his Arabians by abolishing what he found them through long usage and custom any way affected to For his business being to deceive the people his care was to offer at nothing which might be difficult to go down with them and so must it be of every other deceiver who takes upon him to act the like part But in every particular it was quite otherwise with our Saviour and those whom he first preached his Gospel unto For the Jews having undergone several terrible scourges from the hand of God for the neglect of that Law which he had given them were from their former too much disregard of it then grown into the contrary extreme of being with exceeding superstition and bigottry too much devoted to it They then looked on it with the same veneration as they still do to be an immutable Law never to be altered That the Messias himself on his coming should not make the least change therein but that the glory of his Kingdom should chiefly consist in the perfection of its observance and the exact performance of the worship it prescrib'd and for any one to advance any doctrine contrary hereto was reckoned no less than Blasphemy among them And therefore had our Saviour only consulted flesh and bloud in the Mission which he undertook had he had no other design therein than a Secular interest and a worldly end he would never have opposed himself against the violent current of such predominant opinions as he found then reigning among them whom he first preached his Gospel unto or ever durst have offered at the abolition of that Law which they were so violently bigotted unto Had he come to deceive them as a Seducer the very nature of the thing must necessarily have directed him to a quite contrary method that is to sooth and collogue with them whom he came to impose upon to have contradicted no opinion they were violent for or opposed any doctrine which they were zealously affected to but to have studied their humours and learnt their notions and so framed and suited all his doctrines according thereto as might best take to draw them over to the end designed To have done otherwise would have been to set Priest and People against him as an enemy to their Religion and a Blasphemer of their Law And as our Saviour found it so in the result so it must have been obvious to any one in his case to have forseen it from the beginning And therefore since notwithstanding this he took this method so contrary to the whole end and design of one that intends a cheat upon the people and without having any regard to that zeal with which the Jews were then so violently bigotted to their Law or that rage of resentment which they were ready to express against whatsoever in the least should derogate from it did boldly preach unto them such Doctrines as totally disannull'd it this manifestly proves he could have no interest of his own to serve upon them in this undertaking or that he had any other reason for his entering on it but that he was sent of God so to do The grand and fundamental doctrine of the Religion which Jesus Christ left his Church was that of his death and passion whereby he made atonement for our sins and delivered us from the punishment which was due unto us for them By this means only he proposed to save us that is from Sin the Devil and eternal Death and by this conflict only did he undertake to subdue these our enemies for us and on that conquest to found us a Kingdom which should make us holy and righteous here and for ever blessed with him in glory hereafter This was the whole end and purpose of our Saviour's Mission this he frequently foretold to his Disciples and on this was founded the whole Religion which he taught them And can any one say he could have a design of Secular interest for himself in such a Religion as this which could have no being but by his dying for it or any reason for its establishment among men till he had laid down his life for the compleating of it To say there was any thing of worldly interest in this would be to charge it on his cross and place it in that bitter and ignominious death which he underwent thereon Men sometimes put their lives to great hazard for the interests of this World but for a Man purposely to design death for such an end and part with this World in such a manner as Christ did for the sake of any thing that this world hath is a thing which was never yet heard of and is in it self so contrary to the most obvious dictates both of reason and nature that no one can be so absurd as to imagine it possible for any man so to do But that which I know you will say in this case is That it was not Christ himself but his Disciples after his death that made this a part of his Religion That he intended no such thing in the undertaking he entered on that it should end in his death and be compleated by his Crucifixion but that
it cannot be conceived how otherwise they could help forward to the obtaining of them it is impossible they could thus have passed thorough so many ages and all the strict examinations of Heathens Jews Atheists and all other Adversaries who have so strenuously endeavoured to overthrow their authority and no discovery be made hereof For supposing at first under the mask of renouncing the world they might a while conceal their designs for the interest of it which is the utmost you can say in this case yet this could not last long For if this were all they designed by teaching that holy Religion and writing those Books in which it is contained sometime or other they must have put those designs in execution otherwise they would have been in vain laid sometime or other they must have endeavoured by them to obtain what they aimed at otherwise the whole projection of them would have been to no purpose and if they ever did so as to be sure they would had this been their end then as it happens in all other stratagems of the like nature with how much artifice soever they might conceal what they intended in the contrivance all at last must have come out in the execution and when they began to put them selves in possession of the end they aimed at or at least made any offer towards it the whole cheat must then have been unmask'd and every one would have been able to see into the depth thereof But when did our Saviour or any of his holy Apostles by vertue of any of those doctrines delivered down unto us in the Books of the New Testament ever put themselves in possession of any such worldly interest or when did they ever make the least offer in order thereto Have any of the ancient enemies of our holy Religion and it had bitter ones enough from the very beginning ever recorded any such against them or have any other ever since from any good authority or any authority at all ever been able to tax them herewith or is it possible their names could have remained untainted of this charge amidst so many Adversaries who have now for near Seventeen hundred years stood up in every age to oppose that holy Religion which they have delivered unto us had they in the least been guilty hereof Nay hath it been as much as ever said of them that they practised as to this world any otherwise than they taught or ever dealt with the interests of it in any other manner than totally to renounce them or had they at all any other portion in this life than that of persecution affliction and tribulation as it is foretold in those holy Books that they should And what then can be a greater madness than to suppose that men should lay such a deep design as that of inventing a new Religion and undergo all that vast trouble and danger which they did to impose it on the world for the sake of a worldly interest and yet never put themselves in possession of that interest or ever make the least offer towards it If you say that the whole end of the Religion was only to gain the party and â—hat the steps to the interest were to be made afterwards I still go on to ask who can tell us after the party was gain'd of any such steps that were ever made or of any the least offer tending thereto Were not the first Christians for many ages â—fter the first founding of our faith what â—hey ought still to be men that used this world as if they used it not who lived in 〈◊〉 without being of it and did truly what â—hey vowed in their Baptism renounce all â—he Pomps and Vanities and Lusts thereof â—aithfully to observe that holy Law which â—hey had receiv'd And in this they perâ—ever'd so steadily that even â—heir very enemies admired â—he righteousness of their â—â—ves and bore witness â—hereto and the cruellest â—ersecutors could never â—eat them therefrom but â—hey still went on in the â—bservance of their holy â—eligion without having â—ny other design therein â—han to practise that righâ—eousness which it taught â—nd for three hundred years â—ogether stood firm thereto â—gainst also those terrible storms of persecution which were riseâ— against them till at length by the holâ—ness of their lives and the constancy 〈◊〉 their sufferings they made a conquest oveâ— their very persecutors and brought oveâ— the World unto them And are not ouâ— Principles still the same and also thank be to God notwithstanding the Corruptâ—ons of the present age the practice toâ— of many thousands still among us whâ— I doubt not will be as ready to undergâ— the same sufferings those primitive Christâ—ans did when ever God shall try them foâ— that holy Religion which they profess 〈◊〉 they now are to observe the righteousnâ—â— thereof But supposing this had been 〈◊〉 otherwise and the Mammon of this Worâ— and not the Righteousness of God weâ—â— really the end for which our Religion wâ—â— designed yet to renounce the World 〈◊〉 gain a Party and afterwards make uâ—â— of this Party to gain the World is a prâ—ject so unfeasible that the former part 〈◊〉 it must necessarily have overthrown tâ—â— latter whenever it had been attemptâ—â— For when men had been drawn over to 〈◊〉 party under the specious pretence of â—â—nouncing the World and been instructâ—â— and firmly fixed in this principle to maâ—â— those very same men afterwards to serâ—â— their turn for the gaining of a worldly interest would be to make their doctrine and their practice so monstrously interfere as must necessarily have broken all into pieces and destroyed the whole design Certainly had they any such design they would never have thus possessed their Disciples with such principles against it by the Religion which they taught them and in that they did so I think nothing can be a more evident Demonstration that they could never intend any such end thereby Mahomet knew well enough this was not a way to carry what he designed and therefore openly owned in his Religion what he aimed at thereby and made his Law to speak for that Empire and Lust which he desired to enjoy and so when he had made his Religion to obtain he gained by vertue thereof the whole which he projected by it and became possessed of the Empire of all Arabia for the gratifying of his Ambition and as many Women as he pleased for the satisfying of his Lust which were the two Ends he drove at in the whole Imposture And had Jesus Christ and his Apostles had any such design in the Religion which they taught they must in the same manner they made their Religion speak for it or else it could never have served their purpose for the obtaining of it And if their Religion had ever offer'd at any such thing it must necessarily have appeared in the Books in which it is written And 2dly if they had been so wicked as thus to impose upon the World
a root and the effect vastly above the efficiency of such a cause ever to produce it For can it possibly be imagin'd that a wicked Man could either have inclination to do so much for the promoting of that Righteousness which all his passions and desires so violently run counter unto or if he would that such an one could ever be so well acquainted with all the ways thereof as so exactly to prescribe them If it be so difficult for such an one to conceal his inclinations in his expressions if it be so hard for him when he vents himself into Words or Writings not to let loose something in them of what he really is as I have already shown how can any copy be drawn from such a Mind but what must in some feature or other resemble the Original or any thing at all proceed from thence but what must carry with it some savour of the iniquity thereof Set but such a one to write a Letter and he will scarce be able to do it without putting so much of his passions and his temper into it as that we may read from thence what he is as every Man's experience may tell him that corresponds with such and how much more then may we be assured will he lay himself open when he hath the large scope of a Book to express himself in and especially when that book is of such a nature as gives him the fullest occasion and the most inviting opportunity so to do And what book can be more such than that which is to propose a new Law to Mankind In the writing of such a book if ever certainly the wicked Man will show himself and in the same manner as Mahomet did conform his Laws to his own inclinations and prescribe such rules of living to others as may best justifie him in those which he himself follows And although he should not intend any such thing though he should not design so to do and it is hard to imagine of such a Man that he should not yet at least the prevailing bent of his passions and the corruption of his judgment which always follows therefrom must necessarily lead him thereinto it being morally speaking altogether impossible but that the wicked Man must appear in what the wicked Man doth and the deeds words and writings which proceed from such an one must in some measure savour of what he is And therefore if there be nothing in the Law of our holy Religion as I hope I have fully shown that there is not which can make the least discovery of any such thing nothing that can afford the least pretence for such a charge against it where so large a scope is given for it this sufficiently proves that neither the first Founder of the Christian Religion nor those who first wrote it in the Books of the New Testament in which we now have it could possibly be wicked Men and consequently not such Impostors as you would have them to be But here I know it will be objected that there is no necessity that all Impostors should be as wicked as Mahomet and therefore though Jesus Christ and his Apostles were no such wicked Persons yet however they may be still Impostors for all that For first it hath hapned that very just and good Men have had recourse to Imposture to bring to pass and establish their most commendable designs as we have an instance in Minos King of Crete and another in Numa King of Rome both which to give the greater authority to their Laws pretended to have had them by divine Revelation And secondly you will say it 's possible a Man may be an Impostor by Enthusiasm and mistake and falsely impose things for divine Revelation not out of a wicked design to deceive others but that he is really deceived herein himself And if in these two Cases a Man that is not wicked may be an Impostor you will urge That though Jesus Christ and his Apostles were not wicked Men yet this will not prove them not to have been Impostors because it 's possible that in one of these two Cases they might have been such In order to the clearing of the first of these Objections I desire you would consider these Three following Particulars 1. That in every Religion there are these two Parts to be observed very distinct from each other 1. The Religion it self And 2. The Means whereby it is promoted and propagated among Men. 2. When the Imposture is only in the former of these two and a true Religion or at least one that is really believed to be such is promoted by means of Imposture that is by feigning a divine Revelation where there is none or by counterfeiting Miracles or by any other such means tending to deceive Men thereinto this amounts to no higher than a pious fraud which out of an over-hot and inconsiderate zeal some Men have made use of for the promoting of the best Ends. And such Men for the sake of such Ends may still be denominated good and righteous in the main how much soever they may have been out in making use of such means to promote them 3. When the Imposture is in the End as well as in the Means and not only the Revelation pretended but also the Religion it self is all false counterfeit and feigned this amounts to such an Imposture as is totally wicked without any mixture of good therein In the former Case where the Imposture is only in the Means there is a good End designed and therefore something still from whence the person using it may be denominated Good but where the Imposture is in both it is Wickedness all over without any thing at all in it to exempt him from being perfectly wicked that maketh use thereof Which Particulars being premised my Answer to the Objection is as followeth 1. I do acknowledge it to be related by Authors of good credit that Minos King of Crete when he first framed the Laws of his Country to give them the greater authority used to retire into a Cave on Mount Dicta and from thence to bring them forth to his Cretans as if they had been there delivered to him by Jupiter And that Numa when he founded the Laws of Rome practised the same art pretending to have received them from the Nymph Egeria that so he might procure them to be received by the Romans with the greater veneration And by this device they both obtained there End in bringing very rude and barbarous People to submit to those good Orders and Rules which they prescribed for their living civilly peaceably and justly together But this although it were a fraud in the Means yet as far as it related only to a political End belongs to another matter and doth not at all fall within that argument of Religion which we are now treating of 2. As to the Laws of Numa I acknowledge that they reached not only Matters of State but those of
I desire to know among what sort of Men you will place them while you thus plead their excuse For they must be one of these three that is either Atheists Deists or Believers of an instituted Religion 1. If you say they are Atheists that word alone contains enough to prove them perfectly wicked whatever can be said to the contrary It is indeed agreeable enough to the Principes of this sort of Men that such an Imposture as we are treating of may laudably be made use of to a good End For they hold that all Religion is nothing else but a device of Politicians to keep the World in awe But if the Atheist be the deviser what intention of Good can the device carry therewith None certainly towards God since he utterly denies his Being or can it in this case have any towards Men since by denying him for whose sake it is that we are to do good to others he casts off therewith all the reason and obligation which he hath abstractive of his own interest of doing any such at all All the good therefore that such an one can aim at must totally center in himself to advance his own enjoyments and gratifie his own lusts in all those things which his corrupt affections carry him after and to enjoy these without restraint of Laws or fear of punishment being that alone which is the real and true cause that makes any Man deny that supreme and infinitely good and just Being whom all things else prove whoever is an Atheist must be perfectly wicked before he can be such and what is there which can while in that impiety ever give him a better character afterwards 2. If you say they are Deists such as you profess your selves to be your main Principle is against all instituted Religion whatever as if God were dishonoured and Man injured by every thing of this nature practised among us and can you then think that any who are thus persuaded can without being first corrupted to a great degree of Impiety as well as Hypocrisie ever become themselves so contrary to their own Sentiments on any pretence whatsoever the Authors and Teachers of such a Religion among us 3. But if you place them among those who are Believers of an instituted Religion they must abolish that which they believe to be true before they can introduce that by Imposture which they know to be false And this must be the case of Jesus Christ and his Apostles if they were such Impostors as you hold them to be For they were educated and brought up in the Jewish Religion which they believed to be from God and the whole Tenour of the Religion which they taught supposeth it so to be and that it was the only true way whereby God was to be worshipped by them till they delivered their new Revelations which totally abolished this Religion and established the Christian in its stead and therefore if those Revelations were not true and real as they pretended they were but all forged and counterfeited by them as you say they must abolish a Religion which they believed to be true to make way for that which they knew to be false and thereby become wilfully and knowingly according to their own belief the Authors of leading Men from saving Truths into damning Errours to the utter destruction of their Souls for ever and also of depriving God of that acceptable Worship whereby he was truly honour'd according to his own appointment to introduce in its stead a false superstition of their own devising which must be constant dishonour unto him as long as practised among us And if Jesus Christ and his Apostles were such Impostors as all this imports and such they must be if they were Impostors at all they must be guilty of that impiety towards God as well as that injustice towards Men herein as must necessarily suppose them the wickedest of Men before they could arrive hereto and therefore if they were not such wicked Men this abundantly demonstrates they could not be such Impostors as you charge them to be As to the second Objection That a Man may be an Impostour through Enthusiasm and Mistake and falsely impose things for divine Revelations not out of a wicked design to deceive others but that he is herein really deceived himself and that therefore there is no necessity that all Impostors should be such wicked persons as I have alledged my Answer hereto is 1. I do acknowledge that Enthusiasm hath carried Men into very strange conceits and extravagancies upon the foundation of a Religion already established as we have instances enough hereof in the Anabaptists of Germany the Quakers here with us the Batenists among the Mahometans and in some of the Recluses of the Church of Rome But that Enthusiasm could ever go so far as to fansie a divine Revelation for the establishing of a new Religion and upon such a fansie propagate that Religion in the World as if it came from God is that which I cannot believe and there is no instance that I know of that can be given hereof But 2dly Allowing it possible this Objection then as applied to the case in hand must suppose Jesus Christ and his Apostles to have been deceived by Enthusiasm into the Religion which they taught and that therefore although they were by no means such wicked Men as a wilfull Imposture must suppose them to be yet still they might be Impostors by mistake and being by Enthusiasm so far deluded as to think that to come to them from God by divine Revelation which had no other birth but from their own wild fancies might preach it to Men as such not out of a wicked design to deceive but that they were really herein deceived themselves But is it possible for any Man to conceive that so grave so serious and so wisely a framed Religion as Christianity is could ever be the spawn of Enthusiasm Whatsoever is the product of that useth ever to be like the Parent wild and extravagant in all its parts often disagreeing with all manner of Reason and often as much with it self But Christianity is in all its parts as rational as it is good giving us the justest Notions of God the best Precepts of our duty towards Him and the exactest Rules of living honestly and righteously with each other and hath a thorough conformity to it self in every particular of it on which account it hath been approved and admired for the excellency of its composure and the wisdom of its constitutions even by the best and wisest of those who never submitted thereto and therefore always carries with it Marks and Evidences enough in the very Nature of it sufficiently to prove it vastly above the power of such a Cause ever to produce it 3. The Founder and first Teachers of Christianity gave such evidences for the truth thereof as Enthusiasm could never produce For can Enthusiasm raise the dead to life again cure all manner of
sure he left no Art or Device unpractised which could possibly be made use of with any advantage for the compassing of it And therefore by proving unto you that none of those methods of craft and fraud which were made use of for the first propagating of Mahometism were ever practised in the first preaching of Christianity I shall sufficiently prove that no craft or fraud at all which is anyway practicable on such occasions can ever be charged thereupon For 1. Mahomet made use of all manner of insinuation both with rich and poor for the gaining of their affection thereby to gain them to his Imposture also But our Saviour Christ and his Apostles did quite the contrary freely convincing all Men of their sins without having regard to any thing else but the faithfull discharge of the Mission on which they were sent which instead of reconciling men to their persons provoked the World against them and they sufficiently experienced it from the ill usage which they found therein 2. Mahomet the easier to draw over the Arabians to his Party indulged them by his Law in all those passions and corrupt affections which he found them strongly addicted to especially those of Lust and War which those Barbarians above all the Nations of the Earth were by their natural inclinations most violently carried after and therefore he allows them a plurality of wives and a free use of their female slaves for the satisfying of their Lust and makes it a main part of his Religion for them to fight against plunder and destroy all that would not be of it But Jesus Christ and his Apostles allowed no such practices but strictly prohibited all manner of sin how much soever in reputation among men even to the forbidding of many things till then allowed and held lawfull among those who where called God's own people and therefore instead of seeking the favour of Men by indulging them in their lusts and sinfull practices they laid a much stricter restraint upon them than was ever done before 3dly Mahomet to please his Arabians retained in the Religion which he taught them most of those Rites and Ceremonies which they had been accustomed to under that which he abolished and also the Temple of Mecca in which they were chiefly performed But Jesus Christ without having any regard to the pleasing of Men abolished both the Temple and the Law which the Jews were so bigotted unto and also the total worshipping of God by Sacrifices without being at all influenced to the contrary by that extravagant fondness which he knew the whole World had then for them 4. Mahomet when he found any of his new Laws not so well to serve his return craftily shifted the scene and brought them about to his purpose by such alterations as would best suit therewith and therefore when his making his Kebla towards Jerusalem did not so well please his Countrymen he turned it about again towards Mecca and order'd all his Pilgrimages thither as in the time of their Idolatry And the like changes he made in many other particulars according as he found his interest required And this is that which every Impostor must do For interest being the end which all such aim at it is impossible that they can so well lay their designs in order to it but that emerging changes in the one will frequently require changes in the other also But Jesus Christ never made the least alteration in any of the doctrines or precepts which he delivered but what he first taught both he and his Disciples immutably persisted in without at all regarding how violently all the interests of the World ran counter against them herein And what can be a more certain evidence that none such was the bottom which they were built upon 5. Mahomet under pain of death forbad all manner of Disputes about his Religion and nothing could be a wiser course to prevent its follies and absurdities from being detected and exposed For they being such as could never stand the trial of a rational Examination they must all have soon been exploded had every man been allowed the free use of his reason to inquire into them But Christ and his Apostles direct the quite contrary course For our Saviour bids the Jews search the Scriptures for the trial of those truths which he taught them John 5. v. 39. And the Noble Beroeans are commended that they did so before they would receive those doctrines of the Christian Religion which were preached unto them Acts 17. v. 11. And St. Paul gives us this general rule first to prove or try all things and then to hold fast that only which we find to be good 1 Thess 5. v. 21. It is only errour and falsehood that desires to shelter it self in the dark and dares not expose it self to an open view and trial But Truth being always certain of its own stability makes use of no art to support it self but dares venture it self abroad on its own foundation only and boldly offers it self to every Man's search and the more it is sifted and examined into the more bright and refulgent will it always appear And since Christianity from the first ever took this course as it still doth where-ever purely professed and instead of prohibiting Disputes about it invites all Men to search and examine thereinto this sufficiently argues how certain the first Teachers of it were of its Truth and that no cheat or Imposture could ever be intended thereby 6. Mahomet made choice of a People first to propagate his Imposture among who were of all Men most fitted to receive it and that on two accounts 1. Because of the indifferency which they were then grown to as to any Religion at all And 2. Because of the great ignorance they were in of all manner of Learning at that time when he first vented his Forgeries among them there being then but only one Man among all the Inhabitants of Mecca that could either write or read For who are more fit to be imposed on than the ignorant and who can be more easie to receive a new Religion than those who are not prepossessed with any other to prejudice them against it The Papists who next Mahomet have the greatest claim to Imposture as to those errours which they teach very well understand how such a Cause is to be served by both these Particulars and therefore make it their business as much as they can to keep their own People in ignorance and pervert all those they call Hereticks to Atheism and Infidelity that so having no Religion at all they may be the better prepared again to receive theirs And that there are so many Atheists now among us it is too well known how much it is owing to this their Hellish artifice against us But all was quite contrary as to those whom Christ and his Apostles first preached our holy Religion unto Our Saviour did not chuse such ignorant Times to come among us in or a
still keep up those gross errours in their Church which neither Reason nor Religion can ever support and the same must be done as to all other falsities imposed on mankind before they can have any firm footing among them For it is only force and violence that can cram such things down men's throats which their reason and their judgment must ever renounce The unthinking multitude may for a while be carried away by the craft of the Impostor and by the arts of Hypocrisie and Delusion be made easie to swallow any forgery that shall be offered â—nto them but when the heat of the firsâ— zeal is over and the matter comes to be examined into by reason and coolly scanned through by the inquisitive Imposture cannot stand the Test but muâ—â— soon be laid open blasted and exploded thereon And therefore unless it be accompanied with force to suppress this inquiry and hath power on its side to compell Men to acquiesce therein how much soever it may delude Men at first it can never obtain any lasting establishment among them And this hath been the case of all the Impostors which have ever yet appeared in the World without this power to back them and how great progress soever any of them may have made in the first heat they have all at length been detected and exploded and sunk to nothing for want of this support on their side to keep them up For nothing but truth can of it self alone stand the Test of ages upon its own bottom only Falsehood and errour are too weak for such a Trial and therefore unless supported by some external strength and fenced thereby against all assaults of opposers they must necessarily fall to the ground and again come to nothing and where education or the force of long received custom is not strong enough for this and neither can in the first propagating of an Imposture there the sword must come in to over rule all or nothing of this nature can be established among Men. But Jesus Christ and his Apostles instead of making use of any such force to establish the Religion which they taught had all the force and powers of the World in opposition against it and yet in spight of the World it at length prevailed over the World by the dint of its own truth only and after having stood the assault of all manner of persecutions as well as other oppositions for three hundred years together carried the victory over the fiercest of its enemies and made the greatest of them even the Roman Emperours themselves to submit thereto and all this while it had sharpned against it not only the Sword of the Superiour Powers but also the tongues of the slanderers and the wits of all the learned of those times But how much soever it was oppressed by the first of these blackned by the second and sifted and searched into by the last it stood all these Trials without losing any thing thereby but at last came out of them all like Gold out of the Furnace still of the same weight fineness and purity without receiving from that fire which consumeth all things else the least wast or diminution thereof Had it been false and owed its Original only to Deceit and Imposture it would have needed all those means of Violence for its establishment and support but since it thus stood not only without them but also in spight of them when all armed on the adversaries side for three Centuries together in bitter opposition against it what greater argument can we have for the truth thereof For can you think that Falshood and Imposture could ever have held out with such steady and unshaken constancy for so many years as Christianity thus did or that it is possible for any sort of Men so long to have born all this for the sake of a Lye Falshood can have no foundation for such a Constancy or Imposture any reason to engage Men thereto The interest of this World is ever the bottom and foundation of all such Forgeries and therefore as soon as punishments and persecutions make it to be no Man's interest to be for them they ever fall of themselves for want of that foundation on which they afore-stood But Christianity having come into the World contrary to all the interests of it and in its very infancy thus stood the shock of all the powers thereof engaged in persecution against it as I have mentioned and not only so but also prospered and became established in the midst of the hottest assaults thereof this plainly shows that it had another kind of foundation on which it was built a foundation of Truth and Righteousness and not only so but a foundation that was laid and fix'd in such a manner by the hand of God himself as never to be shaken For what truth of it self alone could ever have made its way into the World in such a manner as the Christian Religion did or ever have gained against all the powers thereof such a prevalency over it without some extraordinary assistance conducting and helping it therein The strongest Truths we know are crush'd by such means of violence as that encountred with and even first principles themselves have been over-powered by them And therefore that Christianity should thus enter the World and thus from its first Entry bear up against such long and terrible Trials of persecution and oppression as it met with without the least flinching under them must be owing to somewhat more than its own bare truth And what but the hand of God himself backing and strengthening it in the conflict could be sufficient to give it such a victory therein For that a few poor Fishermen the Disciples of a Crucified Master should without power learning or reputation or any other of the interests or favours of the world on their side be able to introduce a new Religion into the World directly opposite to all the interests pleasures and prevailing humours of it as Christianity then was and that this Religion in spight of all the powers cunning malice and learning of the World joyned together in most fierce opposition and bitter persecution against it for three hundred years together should not only bear up but also at length prevail over the World and subject the highest powers therein to the obedience of its Laws is an event so strange and wonderfull and morally speaking so far above the possibility of all ordinary means to bring it to pass as plainly manifesteth the extraordinary working of God himself therein And for my part had Christian Religion no other Miracle to bear witness thereto this alone would be Miracle enough to me sufficiently to convince me of the truth thereof At least since it thus entered into the World and thus became established in it it must be allowed to be so far differing from an Imposture in that method of violence which that needs for its establishment as to be totally opposite thereto and in this