67. The Authority of the Gospel of St. Matthew 75. Of St. Mark ib. Of St. Luke and the Acts. 76. Of St. John 77. Of his three Epistles and the Book of Revelations ib. The Authority of the Epistles of St. Paul 78. Of the Epistle of St. James 79. Of those of St. Peter ib. Of the Epistle of St. Jude ib. The Authority of the Scriptural Books more indubitable than others 81. Hereticks not accepting them no Argum. against them 84. Old Testament not more inspired than the New 88. Apostles not doubting in their Doctrine 90. Want of exactness in the Greek no Argument against the Apostles Inspiration 92. Nor their Reasoning 93. Nor that St. Paul uses Intreaties 96. Preaching of the Apostles not after human Art 96. Different Methods of the Apostles not the cause of Heresies 98. Seeming Contradictions no Objection against their Inspiration 99. Nor want of Exactness in Time or Number 100. Nor St. Paul thinking he had the Spirit of God 101. Different Explications no argum against Inspiration 103. Inspiration of Scripture proved from Reason 105. As much need of Inspirat in Writing as in Preach ib. The Apostolick Honour a Proof of their Inspiration 106. Because Inspirat the best way to preserve Christianity 108. Proof of Inspiration from Scripture 109. From Antient Authority 112. How far the Scriptures were Inspired 114. The Apostles generally make use of their own Words and Reason 115. Chief of the Sense of Scripture Inspired 117. Sometimes the Words 119. Of the Style of Scripture Charge of want of Eloquence answered because Eloquence in Scripture needless 122. Greek and Latin Authors nor the Standard of Eloquence 126. The Scriptures avoid the Vices in Eloquence which the Greek and Latin Authors are subject to 130. Seeming uncuothness in Scripture Style from the literal Translation 134. Scriptures truly Eloquent 139. Because the Subject verisimilar 140. The Arguments conclusive 141. They move the Passions 143. and because their Eloquence suited to the Capacities they speak to 145. Scriptures not void of Rhetorical Figures 146. Anaphora 147. Anadiplosis 148. Climax ib. Auxesis 149. Antithesis 150. Exclamation ib. Hypotyposis 151. They have sometimes more sublimity than the Heathen Writers 153. Charge of want of Method in Scripture refuted because Method and Art invented by the Heathens 159. Method useless 160. Neglect of Method more answerable to Inspiration 161. Method not wholly wanting in Scripture 163. Particular Reasons of the want of Method 165. Charge of Obscurity upon Scripture refuted Because History and practical Duties plain in Scripture 169. Some sublime things in Scripture cannot be plain 171. Obscure Pasâ—ages may be hereafter plain 172. Obscurity arises from want of Exactness in Jewish Language and Customs 173. Reasonableness of some places being obscure 176. Imputation of Trivialness and Impertinence unjust because the meanest parts of Scripture is necessary to the perfecti of the whole 179. Family Affairs of the Patriarchs 180. The Scripture Writers do not pretend to the Heathen exactness of Style 181. Exact writing of History a Heathen Art 182. What may seem Impertinent is sometimes Typical 184. Sometimes Prophetical ib. Or brought to confute Heresies 185. Charge of Repetition removed because that is owing to the different Authors 186. Practical Duties ought to be repeated for inculcation 187. Some things diversly urged to suit with Mens Inclinat ib. Heathen Authors as moch subject to Repetitions 189. The Prophets and Apostles Vind. from this Charge 191. Imputation of the want of Reasoning answered because Scriptures make use of Rational Argumentation 194. Tho' they have not that need of it as other Books 196. Scriptures vindicated from Contradiction because no Contradiction in a material point 199. Some slight Contradictions proof of the Genuiness 200. All seeming Contradictions satisfactorily solved 201. There could not but be such seeming Contradictions arising from antient Customs 202. Hebrew Tongue ib. Chronology 203. Pretended Contradictions about the time of Christ's Resurrection solved ib. That about hearing the Voice in St. Pauls Conversion 204. That about the time of the Israelites stay in Aegypt 205. Scripture has more Difficulties than other Books from the strangeness of the Language and Matter c. 211. From the Multitude of Interpreters 212. From the design of wicked Men to oppose it 213. Unbelievers would like Scripture Style better if they would forbear drolling upon it 214. If they would study it in the Orig. Languages 216. If they would lead a good Life 217. Of the Truth and Excellency of the Christian Religion Arg. 1. Drawn from the foolish Scheme of Infidel Principles their groundless Objections against Christianity 233. and silly system of Moral Principles 235. Arg. 2. Drawn from the Harmony of the parts of Christianity 238. Arg. 3. From the great progress of Christianity in the World 236. Growth of Christianity against Wit and Learning 240. Secular Power ib. Prejudice 241. Persecution 242. notwithstanding the meanness of the Propagators 243. Progress of Mahometanism no parallel 244. Nor that of Quakerism 245. Arg. 4. Drawn from the Prophecies contained in the Old Testament .. 248. Prophecy of the Destruction of Jerusalem 249. Increase of Christianity 254. Of Anti-Christ 255. Of Christ's Resurrection and the Comforter 257. Arg. 5. From the Miracles which confirmed the Christian Religion 258. Miracles in our Saviour's and the Apostles time and in the succeeding Ages of the Church 259. Arg. 6. Drawn from the Excell of the Christian Doctrines 267. Speculative 269. Practical 271. The Motives to them 274. Arg. 7. Drawn from the comparison of Christianity with other false Religions 277. Heathen Religion ib. Mahometan 279. Bramins 280. Traditions of the Talmud 281. Popish Legends ib. Arg. Drawn from the Influence of the Christian Religion upon Mens Lives 283. Arg. 9. Drawn from the exact Historical Evidence and indubitable Testimony of what the Apostles taught and did 288. Conclusion Containing an Advice to Philologus 298. BOOKS Printed for Tho. Bennet Folio THuidides Greek and Latin Collated with five entire Manuscript Copies and all the Editions Extant also Illustrated with Maps large Annotations and Indexes by J. Hudson M. A. and Fellow of Vniversity Coll. Oxon. To which is added an exact Chronology by the Learned Hen. Dodwell never before Publish'd Printed at the Theater Oxon. Octavo and Twelves Sermons and Discourses upon several Occasions by Dr. Stradling Dean of Chichester Together with an Account of the Author by James Harrington Esq Sermons and Discourses upon several Occasions by Dr Meggot Dean of Chichester The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antonius the Roman Emperor Translated out of Greek into English by Dr. Causabon with Notes To this Edition is added the Life of the Emperor with an Account of Stoick Philosophy as also Remarks on the Meditations all newly written by Monsieur and Madam Dacier The Inspiration of the New Testament Asserted and Explained in Answer to the Six Letters of Inspiration from Holland c. by Mr. L. Moth. A Conference WITH A
men presently discern this false light and the little Arts which are used in the management of it and consequently do not suffer themselves to be deceived by it they consider these holy things as they are and not as they are wantonly represented all the mischief that this Discourse is like to do is among your little unthinking Things that set up for Wit without common Sense and cry up every thing for extraordinary reason which has nothing in it but Clinch and Jingle I desire therefore the favour of you Sir that you would make use of Argument instead of Raillery whilst we are disputing of these sacred Truths that you would propose your objections with all the strength you can that you would conceal no difficulty you can espy in this divine Relation but I can never endure you should rack and tenter the passages of it clap one part of it incongruously and ridiculously with another only to make sport and banter with it For I am sure Philologus you can find nothing ridiculous in the whole Relation but what you make so Nor do I reprimand you for the only Man that are delinquent this way but it is the general fault of all the Gentlemen of your persuasion who are wont especially to muster up all their Railery and Malice too to expose the Relation of this unfortunate miscarriage of our first Parents and to ridicule the belief of it out of the World Here I find lies the Masterpiece of your Irreligion and a Man must not pretend to set up for Theism without variety of Blasphemy upon this subject Phil. I perceive dear Credentius that this is touching you in a tender place and therefore I shall forbear all reflections which are not necessary to my Argument But I must needs tell you that there are a great many things in this relation of the Fall which you call difficult and we call ridiculous but let them be what they will they are such that will keep a thinking Man from heartily believing your Religion till he sees them handsomly cleared up And the first of these is the Temptation of Eve by the Serpent Now is it not a little odd Credentius that such an ugly Beast as a Serpent should venture to accost such a fine Lady in all her Supralapsarian Beauty O. R. p. 39 40 c. I pray what kind of Language did Serpents then speak for we find they have no other than that of hissing now Methinks Eve should have run away from such a speaking Beast faster than from an Apparition and never have enter'd into a Conference with it Why should a Serpent I pray of all the Beasts of the field have all this Reason and Elocution bestow'd upon it Methinks a Lyon or a Bull would have made a good full-mouthed Orator but for a pitiful Snake to have such mighty Talents of Rhetorick and Perswasion is really very surprizing But supposing you say that the Devil possessing the Organs of this Serpent tempted the Woman I answer I think he made as silly a choice of a Body as ever Devil did to perform this Temptation in To have seen such an odd kind of stupid Beast of a sudden turned rational to hear that speak which was dumb before would probably have scared the poor Woman out of her Wits she would quickly I suppose have left the Devil and the Apple together and have betook her self to her Heels and her Husband to secure her Besides here is not a word of the Devil 's possessing the Body of the Serpent in the Relation of Moses for he imputes the Woman's being circumvented wholly to the Subtilty of the Serpent this is only a shift of your Divines to bring in the Devil as the Poets used to do the Gods to help them out at a dead lift Come Credentius what do you say to all this Cred. Not unreasonable that the Devil should tempt Mankind in the form of a Serpem Say Sir the best thing I can say is to say my Prayers for you to God to deliver you from this hardned infidelity But in the mean time I will answer this terrible Argument of yours as satisfactorily as I can 1. Therefore I assert that the Tempter which deceived our first Parents was the Devil some wicked malicious Spirit that envied the good of Mankind and those extraordinary favours which God has so plentifully bestowed on our first Parents which enclined him to tempt them to disobedience thereby to bring them into the same forlorn condition with himself and the other fallen Angels That the Serpent is only mentioned whose Body the Devil made use of is owing to a Metonymy common in the Hebrew Tongue which uses the Instrumental for the Efficient Cause and the Efficient for the Instrumental of which multitude of Instances may be given out of the Scripture Thus the Angels which God employ'd about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha are called by the name of the Lord. Gen. 1. and what they say and do is said to be done by the Lord. So on the other side the Divine Predictions of God-Almighty are said to be the words of the Prophets which he employ'd as Instruments to speak them Thus Amos 1. 1. The Words of Amos who was among the Herdsmen of Tekoa c. So Jer. 1. what is called v. 2. The Word of the Lord is called v. 1. The Words of Jeremiah the Son of Hilkiah So by the Word by Faith and by the Sacraments we are said to be saved whereas these are only the Instruments God makes use of in our Salvation So the Ministers of the Gospel are said to bind and to loose whereas 't is God only which does it by their Ministry Therefore it is no wonder if by the same Metonymy what is spoken or done by the Devil is said to be spoken or done by the Serpent whose Organs he usurped But further it is plain that it was the Devil which managed this Deceit not only from the Incongruousness of a Brute Beast's over-reaching Mankind in his highest pitch of Reason but from the Attestation of the Holy Scripture it self The Author of the Book of Wisdom who well understood the Doctrines and Traditions of the Jewish Church and the sense of the holy Scripture tells us expresly that by the Envy of the Devil Death came into the World Wisd 2.24 And our blessed Saviour who was a better Explainer of the Scriptures tells us the Devil was a Murderer from the beginning or the first Creation alluding to his mischievous destruction of Mankind that he is a Lyar and the Father of Lyes both in the first and all the following Temptation of Mankind Nay farther than this the Devil is expresly in Scripture called the Serpent and the Dragon was cast out that old Serpent called the Devil and Satan Rev. 12.9 and he laid hold on the Dragon that old Serpent which is the Devil and Satan Rev. 20.2 All which places are undoubted references to his first
she made a Day of the Night whilst all the other Stars did not make a Twilight Cic. de nat Deorum Lib. 2. Aeschylus calls her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Ancient the Governess or Mother of the Stars Aesc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apollinaris upon the Psalms calls her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Queen of the nightly Paths And Synesius in his Hymns stiles her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Princess of the Nocturnal Gods Which is agreeable to Horace his Lucidum coeli decus Syderum regina bicornis audi Roma puellas Hor. Ep. 18. Virgil calls her likewise Astrorum Decus The Ornament of the Stars Virg. Aen. 6. Seneca in his Hippolytus terms her obscuri Dea clara mundi The bright Goddess of the obscure World and presently after Clarumque Coeli sydus noctis Decus The bright Star of Heaven and the Grace of the night Statius terms her arcanae moderatrix Cynthia noctis The Moon the Governess of silent Night Theb. Lib. 10. So Manilius Astr Lib. 2. Phoeben imitantem lumina Fratris Semper in proprio regnantem tempore noctis Phoebe that imitates her Brothers light And reigns with her own Scepter of the Night Now if we lay all this together we can hardly suppose any other sense of the Words than that God made this lesser Light the Moon to be to us the Governess of the night and the Chief or Principal of the Stars So that Sir now you see here is no complaint to be made of the narrow spirited doctrine of us Friends to Moses and the Deity 's chewing the Cud upon his own happiness from all Eternity as a Friend of yours unmannerly expresses it O. R. You see now you are not stinted for Worlds for the communication of the Divine Goodness so that you may make half a dozen out of every fixed Star if you think fit Phil. I thank you kindly for your offer but I never design to set up for a World-maker for it is a very difficult Trade and I am sorry there are so many Pretenders to it But by the way I am afraid that this little piece of Criticism of yours will not hold Water I do not pretend to be any great Critick in the Hebrew Tongue but I think I am one good enough to understand that Text you have mentioned The words you have descanted upon are Veeth hacocavim Now I suppose any one that understands Hebrew knows that the particle Eth is a sign of the Accusative Case and therefor Eth hacocavim must follow the Verb jangash made which goes before and not have any Relation to lemem sheleth which is a substantive and signifies to the dominion Now the construction is very natural lemem sheleth halailah for the dominion of the night but the particle Eth makes the word Hacocavim quite of another case so that it must be referred to another part of the sentence which can be no other than the verb made therefore the Stars are here said to be made and not to be governed as you would have them Cred. Well Sir Objection against this Interpretation answered I see you have raised the only Objection which I was aware of And I will endeavour toward off the blow as well as I can It is very true that the particule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth most commonly signify the person suffering or is a sign of the Accusative Case but not always for it is very often used otherways Sometimes the word Eth is perfectly redundant and signifies just nothing As Jer. 2.37 you shall go meeth-ze from hence which is the same as mizze Sometimes it is joined with the Nominative Case as Jer. 38.4 Let eth-haish that man die Sometimes it has the signification of the Preposition To. As Job 26.4 Eth-mi To whom hast thou uttered words Sometimes it signifies From as Gen. 44.4 They were gone eth-hangir out of or from the City Often-times is signifies with as 2 Sam. 15.11 Eth-Absalom With Absalom there went two hundred men So Is 7.17 With the King of Assyria And Is 23.17 Shall commit fornication eth with all the Kingdoms of the World And in this last sense I take the Particle to be used in the Text. For the government of the night veeth-hacocavim together with the Stars or and the Stars Which answers exactly to the like Construction Neh. 9.33 We have done wickedly veeth-malachenu together with our Kings or We and our Kings have done wickedly This seems to me to be an Interpretation natural enough and I doubt not but ancient Interpreters would have made use of it had they been acquainted with those improvements which have been made by modern Philosophy Phil. I find Credentius you entertain some nostrums in Divinity as well as I do Well! I would not be in your Coat for a good deal if you should vent these notions to the World And yet I could not choose but laugh to see what a pack of Systematical Divines you would have about your Ears They would worry you into as Arrant an Atheist as they do me The Stars no part of the Mosaick Creation Bless us here is Divinity enough to raise up the Ghosts of old Zanchy and John Calvin 'T is well Credentius you live in a Philosophick Age and a time of Free-Thinking or else we should see you in as sorrowful a pickle as the poor Bishop that was a Martyr for asserting the Antipodes Cred. Pray Sir This Interpretation not prejudicial to Religion leave off your Banter we may be pleasant upon a more proper Subject I do assure you Sir I abhor advancing any notion which should do the least disservice to Religion or which should turn to the least diminution of God's Glory but I think this interpretation does neither but rather the contrary if it does not please others I cannot help it and if they will give me better information I am ready with all humbleness and submission to receive it Phil. The next thing which dislikes me in the Mosaical account is this That he makes Light before the Sun which is a monstrous absurdity For the first thing which he makes the Deity do is to give out his Fiat for Light upon this notable contrivance * O. R. p. 68. I 'll warrant you for fear God should be thought to work great part of the Week in the dark But how unintelligible a thing is this Light without a Sun We may as well talk of Colours without Light of Shadow without a Body of an Accident without a Subject of an Effect without a Cause as to make Light in the World without a Sun But to what manner of purpose should it be Certainly God knew how to work without a Candle and there was nothing else made according to this account to see by it Pray Sir unriddle this for me for I assure you this is one of the greatest prejudices I have against the Mosaick account Cred. Light before the Sun is the Clearing
of them for tho' we do not know it God may But perhaps there may be another sense of the words than what is usually apprehended And God made the Firmament and divided the Waters which were under the Firmament from the Waters which were above the Firmament v. 7. Now by the Firmament is generally and I think very well understood the Atmosphere of the Earth or the Regions of the Air. All the difficulty is to find out what these Coelestial Water or Waters above the Air be Now there is no need to seek out Pools in the Empyreum if we can find Waters nigher home Then tell me Sir why may not the Waters which belong to each Planet be these Waters above the Firmament That the Moon has Waters analogous to our Seas is demonstrable from the diverse Reflexion of Light from her different parts nay from the very shape of Seas and Islands we observe in her and that the other Planets have the same is highly probable from their similitude to one another Now I suppose that before the Work of the second Day all this Planetary Water lay undistinguishably dispersed throughout the Expansum and together with the Aether made up that Pellucid Globe which was left by the secession of the opake and terreous parts that subsided to the seven respective Centres and formed the Bodies of the Planets The work therefore of the second Day was to make a Division of these Waters to distribute them in proper proportions to the several Planets and in obedience to God's command all the Aqueous parts of the Great Pellucid subsided towards the Centres of the Planets and were circumfused about their Globes Thus the Expansum was cleared off a second time by the subsidency of the Aqueous and uninflammable parts and left the Pellucid to consist of a still finer and purer substance as you see described in the Figure III. Now this subsidency of the Aqueous parts to the different Centres Moses calls dividing the Waters under the Firmament from the Waters which are above the Firmament The Waters under the Firmament are the Waters of the Earth the Waters above the Firmament are those of the Moon and other Planets which since the second days work are distinguished but lay confusedly dispersed in the Expansum before Phil. I protest Sir I am very well pleased with this Explication of yours this has engaged me to have a better Opinion of the Mosaick Hypothesis than ever I had in my Life for it now seems to have something of Reason and Philosophy in it But still there seem to be some Difficulties in this third days Work For it is not easy to conceive how all the Channels of the Seas should be hollowed out in one days time or what should be done with the Earth which was digged out of those hollows O. R. P. It should seem to require more than one days time for the Waters which covered the most inland Countries to run off from thence into those Oceanal Channels Pray Sir how do you get over these Difficulties Cred. This is Sir The Seas easily formed in one Day in Scirpo nodum quaerere to raise doubts where there is not the least appearance of any For what a mighty difficulty is it for God Almighty to hollow out the Channels of the Seas in one Day If you and I were to get Workmen to do it in such a time it would be a very difficult Enterprize But for God-Almighty to do that in four and twenty Hours time by an Almighty Power which he might if he had pleased have done in an instant is such a wonder as no wise man should be startled at You see here this little bit of Earth which I take out of this border I can in a minutes time mould it into what form I will I can make it round or oval convex or hollow or how I please and may not we very well suppose that God-Almighty might in as little time have formed Earth into what Figure he pleased The Earth was then very flexible its parts being not then setled into its present hardness and therefore might easily be moulded into any Figure whatsoever But to wonder how God could bring the Waters which covered the Inland Countries in one days time into the Channel of the Sea is to me very strange For why should God in his Creation be tied to the dull sluggish motion of his Creatures since Motion is demonstrated to be infinitely fast or slow as God pleases And why should we oblige him in his works to any determinate degree of it We see the Waters move just such a pace now and therefore God must necessarily forsooth wait their motions and protract the time of his Creation because of that This I am sure is something of the Philosophy of a Country-man as you call it This is a true Plebeian Hypothesis and something of Kin to that of Horace Rusticus expectat dum labitur amnis at ille Labitur labetur in omne volubilis aevum Phil. Pray Sir have a care of insulting for you are not got so clear off from this days Work yet I am afraid you will have a deadly rub in your way when I shall ask you if it be not a little inconsistent in the Mosaick Philosophy to make the Trees and Herbs before the Sun Upon this Hypothesis we may very well expect to find Orange Trees and Melons in Greenland when all manner of Plants could grow where there never had been any Sun at all Your Prophet had been a better Botanist if he had but contriv'd to have post-poned his Herbage for one day at least for then the Sun might have brought them out thick and threefold but for this cold dark watry ground to be so prodigiously prolifick is so strangely unnatural that methinks you should be ashamed to think of it Cred. I wonder Sir Trees and Plants might easily grow before the Sun was made you should expect or talk of nature in the Creation for God was then producing nature and not acting according to it He was then forming those Laws and Methods of Nature but he could not be supposed to act by them before he had formed them But nevertheless what unnaturalness I pray was there in creating Plants before the Sun If they had been created some years before it there would have been something in the Objection but all this time was but one poor day Now few Plants are so tender but they will live as long a time as that without either Sun or Water or Earth But these being formed in the Earth the third day cannot be supposed to have died before the fourth when the Sun began to shine upon them But I cannot imagine what need there should be of the Sun for the Creation of Plants Indeed there is very great need of it in the natural production of them to open the Fibres to elevate the Juices to unfold the Coats and Leaves of the Embryon Plant
Deerat adhuc Now one might with as good a Colour pretend that the Poet allow'd with the Author of the Praeadamites there was a wicked Generation of Men before and his Description is the Creation of the Holy one But to be short methinks this expression considering the circumstances is very apposite in the ordinary sense Adam had just before all the Animals Male and Female brought before him to name them now he might very well think it strange that he of all the Creation should be the single species and so might the Reader of this Relation as well as he and therefore Moses subjoins but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him for God had defer'd the Creation of the Woman till some time afterwards And I don't see how any other tolerable sense can be put upon the words As for your next Objection of Cain's being a Tiller of the Ground which requires the Assistance of many other precedent Arts this is easily to be answered by saying that this Art of Tillage was not in its full perfection in Cain's time that he might be a Tiller of the Ground without all those Instruments we use for our Convenience now he might make use of wooden Ploughs or Spades and form his Tools with sharp flints or shells instead of Knives and Hatchets which were the first Instruments of cutting Devolvit ipse acuto sibi pondera silice Catul. de At. and were retained in Religious uses in latter Times as in Circumcision Exod. 4.25 Jos 5.3 Herod Lib. 2. and in Castration of the Cybelline Priests Plin. Lib. 35. Juv. Sat. 6. so when Cain is said to have slain his Brother in the Field the word Field is not opposed to City but to the place of Abode the House or Tent where they dwelt And again as for Cain's saying every one that findeth me shall slay me God's setting a mark upon him his marrying a Wife and building a City in the land of Nod it does by no means suppose a former Generation of Praeadamites For the word Nod does not necessarily signify a Country but it may signify a fugitive so that the sense may be he lived a Fugitive or Vagabond in the Land Neither if we should grant there were a considerable number of Men in the World at that time would it make for this Praeadamitical Hypothesis for they might all be descended from Adam For this Murder of Abel happened in all probability in the 129 year of Adam For the Scripture says expresly that Seth was born in the 130th year Gen. 5.3 and Seth was given in the lieu of Abel For Eve says Gen. 4.25 God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew Therefore it is most probable that he was born the year after the murder to be a Comfort to the first Parents after so sad an affliction having never seen the death of any of their Off-spring before So that then Cain must be 129 years old when he took his flight at least Now 't is no wonder that then there should be a considerable number of Inhabitants in the World for it is not likely that Adam and Eve had no Children all that time it is probable they had a great many and that there was a competent stock of Mankind by this time to the number it may be of an hundred thousand considering the primitive fecundity For if the Children of Israel from 70 Souls in the space of 210 years became 600,000 fighting men whereas a great number of them died during the Increase we may well enough suppose that the Children of Adam might amount to 100,000 in 130 years A M 30 10. 60 100. 90 1000. 120 10,000 130 100,000 Â 111,110 Substract 1. Â 111,109 which is almost five Generations So that Cain might very well build a City or grow out of the knowledge of many when there were such a number of People in the World Phil. O. R. p. 46. 47. From Gataker's Cinnus Another thing which makes my Faith strain a little is the making Adam give names to all the Animals in the World in one bit of a day and this upon mature consideration of their nature and faculties and playing the Philosopher upon each of them as the Divines will have it And indeed he must be a very expedite Philosopher and they must be very nimble Creatures to come and go in that little time of this day allotted by Moses for this purpose For a small pittance of time must serve for this when the day was taken up with so many other matters This believe me is the busiest day of all the rest for Moses then makes the Deity bestir himself to some purpose as if he began to grow weary of his Creating and was resolved to have his work over by the Week's end For to set aside this naming of the Animals which to consider the nature of each and to adapt them a name to it would require no small time let us see what a hurry there must be for the transaction of other matters In the first place there were so many thousand of Animals created then there was a counsel called for the Creation of Man who had at first a Body formed out of Clay and a Soul Breathed into it by God then Adam falls a sleep and had a Mistress formed out of one of his Ribs when he wakes he performs as must be supposed some Ceremonies of Courtship to the new-found Lady gains her Affections and celebrates an Extemporary Marriage the Woman leaves her new Husband and falls a parlying with an ugly Serpent or the Devil about an Apple after a deal of arguing pro and con the Woman yields to the Beast eats the Apple tempts her Husband makes his mouth water and he eats too then their nature is altered they lose their Glory and their sense find out one anothers blind side are ashamed of their nakedness commence Tailors extempore sew Fig-leaves together and make themselves fine green Aprons Then God in the Evening comes into the Garden the Guilty Criminals hide themselves in the Thickets God summons them they appear there is a fair hearing of the Cause they make their excuses and after a full Examination God decrees to the Man Woman and Serpent the Punishments they had merited Then they are drove out of Paradise two Angels with brandisht Swords are set Centinels at the Garden door and poor Adam and Eve are forced into the Woods to take up their Lodging among the Beasts So that here is almost the whole Opera of the Creation of the World performed this day and there is but a very little time left for Adam's making his Vocabulary and reading his Philosophy Lectures I am unwilling to teize you with absurdities I could raise from all these Particulars but one thing I must needs tell you lies cross my Throat mightily which I can never swallow and that is to consider what a nimble March the grave Elephants
a destroying Angel nay farther they being averse from the Philosophy of Mechanick and Material Principles used to explain the common Phaenomenae of nature by Vital Pneumatick or which is the same Angelick Principles So the Psalmist explains the Motions of Winds and the Burning of Fire to be performed by the ministry and energy of Angels Who maketh his Angels Spirits or Winds and his Ministers a flaming fire Psal 104.4 So that in short by the Cherubim and flaming Division here is understood only a Fiery Wall or Circle encompassing the Garden supernaturally raised for the Defence of it What have you to object next Phil. Why truly Sir I think I have tired you enough with resolving the doubts of a scrupulous Conscience and indeed you have done Moses that Justice and me that satisfaction which I did not expect so that I have a much better opinion of the Mosaical Writings than what I came hither with But although there may not be so many absurdities in this Relation of his as some men pretend yet I do not think that a sufficient reason for a Man to embrace it For it is but a very poor Argument for the Truth or Goodness of an Author that he does not talk Nonsence or contradict himself There is many an Author which you and I have little value for who does not talk of Garagantua's and Mazarillo's and yet he may have ne'er a word of Truth in him neither And possibly I may have the same opinion of this Mosaical Relation of the Fall unless you can oblige me with some Arguments to advance its Credibility which I am afraid you will be at a loss for unless you will take up with the Allegorical Hypothesis and make it only a Divine Fable which by the way I take to be the best way of freeing Moses from those difficulties which vulgar apprehensions cast on him Now I can be pretty well recoâ—â—iled to this his Relation of the Fall if you will allow it only to have an Allegorical meaning and that the Prophet spake only in a hidden Cabbala and did not design to be understood literally And if you go this way to work this Relation then will appear rational enough For probably the whole History of the Fall is but one Hieroglyphick put into writing to represent the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Fall of the Soul when it was embodyed in some pristin state Now I suppose the Hieroglyphick to be this A Serpent with a Woman delivering an Apple to a Man Which does most excellently set forth such a lapse of the Soul for I suppose the Soul when ever it did fall fell by immersing it self in sensual pleasures and probably was incited to it by the Insinuation of malicious Daemons Now by the Woman and the Apple are fitly represented all kind of sensual pleasures Wine Venery c. the Serpent is the crafty Daemon which did entice the Soul and the Man the Soul so enticed And then there is some sense in such an Hieroglyphick But the reason why Moses delivered this in words at length and not in Figures was to beat it into the heaâ—â—s of the thick scull'd Jews who it may be had not wit enough to understand a Picture or it may be for fear they should improve it into Image Worship which he had such an abhorrence to Cred. The History of the Fall not Allegorical I do design before we part Philologus to offer you some Arguments to shew the exellence of the Mosaick Relation of the Fall but in the mean time I will speak a word or two concerning the Allegorical sense which you would put upon it Now I think an Allegorical sense inconsistent with this Relation and cannot so much as be pretended without offering the greatest violence imaginable to it For 1st Such a supposition would destroy all History This whole Book is Historical and this Relation of the Fall is deliver'd in the same narratory way as the rest of the Book of Genesis is Now nothing is more contrary to History than Allegory or Fable for one pretends primâ facie to deliver Truth undisguised the other to deliver Truth at the Bottom under the colour and disguise of specious fictions But where-ever such kind of Allegorizing Fable is allowed it must I say primâ facie appear to be Fable or Parable or otherwise it would be a Lye a Legend or a Romance So when Aesop tells us the Story of the Dunghill-Cock and our Saviour that of Dives and Lazarus they do it in such a way as they cannot be understood in a literal sense But when Thucydides relates the Plague of Athens or Livy the Battle at Cannae a Man would be mad that should go to Allegorize those passages So here in the Book of Genesis what more reason have Men to turn the relation of the Fall into an Allegory or Fable than they have to do the History of Abraham and the other Patriarchs or the History of Cain or Abel All the Book besides is allow'd to be literal and why should this part of it be only a piece of Aegyptian Hieroglyphick If we should allow for solid reasoning and Philosophizing these sportive rovings of a fanciful Brain we should destroy not only the History of Genesis but all the History in the World besides We might by the same rule make the Bondage of Joseph or the Children of Israel to be the Platonick Incarceration of the Soul their Descent into Aegypt to be their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their Deliverance from thence to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One may turn the Burial of Sarah into the Philosophick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sepulture of the Soul and make Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs the Sun and the twelve Signs in the Zodiack But after this mad way of Allegorizing we should destroy the Credit of all History it would make Men perfect Scepticks as to the Actions of former times and make us believe no more of Alexander the Great or William the Conquerour than we do of Atlantis and Vtopia 2. Moses a plain Writer Moses does every where shew himself a plain unaffected Writer and does no where seem to aim at that reserved sort of abstruseness which they of the Allegorical way are pleased with He every where relates simple Truths and those in the most plain and familiar expressions he industriously avoids all hard Metaphors and difficult Terms of Art such as are to be found in Aristotle and Plato he no where affects to raise a Fame to himself by the Invention of new Notions as those Philosophers did but was so far from it as to deliver down to Posterity his own failures 4. Moses had not the same reason to write Hieroglyphically or Allegorically as other Writers might have For to begin with the Aegyptians we know that their Priests who were the great Masters of their Hieroglyphicks which were called Hieroglyphicks sacred sculptures from them now
it was their business to amuse the People with these dark riddles to wrap up common and ordinary Truths in this mystick dress that the People might the more admire them which otherwise they would have despised had they been delivered in the usual way and so the Priests have lost a great part of their veneration But just on the contrary Moses endeavoured to reveal all his Doctrines to the People he ordered his Books to be read in the Ears of all the People and commanded Parents to teach them to their Children so that 't is plain he did not design by Mystical senses to keep them from the commonalty but by all imaginable plainness to suit them to their Capacities Had no design like the Heathen Philosophers to serve by an Allegory Again it was the design of the Heathen Philosophers who affected Allegories most to impart their Notions only to their own Scholars who were let into the meaning of that Philosophical Cant by which means they excluded the vulgar from understanding their Tenets and kept their learning within the bounds of their own School But Moses had no such design he was not afraid of any other Philosophers setting up against him and running away with his Notions he had not a School but a whole Nation to instruct for the greatest part consisting of unlearned and ignorant People and therefore he can never be supposed to make use of such mystical Doctrines which were impossible to be understood by the illiterate Jews Nor the same design with the Allegorical Fathers And lastly for the Allegorizing Fathers they cannot be brought in to countenance this opinion for tho' they Allegorize many Historical parts of the Bible yet they leave the literal sense entire still they allow the matter of fact was true but they will have this matter of fact to have another Allegorical meaning and to be a Type of something else Now the ancient Fathers were the more inclined to this way of Interpreting Scripture not only from the practice of the Jews themselves and the Writers of the New Testament but to shew the peculiar Excellence of the Christian Religion against their Adversaries the Jews by making all the History of the Jewish Religion to be only a Type of ours Now Moses having no such reason to put a mystical meaning upon his words he must be supposed to have used them in the literal sense unless those which the Holy Ghost did design should be also Typical and those actions which were to prefigure others under the Kingdom of the Messias Phil. I find it grows late Credentius and therefore before I take my leave of you let me hear what you have to say in Defence of the Mosaick Relation of the Fall which you promised just now to do Cred. The reason why I so much admire the excellence of this Relation is because it gives an easy solution to many difficulties in nature and morality which are otherways impossible to be accounted for Moses in a few lines of this short History has made a many things plain which have racked the Brains of many Ages and which the greatest Philosophers in the World have blundered at 1. The first of these is the natural account Moses gives the best account of the Depravation of Mans Will which he gives of The Depravation of Man's Will or its Inclinableness to Evil. It will amaze one to consider what horrible work the Heathen Philosophers made in their accounts of it Some of them made this Inclinableness to Sin and all the Evil which is found in the World to come from an Infinitely-Evil Principle a sort of Anti-God eternally co-existing with the good one which was not only the Opinion of the Persian Magi and the Manichees but as Plutarch says was the Opinion of the most and wisest of the Philosophers Now this is such a foolish account of Sin that no one will presume to compare the Mosaical account with it For to assert a God or Principle infinitely Evil is contradiction in terms For as all the attributes of one God are good so the other must be Evil or just contrary or privative to the first The Miscarriages of the Philosophers in this As one is infinitely just and merciful so the other must be infinitely unrighteous and cruel as the one is infinite in Power so the other must be infinite in no Power that is must have no power at all as the one is Eternal and Necessary in his being the other must be infinite in non-existence and be impossible to be All which includes a Troop of Contradictions and Absurdities Another set of Philosophers imputed this Obliquity of the Soul to its mixture with matter But it is unintelligible how a meer mixture with matter which is neither good nor evil should make a thing originally good to be bad If they say matter was Evil in it self originally they then make God which was the Author of matter to be the Author of the Evil in it which is injurious to the Divine Holiness If they say Matter is Eternal as Plutarch and some others of them do and withal Evil in it self this is to make such another Eternal Evil Principle which includes the Absurdities likewise of the Manichean Principle A third sort attributed this Depravation to a pre-existent state of sinfulness and that the Inclinableness to Sin in this World was but an ill habit of the Soul contracted in another by a voluntary deviation from God This the later Philosophers call generally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the moulting of the Wings of the Soul and its alienation or flight from the Deity This last Opinion I say the latter Moralists generally took up with after they had been beat off from their other accounts by the Arguments of the Christians Not that they learned this from the Mosaical account of the Lapse as some will have it in the School of Ammonius for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Plato is much older but afterwards they stuck only to this Account because the Christians had made the others so apparently ridiculous But I pray what evidence had those Philosophers of such a pre-existent State They ought solidly to have proved first the State in which this pretended Lapse happened before they asserted the Lapse it self which after all is but their pure Assertion Besides these Philosophers generally make this Immersion into gross matter to be the punishment of the Soul for her Offences in her pre existing State but then such an Immersion is not a proper way of Punishment of the Soul and seems inconsistent with the Wisdom and Justice of God For all Punishments inflicted by God especially in probatory states are in order to amendment now the Soul not having Reminiscence of her former state it is impossible for her to amend the Errours of that state she cannot remember These are the accounts which the Philosophers give of the Depravation of the Soul