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disprove all those of Moses and the Prophets. So that they are hedged in on every side they must either renounce Moses, or acknowledge Christ.

Moses and the Law have the first five evidences, but they have not the sixth and the seventh, which are the strongest.

This is as to Judaism before Christ came; but since, as it now stands in opposition to Christianity, in favour of any future Messiah, it has none of the evidences at all. On the contrary, their own prophecies and types make against them, for their prophecies are fulfilled, and their types are ceased, and cannot belong to any other Messiah who should come hereafter. They stand now more naked than the Heathens or the Mahometans.

(2.) Next for Heathenism, some of the facts recorded of their gods have the first and second evidences, and some the third, but not one of them the fourth, or any of the other evidences.

But truly and properly speaking, and if we will take the opinion of the heathens themselves, they were no facts at all, but mythological fables, invented to express some moral virtues or vices, or the history of nature, and power of the elements, &c. As likewise to turn great part of the History of the Old Testament into fable, and make it their own, for they disdained to borrow from the Jews. They made gods of men, and the most vicious too; insomuch that some of their wise men thought it a corruption of youth to read the history of their gods, whom they represented as notorious liars, thieves, adulterers, &c. though they had some mythology hid under all that.

And as men were their gods, so they made the first man to be father of the gods, and called him Saturn, not begot by any man, but the son of Cœlus and Vesta, that is, of heaven and earth. And his maiming his father with a steel scythe, was to show how heaven itself is impaired by time, whom they painted with wings and a scythe mowing down all things. And Saturn eating up his own children, was only to express how time devours all its own productions: and his being deposed by Jupiter his son, shows that time, which wears away all other things, is worn away itself at last.

Several of the heathen authors have given us the mythology of their gods, with which I will not detain you.

They expressed every thing, and worshipped every thing under the name of a god, as the god of sleep, of music, of eloquence, of hunting, drinking, love, war, &c. They had above thirty thousand of them; and in what they told of them, and as they described them, they often traced the sacred story.

Ovid begins his Metamorphoses with a perfect poetical version of the beginning of Genesis, "Ante Mare et Tellus."-Then goes on with the history of the creation; the for

|mation of man out of the dust of the earth, and being made after the image of God, and to have dominion over the inferior creatures. Then he tells of the general corruption, and the giants before the flood, when the earth was filled with violence; for which all mankind, with the beasts and the fowl, were destroyed by the universal deluge, except only Deucalion and Pyrrha his wife, who were saved in a boat, which landed them on the top of Mount Parnassus; and that from these two the whole earth was re-peopled. I think it will be needless to detain the reader with an application of this to the history of the creation set down by Moses, of the flood, and the ark wherein Noah was saved, and the earth re-peopled by him, &c.

And Noah was plainly intended likewise in their god Janus, with his two faces, one old, looking backward to the old world that was destroyed; the other young, looking forward to the new world that was to spring from him.

So that even their turning the sacred history into fable, is a confirmation of it. And there can be no comparison betwixt the truths of the facts so attested, as I have showed, and the fables that were made from them.

(3.) Lastly, as to the Mahometan religion, it wants all the evidences we have mentioned, for there was no miracle said to be done by Mahomet, publicly and in the face of the world, but that only of conquering with the sword. Who saw his Mesra, or journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and thence to heaven in one night, and back in bed with his wife in the morning? Who was present and heard the conversation the moon had with him in his cave? It is not said there was any witness. And the Alcoran, c. vi. excuses his not working any miracles to prove his mission. They say that Moses and Christ came to show the clemency and goodness of God, to which miracles were necessary: but that Mahomet came to show the power of God, to which no miracle was needful but that of the sword.

(1.) And his Alcoran is a rhapsody of stuff, without head or tail, one would think wrote by a madman, with ridiculous titles, as the chapter of the Cow, of the Spider, &c.

And their legends are much more senseless than those of the Papists; as of an angel, the distance betwixt whose two hands is seventy thousand days' journey. Of a cow's head with horns which have forty thousand knots, and forty days' journey betwixt each knot and others which have seventy mouths, and every mouth seventy tongues, and each tongue praises God seventy times a-day, in seventy different idioms. And of wax candles before the throne of God, which are fifty years' journey from one end to the other. The Alcoran says, the earth was created in two days, and is supported by an ox, which stands under it,

upon a white stone, with his head to the east, and his tail to the west, having forty horns, and as great a distance betwixt every horn as a man could walk in a thousand years' time. Then their description of heaven, in a full enjoyment of wine, women, and other like gross sensual pleasures.

(2.) When you compare this with our Holy Scriptures, you will need no argument to make you see the difference. The Heathen orators have admired the sublime of the style of our Scriptures; no writing in the world comes near it, even with all the disadvantage of our translation, which, being obliged to be literal, must lose much of the beauty of it. The plainness and succinctness of the historical part, the melody of the Psalms, the instruction of the Proverbs, the majesty of the Prophets, and, above all, that easy sweetness in the New Testament, where the glory of heaven is set forth in a grave and moving expression, which yet reaches not the height of the subject; not like the fights of rhetoric, which set out small matters in great words. But the Holy Scriptures touch the heart, raise expectation, confirm our hope, strengthen our faith, give peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which is inexpressible. All which you will experience when you once come to believe; you will then bring forth these fruits of the Spirit, when you receive the word with pure affection, as we pray in our Litany.

(3.) But, sir, if there is truth in the Alcoran, then the Holy Scriptures are the word of God, for the Alcoran says so, and that it was sent to confirm them, even the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament; and it expressly owns our Jesus to be the Messiah. At the end of the fourth chapter it has these words: "The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, is a prophet, and an angel of God, his Word and his Spirit, which he sent to Mary." But it gives him not the name of Son of God, for this wise reason, (chap. vi.) "How shall God have a son, who hath no wives?" Yet it owns Jesus to be born of a pure virgin, without a man, by the operation of the Spirit of God. And in the same chapter this Mahomet acknowledges his own ignorance, and says, "I told you not that I had in my power all the treasures of God, neither that I had knowledge of the future and past, nor do affirm that I am an angel; I only act what hath been inspired into me; is the blind like him that seeth clearly?" And after says, “I am not your tutor, every thing hath its time, you shall hereafter understand the truth."

This is putting off, and bidding them expect some other after Mahomet. But our Jesus said, He was our tutor and teacher, and that there was none to come after him. Mahomet said he was no angel, but that Jesus was an angel of God. But when God bringeth Jesus into the world, he saith, "Let all the angels

of God worship him," (Heb. i. 6.) And he made him Lord of all the angels. Mahomet knew not what was past or to come; but our Jesus knew all things, what was in the heart of every man, (John, ii. 24, 25,) which none can do, but God only, (1 Kings, viii. 39,) and foretold things to come to the end of the world. Mahomet had not all the treasures of God; but in Jesus are hid "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," (Col. ii. 3, 9.)

Again, Mahomet never called himself the Messiah, or the Word, or Spirit of God, yet all these appellations he gives to our Jesus.

There were prophecies of Jesus, which we have seen were there any of Mahomet? None; except of the "false Christs and false Prophets," which Jesus told should come after him, and bid us beware of them, for that they should deceive many.

(4.) De. But if Mahomet gave thus the preference to Christ in every thing, and said that his Alcoran was only a confirmation of the Gospel; how came he to set it up against the Gospel, and to reckon the Christians among the unbelievers?

Chr. No otherwise than as other heretics did, who called themselves the only true Christians, and invented new interpretations of the Scriptures. The Socinians now charge whole Christianity with apostacy, idolatry, and polytheism and the Alcoran is but a system of the old Arianism, ill digested and worse put together, with a mixture of some Heathenism and Judaism; for Mahomet's father was a Heathen, his mother a Jewess, and his tutor was Sergius the Monk, a Nestorian; which sect was a branch of Arianism; these crudely mixed made up the farrago of the Alcoran; but the prevailing part was Arianism; and where that spread itself in the east, there Mahometanism succeeded, and sprung out of it, to let all Christians see the horror of that heresy! And our Socinians now among us, who call themselves Unitarians, are much more Mahometans than Christians. For except some personal things as to Mahomet, they agree almost wholly in his doctrine; and as such addressed themselves to the Morocco ambassador here in the reign of King Charles II. as you may see in the Preface to my Dialogues against the Socinians, printed in the year 1708. Nor do they speak more honourably of Christ and the Holy Scriptures than the Alcoran does: and there is no error concerning Christ in the Alcoran but what was broached before by the heretics of Christianity; as that Christ did not suffer really, but in appearance only, or that some other was crucified in his stead, but he taken up into heaven, as the Alcoran speaks.

So that, in strictness, I should not have reckoned Mahometanism as one of the four

religions in the world, but as one of the heresies of Christianity. But because of its great name, and its having spread so far in the world, by the conquests of Mahomet and his followers, and that it is vulgarly understood to be a distinct religion by itself, therefore I have considered it as such.

And as to your concern in the matter, you see plainly, that the Alcoran comes in attestation and confirmation of the facts of Christ, and of the Holy Scriptures.

De. I am not come yet so far as to enter into the disputes of the several sects of Christianity; but as to the fact of Christ and of the Scriptures in general, Mahometanism, I see, does rather confirm thau oppose it.

Chr. What then do you think of Judaism, as it now stands in opposition to Christianity? De. Not only as without any evidence, the time prophesied of for the coming of the Messiah being long since past: but all their former evidences turn directly against them, and against any Messiah who ever hereafter should come. As that the sceptre should not depart from Judah; that he should come into the second temple; that the sacrifices should cease soon after his death; that David should never want a son to sit upon his throne; that they should be many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, &c. which they do not suppose ever will be the case after their Messiah is come. So that they are witnesses against themselves.

Chr. And what do you think of the stories of the Heathen Gods?

De. I believe them no more than all the stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Nor did the wiser Heathens believe them, only such silly people as suck in all the Popish legends without examining.

And to tell you the truth, I thought the same of all your stories in the Bible; but I will take time to examine those proofs you have given me.

For we Deists do not dispute against Christianity in behalf of any other religion of the Jews, or Heathens, or Mahometans, all which pretend to revelation; but we are against all revelation; and go only upon bare nature, and what our own reason dictates to us.

(1.) Chr. What nature dictates, it dictates to all, at least to the most and the generality of mankind; and if we measure by this, then it will appear a natural notion, that there is necessity of a revelation in religion : and herein you have all the world against you from the very beginning. And will you plead nature against all these?

De. The notion came down from one to another from the beginning, we know not how. Chr. Then it was either nature from the beginning, or else it was from revelation at the beginning, whence the notion has descended through all posterities to this day.

(2.) and there wants no reason for this: for when man had fallen, and his reason was corupted, (as we feel it upon us to this day, s sensibly as the diseases and infirmities of the body,) was it not highly reasonable that God should give us a law and directions how to serve and worship him? Sacrifices do not seem to be any natural invention for why should the taking away the life of my fellowcreature be acceptable to God, or a worship of him? It would rather seem an offence against him. But as types of the great and only propitiatory sacrifice of Christ to come, and to keep up our faith in that, the institution given with the revelation of it appears most rational. And that it was necessary, the great defection shows, not only of the heathens, but of the Jews themselves, who, though they retained the institution, yet, in a great measure, lost the true meaning and signification of it; and are now to be brought back to it by reminding them of the institution and the reason of it.

Plato (in his Alcibiad. ii. de Precat.) has the same reasoning, and concludes, that we cannot know of ourselves what petitions will be pleasing to God, or what worship to give him but that it is necessary a lawgiver should be sent from heaven to instruct us; and such a one he did expect; and "O how greatly do I desire to see that man!" says he, and "who he is!" The primitive tradition of the expected Messiah liad no doubt come to him, as to many others of the heathens, from the Jews, and likely from the perusal of their Scriptures.

For Plato goes farther, and says, (de Leg. 1. 4,) That this lawgiver must be more than man; for he observes, that every nature is governed by another nature that is superior to it, as birds and beasts by man, who is of a distinct and superior nature. So he infers, that this lawgiver, who was to teach man what man could not know by his own nature, must be of a nature that is superior to man, that is, of a divine nature.

Nay, he gives as lively a description of the person, qualifications, life, and death of this divine man, as if he had copied chap. liii. of Isaiah: for he says, (de Repub. 1. 2,) That this just person must be poor and void of all recommendations but that of virtue alone; that a wicked world would not bear his instructions and reproof, and therefore, within three or four years after he began to preach, he should be persecuted, imprisoned, scourged, and at last put to death; his word is 'Avax duas host, that is, cut in pieces, as they cut their sacrifices.

De. These are remarkable passages as you apply them; and Plato was three hundred years before Christ.

But I incline to think that these notions came rather from such tradition as you speak

of, than from nature; and I can see nothing of nature in sacrifices, they look more like institution, come that how it will.

(3.) Chr. It is strange that all the nations in the world should be carried away from what you call nature; unless you will take refuge among the Hottentots at the Cape of Good Hope, hardly distinguishable from beasts, to show us what nature left to itself would do! and leave us all the wise and polite world on the side of revelation, either real or pretended; and of opinion that mankind could not be without it; and my business now with you has been to distinguish the real from the pretended.

(4.) De. By the account you have given, there is but one religion in the world, nor ever was for the Jewish was but Christianity in type, though in time greatly corrupted: and the heathen was a greater corruption, and founded the fables of their gods upon the facts of Scripture: and the Mahometan you say is but a heresy of Christianity. So that all is Christianity still.

Chr. It is true God gave but one revelation to the world, which was that of Christ; and as that was corrupted, new revelations were pretended. But God has guarded his revelations with such evidences, as it was not in the power of men or devils to counterfeit or contrive any thing like them. Some bear resemblance in one or two features, in the .st two or three evidences that I have produced; but as none reach the fourth, so they are all quite destitute of the least pretence to the remaining four. So that when you look upon the face of divine revelation, and take it altogether, it is impossible to mistake it for any of those delusions which the devil has set up in imitation of it. And they are made to confirm it, because all the resemblance they have to truth, is that wherein they are any ways like it; but when compared with it, they show, as an ill drawn picture, half man half beast, in presence of the beautiful original.

(5.) De. It is strange, that if the case be thus plain as you have made it, the whole world is not immediately convinced.

Chr. If the seed be never so good, yet if it be sown upon stones or among thorns, it will bring forth nothing. There are hearts of stone, and others so filled with the love of riches, with the cares and pleasures of this life, that they will not see; they have not a mind to know any thing which they think would disturb them in their enjoyments, or lessen their opinion of them, for that would be taking away so much of their pleasure; therefore it is no easy matter to persuade men to place their happiness in future expectations, which is the import of the Gospel. And in pressing this, and bidding the worldly-minded abandon their beloved vices, and telling the

fatal consequences of them, we must expect to meet not only with their scorn and contempt, but their utmost rage and impatience, to get rid of us, as so many enemies of their lusts and pleasures. This is the cross which our Saviour prepared all his disciples to bear, who were to fight against flesh and blood, and all the allurements of the world; and it is a greater miracle that they have had so many followers in this, than that they have gained to themselves so many enemies. The world is a strong man, and till a stronger than he come, (that is, the full persuasion of the future state,) he will keep possession. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. But we are told also that this faith is the gift of God; for all the evidence in the world will not reach the heart, unless it be prepared (like the good ground) to receive the doctrine that is taught. Till then prejudice will create obstinacy, which will harden the heart like a rock, and cry, Non persuadebis, etiamsi persuaseris! “I will not be persuaded, though I should be persuaded!"

You must consider under this head, too, the many that have not yet heard of the Gospel; and of those that have, the far greater number who have not the capacity or opportunity to examine all the evidences of Christianity, but take things upon trust, just as they are taught. And how many others are careless, and will not be at the pains, though they want not capacity to inquire into the truth? All these classes will include the greatest part of mankind,—the ignorant, the careless, the vicious, and so the obstinate, the ambitious, and the covetous, whose minds the god of this world hath blinded.

But yet, in the midst of all this darkness, God hath not left himself without witness, which will be apparent to every diligent and sober inquirer that is willing and prepared to receive the truth.

(6.) Good sir, let me ask you, though you are of no religion, as you say, but what you call natural, yet would you not think me very brutal, if I should deny that ever there was such a man as Alexander, or Cæsar, or that they did such things?--if I should deny all history, or that Homer, or Virgil, Demosthenes, or Cicero, ever wrote such books?would you not think me perfectly obstinate, seized with a spirit of contradiction, and not fit for human conversation?

And yet these things are of no consequence to me, it is not a farthing as to my interest, whether they are true or false.

Will you then think yourself a reasonable man, if, in matters of the greatest importance, even your eternal state, you will not believe those facts which have a thousand times more certain and indisputable evidence? Were there any prophecies of Cæsar or Pompey ?

Were there any types of them, or public institutions appointed by a law, to prefigure the great things that they should do? Any persons who went before them, to bear a resemblance of these things, and bid us expect that great event? Was there a general expectation in the world of their coming, before or at the time when they came? And of what consequence was their coming to the world, or to after ages? No more than a robbery committed a thousand years ago!

Were the Greek and Roman histories wrote by the persons who did the facts, or by eyewitnesses? And for the greater certainty were those histories made the standing law of the country? Or were they any more than our Holinshead and Stow, &c.

Must we believe these, on pain of not being thought reasonable men? And are we then unreasonable and credulous, if we believe the facts of the Holy Bible? which was the standing law of the people to whom it was given, and wrote or dictated by those who did the facts, with public institutions appointed by them as a perpetual law to all their generations; and which, if the facts had been false, could never have passed at the time when the facts were said to be done; nor, for the same reason, if that book had been wrote afterwards; because these institutions (as circumcision, the passover, baptism, &c.) were as notorious facts as any; and that book, saying they commenced from the time that the facts were done, must be found to be false, whenever it was trumped up in after ages, by no such institutions being then known. Not like the feasts, games, &c. in memory of the heathen gods, which were appointed long after those facts were said to be done; and the like institutions may be appointed tomorrow in memory of any falsehood said to be done a thousand years ago; and so is no proof at all. And though a legend, or book of stories of things said to be done many years past, may be palmed upon people, yet a book of statutes cannot, by which their causes are tried every day.

Are there such prophecies extant in any profane history so long before the facts there recorded, as there are in the Holy Scriptures of the coming of the Messiah?

Were there any types or forerunners of the heathen Gods or Mahomet?

Is there the like evidence of the truth and sincerity of the Greek and Roman historians, is of the penmen of the Holy Scriptures? Would these historians have given their lives for the truth of all they wrote?

Did they tell such facts only, wherein it was impossible for themselves to be imposed upon, or that they should impose upon others? Nothing but what themselves had seen and heard, and they also to whom they spoke?

Did they expect nothing but persecution

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and death for what they related? And were they bidden to bear it patiently without resistance? Was this the case of the disciples of Mahomet, who were required to fight and conquer with the sword?

Did any religion ever overcome by suffering, but the Christian only?

And did any exhibit the future state, and preach the contempt of this world, like the Christian?

De. That is the reason it has prevailed so little. And yet, considering this, it is strange it has prevailed so much.

(7.) But there is one thing yet behind, wherein I would be glad to have your opinion, because I find your divines differ about it; and that is, how we shall know to distinguish betwixt true and false miracles.

And this is necessary to the subject we are upon; for the force of the facts you allege ends all in this, that such miraculous facts are a sufficient attestation of such persons being sent of God; and consequently, that we are to believe the doctrine which they taught.

You know we Deists deny any such thing as miracles, but reduce all to nature; yet I confess, if I had seen such miracles as are recorded of Moses and of Christ, it would have convinced me. And for the truth of them we must refer to the evidences you have given. But in the meantime, if there is no rule whereby to distinguish betwixt true and false miracles, there is an end of all the pains you have taken. For if the devil can work such things as appear miracles to me, I am as much persuaded as if they were true miracles, and wrought by God. And so men may be deceived in trusting to miracles.

The common notion of a miracle is what exceeds the power of nature. To which we say, that we know not the utmost of the power of nature, and consequently cannot tell what exceeds it. Nor do you pretend to know the utmost of the power of spirits, whether good or evil, and how then can you tell what exceeds their power?

I doubt not but you would have thought those to be true miracles which the magicians are said to have wrought in Egypt, but that Moses is said to have wrought miracles that were superior to them.

Chr. Therefore, if two powers contend for the superiority, as here God and the Devil did, the best issue can be is to see them wrestle together, and then we shall soon know which is the strongest. This was the case of Moses and the magicians, of Christ and the Devil. There was a struggle, and Satan was plainly

overcome.

I confess I know not the power of spirits, nor how they work upon bodies. And by the same reason that a spirit can lift a straw, he may a mountain, and the whole earth, for

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