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THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY

DEMONSTRATED.

(1.) Christian. It is strange you should stand it out so against your own happiness, and employ your whole wit and skill, to work in yourself a disbelief of any future rewards or punishments, only that you may live easy (as you think) in this world, and enjoy your pleasures which yet you cannot enjoy free and undisturbed from the fear of those things that are to come, the event of which you pretend not to be sure of; and therefore are sure of a life full of trouble, that admits not of any consolation, and of a miserable and wretched death, according to the utmost that you yourself propose.

Deist. How can you say that, when I propose to live without any fear of those things? I fear not hell, and I have discarded the expectation of heaven, because I believe neither.

Chr. Are you sure there are no such things? De. That is a negative, and I pretend not to prove it.

Chr. Then you must remain in a doubt of it. And what a condition it is to die in this doubt, when the issue is eternal misery! And this is the utmost, by your own confession, that you can propose to yourself. Therefore I called yours a disbelief, rather than a belief of any thing. It is we Christians who believe, you Deists only disbelieve.

And if the event should prove as you would have it, and that we should all be annihilated at our death, we should be in as good a condition as you. But, on the other side, if the event should prove as we expect it, then you are eternally miserable, and we eternally happy. Therefore one would think it the wisest part to take our side of the question; especially considering that those poor pleasures, for the sake of which you determine yourselves against us, are but mere amusements, and no real enjoyments. Nay, we had better be without them than have them, even as to this life itself. Is not temperance and a healthful constitution more pleasant than those pains and aches, sick head and stomach, that are inseparable companions of debauchery and excess, besides the clouding our reason, and turning sottish in our understanding?

De. We take pleasure in them for the time, and mind not the consequences. But, however, a man cannot believe as he pleases. And therefore, notwithstanding all the glorious and terrible things which you speak of, it makes nothing to me, unless you can evidently prove them to be so. And you must still leave me to judge for myself, after you have done all you can.

Chr. What I have said, is only to dispose you to hear me impartially, and not to be prejudiced against your own happiness, both here and hereafter.

(2.) De. Well, without more prefacing, the case is this: I believe a God, as well as you; but for revelation, and what you call the Holy Scriptures, I may think they were wrote by pious and good men, who might take this method of speaking, as from God, and in his name, as supposing that those good thoughts came from him, and that it would have a greater effect upon the people; and might couch their morals under histories of things supposed to be done, as several of the wise heathens have taken this course, in what they told of Jupiter and Juno, and the rest of their gods and goddesses. But as to the facts themselves, I believe the one no more than the other; or that all the facts in Ovid's Metamorphoses, or in Æsop's Fables, were true.

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Chr. You seem willing, by this, to preserve respectful esteem and value for the Holy Scriptures, as being wrote by pious and good men, and with a good design, to reform the manners of men.

But your argument proves directly against the purpose for which you brought it, and makes the penmen of the Scriptures to be far from good men, to be not only cheats and impostors, but blasphemers, and an abomination before God. For such the same Scriptures frequently call those who presume to speak as from God, and in his name, when he had not sent them, and given them authority so to do. And the law in the Scriptures condemns such to be stoned to death as blasphemers.

It was not so with the heathens, their moralists did not use the style of "Thus saith

the Lord;" and their philosophers opposed and wrote against one another without any offence. For all the matter was which of them could reason best; they pretended to no more.

And for the facts of the fables of their gods, themselves did not believe them, and have wrote the mythology or moral that was intended by them.

De. But many of the common people did believe the facts themselves. As it is with the common people now in the church of Rome, who believe the most senseless and ridiculous stories in their books of legends to be as true as the Gospel; though the more wise among them call them only pious frauds, to increase the devotion of the people. And so we think of your Gospel itself, and all the other books you say were wrote by men divinely inspired. We will let you keep them to cajole the mob, but when you would impose them upon men of sense, we must come to the test with you.

Chr. That is what I desire; and to see whether there are no more evidences to be given for the truth of Christianity- that is, of the Holy Scriptures-than are given for the legends, and all the fabulous stories of the heathen gods. And if so, I will give up my argument, and confess that it is not in my power to convince you.

De. I cannot refuse to join issue with you upon this. To begin, then, I desire to know your evidences for the truth of your Scriptures, and the facts therein related. (3.) Chr. If the truth of the book, and the facts therein related, be proved, I suppose you will not deny the doctrines to be true.

De. No; for if I saw such miracles with my eyes as are said to have been done by Moses and Christ, I could not think of any greater proof to be given, that such an one was sent of God. Therefore, if your Bible be true as to the facts, I must believe it in the doctrine too. But there are other books which pretend to give us revelations from God, and we must know which of these is true.

Chr. To distinguish this book from all others which pretend to give revelations from God, these four marks or rules were set down.

I. That the facts related be such of which men's outward senses, their eyes and ears, may judge. (This cuts off enthusiastical pretences to revelation, and opinions which may be propagated in the dark, and, like the tares, not known till they are grown up, and the first beginning of them not discovered.)

II. That these facts be done openly in the face of the world.

III. That not only public monuments, but outward institutions and actions, should be appointed, and perpetually kept up in memory

of them.

IV. That these institutions to be observed should commence from the time that the facts

were done; and consequently that the book wherein these facts and institutions are recorded, should be written at the time, and by those who did the facts, or by eye and earwitnesses. For that is included in this mark, and is the main part of it; to prevent false stories being coined in after ages of things done many hundred years before, which none alive can disprove. Thus Moses wrote his five books containing his actions and institutions; and those of Christ were wrote by his disciples, who were eye and ear-witnesses of what they related. And particular care was taken of this, as you may see, Acts, i. 21, 22, upon choosing one to supply the place of Judas. "Wherefore of these men which have companied with us, all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, until that same day that he was taken from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." And Saint John begins his first epistle thus: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handledthat which we have seen and heard declare we unto you."

I have explained this fourth mark, because the author of the Detection, either wilfully or ignorantly, seems not to understand it. And this alone overthrows all the stories he has told, which he would make parallel to the facts of Moses and of Christ; and therefore alleges that they have all these four marks. But he must begin again, and own that these four marks still stand an irrefragable proof of the truth of any fact which has them all, till he can produce a book which was wrote by the actors or eye-witnesses of the facts it relates, and show that such facts, having the other three marks, have been detected to be false. Which, when he can do, I will give him up these four marks as an insufficient proof, and own I was mistaken in them. But hitherto they have stood the test; for he himself will not say he has produced any such book in all his Detection.

If he says that facts may be true, though no such book can be produced for them, and though they have not all the aforesaid marks, I will easily grant it. But all I contend for is, that whatever has all these four marks cannot be false. For example: could Moses have persuaded six hundred thousand men that he had led them through the sea in the manner related in Exodus, if it had not been true? if he could, it would have been a greater miracle than the other. The like of their being fed forty years in the wilderness without bread, by manna rained down to them from heaven; the like of Christ's feeding five thousand at a time with five loaves; and so of all the rest. The two first

marks secure from any cheat or imposture at the time the facts were done, and the two last marks secure equally from any imposition in after ages, because this book which relates these facts speaks of itself as written at that time by the actors or eye-witnesses, and as commanded by God to be carefully kept and preserved to all generations, and read publicly to all the people at stated times, as is commanded, (Deut. xxxi. 10-12 ;) and was practised, (Josh. viii. 34, 35; Neh. viii. &c.) And the institutions appointed in this book were to be perpetually observed from the day of the institution for ever among these people, in memory of the facts, as the passover, (Exod. xii.) and so of the rest. Now, suppose this book to have been forged a thousand years after Moses, would not every one say, when it first appeared, We never heard of this book before, we know of no such institutions, as of a passover, or circumcision, or sabbaths, and the many feasts and fasts therein appointed; of a tribe of Levi, and a tabernacle wherein they were to serve in such an order of priesthood, &c.: therefore this book must be an errant forgery, for it wants all those marks it gives of itself, as to its own continuance, and of those institutions it relates. No instance can be shown since the world began of any book so circumstantiated, that was a forgery, and passed as truth upon any people. I think it impossible; and therefore that the four marks are still an invincible proof of the truth of that book, and those facts wherein all these marks do meet.

But since I am come upon this subject again, I will endeavour to improve it, and give four other marks, some of which no fact, however true, ever had, or can have, but the fact of Christ alone. Thus, while I support the fact of Moses, I set that of Christ above him, as the Lord is above the servant. And the Jews being herein principally concerned, I will consider their case likewise as we go along therefore I add this fifth mark as peculiar to our Bible, and to distinguish it from all other histories which relate facts formerly done.

(V.) That the book which relates the facts contains likewise the law of that people to whom it belongs, and be their statute-book by which their causes are determined. This will make it impossible for any to coin or forge such a book, so as to make it pass upon any people. For example: If I should forge a statute-book for England, and publish it next term, could I make all the judges, lawyers, and people, believe that this was their true and only statute-book by which their causes had been determined these many hundred years past? They must forget their old statute-book, and believe that this new book, which they never saw or heard of before, was that same old book which has

been pleaded in Westminster-Hall for so many ages, which has been so often printed, and the originals of which are now kept in the Tower, to be consulted as there is occasion.

De. I grant that to be impossible. But how do you apply it?

Chr. It is evident as to the books of Moses, which are not only a history of the Jews, but their very statute-book, wherein their municipal law, as well civil as ecclesiastical, was contained.

De. This is so indeed as to the books of Moses, to which they always appealed: "To the law and to the testimony." And they had no other statute-book. But this will not agree to your Gospel, which is no municipal law, nor any civil law at all, and no civil causes were tried by it.

Chr. The Law was given to the Jews. as a distinct and separate people from all other nations upon the earth; and therefore was a municipal law particularly for that nation only of the Jews. But Christianity was to extend to all the nations of the earth; and Christians were to be gathered out of all nations; and therefore the Gospel could not be a municipal law as to civil rights to all nations, who had each their own municipal laws. This could not be, without destroying all the municipal laws in the world, of every nation whatsoever; and then none could be a Christian, without at the same time becoming a rebel to the government where he lived. This would have been for Christ to have immediately set up for universal and temporal king of all the world, as the Jews expected of their Messiah, and therefore would have made Christ a king. But he instructed them in the spiritual nature of his kingdom, that it was not" of this world," nor did respect their temporal or civil matters; which therefore he left in the same state he found them, and commanded their obedience to their civil governors, though heathen, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. And as to the Law of Moses, he left the Jews still under it, as to their civil concerns, so far as the Romans, under whose subjection they then were, would permit them. As Pilate said to them, "Ye have a law ;” and “judge ye him according to your law."

But the Gospel was given as the spiritual and ecclesiastical law to the Church, whithersoever dispersed through all nations; for that did not interfere with their temporal laws, as to civil government. And in this the fifth mark is made stronger to the Gospel than even to the Law; for it is easier to suppose that any forgery might creep into the municipal law of a particular nation, than that all the nations whither Christianity is spread should conspire in the corruption of the Gospel, which to all Christians is of infinitely

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greater concern than their temporal laws. And without such a concert of all Christian nations and people supposed, no such forgery could pass undiscovered in the Gospel, which is spread as far as Christianity, and read daily in their public offices.

De. But I say it is discovered, as appears by the multitude of your various lections.

Chr. That cannot be called a forgery; it is nothing but such mistakes as may very easily happen, and are almost unavoidable, in So many copies as have been made of the Gospel, before printing was known. And considering the many translations of it into several languages, where the idioms are different, and phrases may be mistaken, together with the natural slips of amanuenses, it is much more wonderful that there are no more various lections, than that there are so many. But in this appears the great providence of God in the care the Christians took of this, that they have marked every the least various lection, even syllabical: and that among all these there is not found one which makes any alteration either in the facts or in the doctrines. So that instead of an objection, this becomes a strong confirmation of the truth and certainty of the Gospel, which stands thus perfectly clear of so much as any doubt concerning the facts or the doctrines therein related.

But I will now proceed to a stronger evidence than even this, and all that has been said before; which I have made the sixth mark, and that is the topic of prophecy.

(VI.) The great fact of Christ's coming into the world was prophesied of in the Old Testament from the beginning to the end, as it is said, (Luke, i. 70,) "By all the holy prophets which have been since the world began."

This evidence no other fact ever had; for there was no prophecy of Moses, but Moses himself did prophesy of Christ, (Deut. xviii. 15, applied Acts, iii. 22-24,) and sets down the several promises given of him. The first was to Adam, immediately after the fall, (Gen. iii. 15,) where he is called the seed of the woman, but not of the man, because he was to have no man for his father, though he had a woman to his mother. And of none other can this be said, nor that he should "bruise the serpent's head," that is, overcome the devil and all his power.

He was again promised to Abraham, as you may see, (Gen. xii. 3; xviii. 18. See this applied, Gal. iii. 16.)

Jacob did expressly prophesy of him, with a mark of the time when he should come, and calls him "Shiloh," or "He that was to be sent," (Gen. xlix. 10.)

Balaam prophesied of him by the name of the Star of Jacob, and Sceptre of Israel, | (Num. xxiv, 17.)

Daniel calls him the Messiah, the Prince; and tells the time of his coming and of his death, (Dan. ix. 25, 26.)

It was foretold that he should be born of a virgin, (Isa. vii. 14;) in the city of Bethlehem, (Micah, v. 2;) of the seed of Jesse, (Isa. xi. 1-10.) His low estate and sufferings are particularly described, (Psal. xxii. and Isa. liii. ;) and his resurrection, (Psal. xvi. 10;) that he should sit upon the throne of David for ever, and be called "Wonderful," the " mighty God," the "Prince of Peace,” (Isa. ix. 6, 7,) "The Lord our righteousness," (Jer. xxxiii. 16,) Jehovah Tsidkenu, (an incommunicable name given to none but the great God alone,) and Immanuel, that is, "God with us," (Isa. vii. 14;) and David, whose son he was according to the flesh, called him his Lord, (Psal. cx. 1.)

The cause of his sufferings is said to be for the sins of the people, and not for himself, (Isa. liii. 4-6; Dan. ix. 26.)

And as to the time of his coming, it is expressly said, (to the confusion of the Jews now,) that it was to be before the sceptre should depart from Judah, (Gen. xlix. 10;) in the second temple, (Hag. ii. 7—9,) within seventy weeks of the building of it, (Dan. ix. 24,) that is, (according to the prophetical known style of a day for a year,) within four hundred and ninety years after.

(1.) From these, and many more prophecies of the Messiah or Christ, his coming was the general expectation of the Jews from the beginning, but more especially about the time in which it was foretold he should come, when several false Messiahs did appear among them. And this expectation still remains with them, though they confess that the time foretold by all the prophets for his coming is past.

But what I have next to offer will be more strange to you. You may say it was natural for the Jews to expect their Messiah, who was prophesied of in their book of the Law, and was to be a Jew, and king of all the earth. But what had the Gentiles to do with this? There were no prophecies to them.

Therefore, what I have to show you is, that these prophecies of the Messiah were likewise to the Gentiles: for it is said he should be the expectation of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews; and, (Gen. xlix. 10,) that the gathering of the people (or nations) should be to him. In the Vulgate it is rendered expectatio gentium, "the expectation of the Gentiles." He is called "the desire of all nations," (Hag. ii. 7.) And I will show you the general expectation the Gentiles had of his coming, about the time that he did come.

They knew him by the name of the East. Their tradition was, that the East should prevail, ut vulesceret oriens, as I will show you presently. But first let me tell you, that

the Holy Scripture often alludes to him under this denomination. The blood of the great expiatory sacrifice was to be sprinkled towards the east, (Lev. xvi. 14,) to show whence the true expiatory sacrifice should come. And he is thus frequently styled in the Prophets, (Zech. iii. 8) it is said, according to the Vulgate, "I will bring forth my servant the East;" and, (vi. 12,) "Behold the man whose name is the East." Our English renders it in both places the Branch, for the Hebrew word bears both senses. But the Greek renders it 'Avaroλn, which we translate theday-spring," (Luke, i. 78,) and put on the margin Sun-rising or Branch. The Vulgate has it oriens ex alto, the East or Sunrising from on high. He is called the "Sun of righteousness," (Mal. iv. 2;) and it is said, (Isa. lx. 3,) “The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising."

(2.) Now, Sir, how literally was this fulfilled in the Magi (generally supposed to be kings) coming from the East, led by a star which appeared to them in the East, to worship Christ when he was born, and to bring presents unto him as unto a king, as it is told in the second of Saint Matthew!

De. Why do you quote Saint Matthew to me? You know we make no more of him than of one of your legend-writers, and believe this story no more than that these three kings are now buried at Cologne. (3.) Chr. You make great use of the legends, and answer every thing by them; and I confess they are the greatest affront to Christianity, and, if possible, a disproof of it, as it must be to those who will place them upon the same foot with the Holy Bible, as too many do in the Church of Rome, and cry, we have the authority of the Church for both. And they are taught to receive the Holy Scriptures upon the authority of the Church only. But my business is not with them now; I shall only say, that when they can bring such evidences for the truth of their legends, or for any particular fact in them, as I do for the Holy Scriptures, and in particular, for the fact of Christ, then I will believe them.

De. Will you believe nothing that has not all these evidences you produce?

(4.) Chr. Far from it; for then I must believe nothing but this single fact of Christ : because no other fact in the world, no, not of all those recorded in Holy Scriptures, has all these evidences which the fact of Christ has. And so God has thought fitting, that this great fact, above all other facts of the greatest glory to God and importance to mankind, should appear with greater and more undeniable evidence than any other fact ever was in the world.

De. We are now upon the particular fact

of the Magi or wise men coming to Christ. Have you any more to say as to that?

(5.) Chr. It has those same evidences that the truth of the Bible in general has, which are more than can be produced for any other book in the world. But now as to this fact in particular, Saint Matthew was the first who wrote the Gospel, and it was in the same age when this fact was said to be done. And can you think it possible that such a fact as this could have passed without contradiction, and a public exposing of Christianity, then so desirable and so much endeavoured by the unbelieving Jews, their high-priests, elders, &c. as the only means for their own preservation, if the fact had not been notorious and fresh in the memory of all the people then at Jerusalem, namely, that these wise men came thither, and that Herod and the whole city were troubled at the news they brought of the birth of the King of the Jews; that Herod thereupon gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, that they might search out of the prophets, and know the place where Christ should be born; and then the slaughter of the infants in and about Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, which followed-I say could such a fact as this have passed at that very time, if it had not been true? Could Saint Matthew have hoped to have palmed this upon all the people, and upon those very same chief priests and scribes who he said were so far concerned in it? Would none of them have contradicted it, if it had been a forgery? Especially when the detecting it would have strangled Christianity in its birth? Would not they have done it who suborned false witnesses against Christ, and gave large money to the soldiers to conceal (if possible) his resurrection? Would not they have done it, who persecuted Christianity with all spite and fury, and invented all imaginable false stories and calumnies against it? Whereas here was one at hand, this of the Magi, which, if false, could have been so easily detected, by appealing to every man, woman, and child, I may say, in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and even in all Judea; who no doubt had heard of the terrible massacre of so many infants, and the cause of it.

De. I can give no account why the writers against Christianity did not offer to contradict this fact of the star and the Magi, which is put in the very front of this Gospel of Saint Matthew. And there it is called his (Christ's) star. "We have seen his star in the East." As if God had created a new and extraordinary star on purpose, as the signal of Christ hung out in the heavens, to give the world notice of his birth. But did none of the heathen philosophers take notice of this star, or of this relation given of it by your Saint Matthew? (6.) Chr. Yes. For Chalcidius in his com

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