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BOOK argues no power at all in the prescriber, but virtue in the medicine.

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2. In the number of the persons cured. They were very few which were cured in the Heathen temples; Christ cured whole multitudes, and that not in the revestries of the temples, where fraud and imposture might be easily suspected, but in the presence of the people, who brought to him all manner of persons sick of all sorts of diseases, which were cured by him; and these so numerous, that the Evangelist, who records many of Christ's miracles which had been omitted by the others, yet tells us at John xxi. last, the miracles of Christ were so many, that the whole world would not contain them. But now Arnobius tells the Heathens, Quid prodest ostendere unum aut alterum fortasse curatos, cum tot millibus subvenerit nemo, et plena sint omnia miserorum, infeliciumque delubra? What matter is it to shew one or two cured, when thousands lie continually in the temples perishing for want of cure? yea such as did Esculapium ipsum precibus fatigare, et invitare miserrimis votis, that could not beg a cure of Esculapius with all their earnestness and importunity.

25. Id. p. 29.

3. In the quality of the diseases cured. The cures among the Heathens were some slight things in comparison of those performed by Christ; the most acute, the most chronical, the most malignant of diseases, cured by Gul. Ader. a touch, a word, a thought. A learned physician hath de Morbis undertaken to make it evident, from the circumstances of Evangel.

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the history, and from the received principles among the most authentic physicians, that the diseases cured by our Saviour were all incurable by the rules of physic; if so, the greater the power of our Saviour, who cured them with so much facility as he did. And he not only cured all diseases himself, but gave a power to others, who were not at all versed in matters of art and subtlety, that they should do miracles likewise, sine fucis et adminiculis, without any fraud or assistance. Quid dicitis, O mentes incredulæ, difficiles, dura! Alicuine mortalium Jupiter ille Capitolinus hujusmodi potestatem dedit? When did ever the great Jupiter Capitolinus give a power of working miracles to any? I do not say, saith he, of raising the dead, or curing the blind, or healing the lame; sed ut pustulam, reduviam, papulam, aut vocis imperio, aut manus contrectatione comprimeret: but to cure a wart, a pimple, any the most trivial thing, with a word speaking, or the touch of the hand. Upon this Arnobius challengeth the most famous of all the Heathen magicians; Zoroastres, Armenius,

X.

Pamphilus, Apollonius, Damigero, Dardanus, Velus, Ju- CHAP. lianus, and Bæbulus, or any other renowned magician, to give power to any one to make the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear, the blind to see, or bring life into a dead body; or, if this be too hard, with all their magic rites and incantations, but to do that, quod a rusticis Christia- Id. p. 32. nis jussionibus factitatum est nudis, which ordinary Christians do by their mere words: so great a difference was there between the highest that could be done by magic, and the least that was done by the name and power of Christ.

X.

viii. 6, 7.

6. Where miracles are truly Divine, God makes it evident, to all impartial judgments, that the things done exceed all created power. For which purpose we are to observe, that, though impostures and delusions may go far, the power of magicians further, when God permits them; yet when God works miracles to confirm a Divine testimony, he makes it evident that his power doth infinitely exceed them all. This is most conspicuous in the case of Moses and our blessed Saviour. First Moses, he began to do some miracles in the presence of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, turning his rod into a serpent: but we vii. 10, 12. do not find Pharaoh at all amazed at it, but sends presently for the magicians to do the same, who did it, (whether really or only in appearance is not material to our purpose ;) but Aaron's rod swallowed up theirs. The next time the waters are turned into blood by Moses. The Exod. vii. magicians they do so too. After this, Moses brings up 19, 22. frogs upon the land; so do the magicians. So that here now is a plain and open contest, in the presence of Pharaoh and his people, between Moses and the magicians, and they try for victory over each other; so that if Moses do no more than they, they would look upon him but as a magician; but if Moses do that, which, by the acknowledgment of these magicians themselves, could be only by Divine power, then it is demonstrably evident that his power was as far above the power of magic, as God is above the Devil. Accordingly we find it in the very next miracle, in turning the dust into ciniphes, (which we render lice ;) the magicians are nonplust, and give out, saying, in plain terms, This is the finger of God. viii. 19. And what greater acknowledgment can there be of Divine power, than the confession of those who seemed to contest with it, and to imitate it as much as possible? After this, we find not the magicians offering to contest with Moses; and in the plague of boils, we particularly

II.

Exod. ix.

11.

BOOK read that they could not stand before Moses. Thus we see, in the case of Moses, how evident it was that there was a power above all power of magic, which did appear in Moses. And so likewise in the case of our blessed Saviour; for although Simon Magus, Apollonius, or others, might do some small things, or make some great shew and noise by what they did, yet none of them ever came near the doing things of the same kind which our Saviour did, curing the born-blind, restoring the dead to life after four days, and so as to live a considerable time after; or in the manner he did them, with a word, a touch, with that frequency and openness before his greatest enemies as well as followers, and in such an uncontrolled manner, that neither Jews or Heathens ever questioned the truth of them. And after all these, when he was laid in the grave after his crucifixion, exactly according to his own prediction he rose again the third day, appeared frequently among his Disciples for forty days together; after which, in their presence, he ascended up to heaven, and soon after made good his promise to them, by sending his holy Spirit upon them; by which they spake with tongues, wrought miracles, went up and down preaching the Gospel of Christ with great boldness, cheerfulness, and constancy; and after undergoing a great deal of hardship in it, they sealed the truth of all they spake with their blood, laying down their lives to give witness to it. Thus abundantly, to the satisfaction of the minds of all good men, hath God given the highest rational evidence of the truth of the doctrine which he hath revealed to the world. And thus I have finished the second part of my task, which concerned the rational evidence of the truth of Divine revelation, from the persons who were employed to deliver God's mind to the world; and therein have, I hope, made it evident that both Moses and the Prophets, our Saviour and his Apostles, did come with sufficient rational evidence to convince the world that they were persons immediately sent from God.

BOOK III.

CHAP. I.

Of the Being of God.

I. The Principles of all Religion lie in the Being of God, and Immortality of the Soul; from them the Necessity of a particular Divine Revelation rationally deduced; the Method laid down for proving the Divine Authority of the Scriptures. II. Why Moses doth not prove the Being of God, but suppose it. III. The Notion of a Deity very consonant to Reason. Of the Nature of Ideas, and particularly of the Idea of God. IV. How we can form an Idea of an infinite Being. V, VI. How far such an Idea argues Existence. VII, VIII. The great Unreasonableness of Atheism demonstrated. Of the Hypotheses of the Aristotelian and Epicurean Atheists. IX. The Atheists' Pretences examined and refuted. X, XI, XII, XIII. Of the Nature of the Arguments whereby we prove there is a God. Of universal Consent, and the Evidence of that to prove a Deity and Immortality of Souls. XIV, XV. Of Necessity of Existence implied in the Notion of God; and how far that proves the Being of God. XVI. The Order of the World, and Usefulness of the Parts of it, and especially of Man's Body, an Argument of a Deity. XVII. Some higher Principle proved to be in the World than Matter and Motion. XVIII. The Nature of the Soul, and Possibility of its subsisting after Death. XIX. Strange Appearances in Nature not solvable by the Power of Imagination.

I.

HAVING in the precedent book largely given a rational CHAP. account of the grounds of our faith, as to the persons whom God employs to reveal his mind to the world; if we can now make it appear that those sacred records, which we embrace as divinely inspired, contain in them nothing unworthy of so great a name, or unbecoming persons sent from God to deliver, there will be nothing wanting to justify our religion, in point of reason, to be true, and of revelation, to be Divine. For the Scriptures themselves coming to us in the naine of God, we are bound to believe them to be such as they pretend to be, unless we have ground to question the general foundations of all religion as uncertain, or this particular way of religion as not suitable to those general foundations. The foundations of all religion lie in two things; that there is a God who rules the world, and that the souls of men are

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III.

BOOK capable of subsisting after death; for he that comes unto God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder Heb. xi. 6. of them that seek him; so that if these things be not supposed as most agreeable to human reason, we cannot imagine upon what grounds mankind should embrace any way of religion at all. For if there be not a God whom I am to serve and obey, and if I have not a soul of an immortal nature, there can be no sufficient obligation to religion, nor motive inducing to it: for all obligation to obedience must suppose the existence of such a Being, which hath power to command me; and by reason of the promiscuous scatterings of good and evil in this life, the motives engaging men to the practice of religion must suppose the certainty of a future state. If these things be sure, and the foundations of religion, in general, thereby firmly established, it will presently follow, as a matter most agreeable to reason, that the God whom we are to serve should himself prescribe the way of his own worship; and if the right of donation of that happiness, which men's souls are capable of, be alone in himself, that he alone should declare the terms on which it may be expected. For man being a creature endued with a free principle of acting, which he is conscious to himself of, and therefore not being carried to his end by necessity of nature or external violence, without the concurrence of his own reason and choice, we must suppose this happiness to depend upon the performance of some conditions on man's part, whereby he may demonstrate that it is the matter of his free choice, and that he freely quits all other interests, that he might obtain the enjoyment of it. Which conditions to be performed, being expressions of man's obedience towards God as his Creator and Governor, and of his gratitude for the tenders of so great a happiness, which is the free gift of his Maker, we cannot suppose any one to have power to prescribe these conditions, but he that hath power likewise to deprive the soul of her happiness upon non-performance; and that must be God himself. But in order to man's understanding his duty, and his obligation to obedience, it is necessary that these conditions must not be locked up in the cabinet council of heaven, but must be so far declared and revealed, that he may be fully acquainted with those terms which his happiness depends upon; else his neglect of them would be excusable, and his misery unavoidable. Had man indeed remained without offending his Maker, he might still have stood in his favour upon the general

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