PREFACE.

THE character of Mr. Addison, and his writings, for justness of thought, strength of reasoning, and purity of style, is too well established to need a recommendation; but their greatest ornament, and that which gives a lustre to all the rest, is his appearing throughout a zealous advocate for virtue and religion against profaneness and infidelity. And because his excellent discourses upon those subjects lie dispersed among his other writings, and are by that means not so generally known and read as they deserve, it was judged to be no unseasonable service to religion at this time to move the Bookseller to publish them together in a distinct volume, in hopes that the politeness and beauty peculiar to Mr. Addison’s writings would make their way to persons of a superior character, and a more liberal education; and that, as they come from the hands of a layman, they may be the more readily received and considered by young gentlemen as a proper manual of religion.

Our modern sceptics and infidels are great pretenders to reason and philosophy, and are willing to have it thought that none who are really possessed of those talents, can easily assent to the truth of Christianity. But it falls out very unfortunately for them and their cause, that those persons within our own memory, who are confessed to have been the most perfect reasoners and philosophers of their time, are also known to have been firm believers, and they laymen; I mean Mr. Boyle, Mr. Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, and Mr. Addison; who, modestly speaking, were as good thinkers and reasoners as the best among the sceptics and infidels at this day. Some of them might have their particular opinions about this or that point in Christianity, which will be the case as long as men are men; but the thing here insisted on is, that they were accurate reasoners, and, at the same time, firm believers.

Mr. Boyle, the most exact searcher into the works of nature that any age has known, and who saw atheism and infidelity beginning to shew themselves in the loose and voluptuous reign of King Charles II. pursued his philosophical inquiries with religious views, to establish the minds of men in a firm belief and thorough sense of the infinite power and wisdom of the great Creator.

This account we have from one who was intimately acquainted with him, (Dr. Burnet) and preached his funeral sermon. “It appeared to those who conversed with him in his inquiries into nature, that his main design in that (on which, as he had his own eye most constantly, so he took care to put others often in mind of it,) was to raise in himself and others vaster thoughts of the greatness and glory, and of the wisdom and goodness of God. This was so deep in his thoughts, that he concludes the article of his will, which relates to that illustrious body, the Royal Society, in these words: Wishing them a happy success in their laudable attempts to discover the true nature of the works of God and praying that they, and all other searchers into physical truths, may cordially refer their attainments to the glory of the great Author of nature, and the comfort of mankind.” The same person also speaks thus of him: “He had the profoundest veneration for the great God of heaven and earth that ever I observed in any person. The very name of God was never mentioned by him without a pause, and a visible stop in his discourse.”

And of the strickness and exemplariness of the whole course of his life, he says, “I might here challenge the whole tribe of Libertines to come and view the usefulness, as well as the excellence of the Christian religion, in a life that was entirely dedicated to it.”

Against the Atheists he wrote his Free Inquiry into the received Notion of Nature, (to confute the pernicious principle of ascribing effects to nature, which are only produced by the infinite power and wisdom of God;) and also his Essay about final Causes of Things Natural, to shew that all things in nature were made and contrived with great order, and every thing for its proper end and use, by an all wise Creator.

Against the Deists he wrote a treatise of things above reason; in which he makes it appear that several things, which we judge to be contrary to reason, because above the reach of our understanding, are not therefore to be thought unreasonable because we cannot comprehend them, since they may be apparently reasonable to a greater and more comprehensive understanding. And he wrote another treatise, to show the possiblity of the resurrection of the same body.

The veneration he had for the holy scriptures, appears not only from his studying them with great exactness, and exhorting others to do the same, but more particularly from a distinct treatise, which he wrote on purpose to defend the scripture style, and to answer all the objections which profane and irreligious persons have made against it. And speaking of morality, considered as a rule of life, he says, “I have formerly taken pains to peruse books of morality, yet since they have only a power to persuade, but not to command, and sin and death do not necessarily attend the disobedience of them, they have the less influence: for since we may take the liberty to question human writers, I find that the methods they take to impose their writings upon us may serve to countenance either truth or falsehood.”

His zeal to propagate Christianity in the world appears by many and large benefactions to that end, which are enumerated in his funeral sermon: “He was at the charge of the translation and impression of the New Testament into the Malayan language, which he sent over all the East-Indies. He gave a noble reward to him that translated Grotius’s incomparable book of the Truth of the Christian Religion into Arabic; and was at the charge of a whole impression, which he took care to order to be distributed in all the countries where that language is understood. He was resolved to have carried on the impression of the New Testament in the Turkish language; but the company thought it became them to be the doers of it, and so suffered him only to give a large share towards it.—He was at seven hundred pounds charge in the edition of the Irish Bible, which he ordered to be distributed in Ireland; and he contributed largely both to the impression of the Welsh Bible, and of the Irish Bible in Scotland. He gave, during his life, three hundred pounds to advance the design of propagating the Christian religion in America; and as soon as he heard that the East-India Company were entertaining propositions for the like design in the East, he presently sent an hundred pounds for a beginning and an example, but intended to carry it much farther, when it should be set on foot to purpose. He had designed, though some accidents did, upon great considerations, divert him from settling it during his life, but not from ordering it by his will, that a liberal provision should be made for one who should, in a very few well-digested sermons, every year, set forth the truth of the Christian religion in general, without descending to the subdivisions amongst Christians; and who should be changed every third year, that so the noble study and employment might pass through many hands, by which means many might become masters of the argument.

In his younger years he had thoughts of entering into holy orders: and one reason that determined him against it was, that he believed he might in some respects be more serviceable to religion, by continuing a layman. “His having no interests with relation to religion, besides those of saving his own soul, gave him as he thought, a more unsuspected authority in writing or acting on that side. He knew the profane crew fortified themselves against all that was said by men of our profession, with this, that it was their trade, and that they were paid for it; he hoped therefore that he might have the more influence the less he shared in the patrimony of the church.”

Mr. Locke, whose accurate talent in reasoning is much celebrated, even by the sceptics and infidels of our times, showed his zeal for Christianity, first, in his middle age, by publishing a discourse on purpose to demonstrate the reasonableness of believing Jesus to be the promised Messiah; and, after that, in the last years of his life, by a very judicious commentary upon several of the epistles of St. Paul.

He speaks of the Miracles wrought by our Saviour and his apostles in the strongest manner, both as facts unexceptionably true, and as the clearest evidences of a divine mission. His words are these: “The evidences of our Saviour’s mission from heaven is so great, in the multitude of his miracles he did before all sorts of people (which the divine providence and wisdom had so ordered, that they never were nor could be denied by any of the enemies and opposers of Christianity,) that what he delivered cannot but be received as the oracles of God, and unquestionable verity.” And again, “After his resurrection, he sent his apostles amongst the nations, accompanied with miracles; which were done in all parts so frequently, and before so many witnesses of all sorts in broad daylight, that, as I have often observed, the enemies of Christianity have never dared to deny them; no not Julian himself, who neither wanted skill nor power to inquire into the truth; nor would have failed to have proclaimed and exposed it, if he could have detected any falsehood in the history of the gospel, or found the least ground to question the matter of fact published by Christ and his apostles. The number and evidence of the miracles done by our Saviour and his followers, by the power and force of truth, bore down this mighty and accomplished emperor, and all his parts in his own dominions. He durst not deny so plain matter of fact; which being granted, the truth of our Saviour’s doctrine and mission unavoidably follows, notwithstanding whatsoever artful suggestions his wit could invent, or malice should offer to the contrary.

To those who ask, “What need was there of a Saviour? what advantage have we by Jesus Christ?” Mr. Locke replies, “It is enough to justify the fitness of any thing to be done by resolving it into the wisdom of God, who has done it; whereof our narrow understandings and short views may utterly incapacitate us to judge. We know little of this visible, and nothing at all of the state of that intellectual world (wherein are infinite numbers and degrees of spirits out of the reach of our ken or guess), and therefore know not what transactions there were between God and our Saviour in reference to his kingdom. We know not what need there was to set up a Head and a Chieftain in opposition to THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD, THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR, &c. whereof there are more than obscure intimations in scriptures. And we shall take too much upon us, if we should call God’s wisdom or providence to account, and pertly condemn for needless all that our weak and perhaps biased understanding cannot account for.” And then shews at large the necessity there was of the gospel revelation, to deliver the world from the miserable state of darkness and ignorance that mankind were in, 1. As to the true knowledge of God, 2. As to the worship to be paid him, 3. As to the duties to be performed to him. To which he adds the mighty aids and encouragements to the performance of our duty, 1. From the assurance the gospel gives of future rewards and punishments; and, 2. From the promise of the Spirit of God to direct and assist us.

The holy scriptures are every where mentioned by him with the greatest reverence. He calls them the Holy Books, the Sacred Text, Holy Writ, and Divine Revelation and exhorts Christians “to betake themselves in earnest to the study of the way to salvation, in those holy writings wherein God has revealed it from heaven, and proposed it to the world; seeking our religion where we are sure it is in truth to be found, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” And, in a letter written the year before his death to one who asked this question, “What is the shortest and surest way, for a young Gentleman to attain to a true knowledge of the Christian religion, in the full and just extent of it?” his answer is, “Let him study the holy scripture, especially the New Testament. Therein are contained the words of eternal life. It has God for its Author; salvation for its end; and truths without any mixture of error, for its matter.” A direction that was copied from his own practice, in the latter part of his life, and after his retirement from business; when, for fourteen or fifteen years, he applied himself especially to the study of the holy Scriptures, and employed the last years of his life hardly in any thing else. He was never weary of admiring the great views of that sacred book, and the just relation of all its parts. He every day made discoveries in it, that gave him fresh cause of admiration.”

Of St. Paul in particular, upon several of whose epistles he drew up a most useful commentary, he says, “That he was miraculously called to the ministry of the gospel, and declared to be a chosen vessel:—That he had the whole doctrine of the gospel from God by immediate revelation:—That for his information in the Christian knowledge, and the mysteries and depths of the dispensation of God by Jesus Christ, God himself had condescended to be his instructor and teacher:—That he had received the light of the gospel from the Fountain and Father of light himself:—-and, That an exact observation of his reasonings and inferences, is the only safe guide for the right understanding of him, under the Spirit of God, that directed these sacred writings.”

And the death of this great man was agreeable to his life; for we are informed by one who was with him when he died, and had lived in the same family for seven years before, that the day before his death he particularly exhorted all about him to read the holy scriptures: That he desired to be remembered by them at evening prayers; and being told, that if he would, the whole family should come and pray by him in his chamber, he answered, he should be very glad to have it so, if it would not give too much trouble: That an occasion offering to speak of the goodness of God, he especially exalted the love which God shewed to man, in justifying him by faith in Jesus Christ; and returned God thanks in particular for having called him to the knowledge of that divine Saviour.

About two months before his death he drew up a letter to a gentleman (who afterwards distinguished himself by a very different way of thinking and writing) and left this direction upon it, “To be delivered to him after my decease.” In it are these remarkable words, “This life is a scene of vanity that soon passes away, and affords no solid satisfaction, but in the consciousness of doing well, and in the hopes of another life. This is what I can say upon experience, and what you will find to be true, when you came to make up the account.”

Sir Isaac Newton, universally acknowledged to be the ablest philosopher and mathematician that this or perhaps any other nation has produced, is also well known to have been a firm believer, and a serious Christian. His discoveries concerning the frame and system of the universe were applied by him, as Mr. Boyle’s inquiries into nature had been, to demonstrate, against Atheists of all kinds, the being of a God, and illustrate his power and wisdom in the creation of the world. Of which a better account cannot be given, than in the words of an ingenious person who has been much conversant in his philosophical writings: “At the end of his mathematical principles of natural philosophy he has given us his thoughts concerning the Deity, wherein he first observes, that the similitude found in all parts of the universe, makes it undoubted that the whole is governed by one supreme Being, to whom the original is owing of the frame of nature, which evidently is the effect of choice and design. He then proceeds briefly to state the best metaphysical notions concerning God. In short, we cannot conceive either of space or time otherwise than as necessarily existing; this being therefore, on whom all others depend, must certainly exist by the same necessity of nature; consequently wherever space and time is found there God must also be. And as it appears impossible to us that space should be limited, or that time should have had a beginning, the Deity must be both immense and eternal “

This great man applied himself, with the utmost attention, to the study of the holy scriptures, and considered the several parts of them with an uncommon exactness; particularly, as to the order of time, and the series of prophecies and events relating to the Messiah. Upon which head he left behind him an elaborate discourse, to prove, that the famous prophecy of Daniel’s weeks, which has been so industriously perverted by the Deists of our times, was an express prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Mr. Addison, so deservedly celebrated for an uncommon accuracy in thinking and reasoning, has given abundant proof of his firm belief of Christianity, and his zeal against infidels of all kinds, in the writings that are here published of which it is certainly known that a great part of them were his own compositions.

I mention not these great names, nor the testimonies they have given of their firm belief of the truth of Christianity, as if the evidences of our religion were to be finally resolved into human authority, or tried in any other way than by the known and established rules of right reason; but my design in mentioning them is,

1. To shew the very great assurance of those who would make the belief of revelation inconsistent with the due use of our reason; when they have known so many eminent instances, in our own time, of the greatest masters of reason, not only believing revelation, but zealously concerned to establish and propagate the belief of it.

2. The remembrance of this will also be a means, on one hand, to hinder well meaning people from being misled by the vain boasts of our modern pretenders to reason; and, on the other hand, to check the inclination of the wicked and vicious to be misled, when both of them have before their eyes such fresh and eminent instances of sound reasoning, and a firm faith, joined together in one and the same mind.

3. Further, as these were persons generally esteemed for virtue and goodness, and notwithstanding their high attainments, remarkable for their modesty and humility; their examples shew us, that a strong and clear reason naturally leads to the belief of revelation, when it is not under the influences of vice or pride.

4. And finally, as they are all laymen, there is no room for the enemies of revealed religion, to allege that they were prejudiced by interest, or secular considerations of any kind. A suggestion that has really no weight, when urged against the writings of the clergy in defence of revelation, since they do not desire to be trusted upon their own authority, but upon the reasons they offer; lawyers and physicians are not less trusted, because they live by their professions; but it is a suggestion that easily takes hold of weak minds, and especially such as catch at objections, and are willing to be caught by them. And, considering the diligence of the adversary in making proselytes, and drawing men from the faith of Christ; equal diligence is required of those who are to maintain that faith, not only to leave men no real ground, but even no colour or pretence for their infidelity.

The following discourses, except that concerning the Evidences of Christian Religion, were all published in separate papers some years ago, and afterwards collected into volumes, with marks of distinction at the end of many of them, to point out the writers. Mr. Addison’s are there distinguished by some one of the letters of the word CLIO; and the same marks of distinction are here continued; as are also the rest, where any letter was found at the end of the discourse.

INTRODUCTION.

IT were to be wished that the enemies of religion would at least bring themselves to apprehend its nature before they oppose its authority. Did religion make its boast of beholding God with a clear and perfect view, and of possessing him without a covering or veil, the argument would bear some colour, when men should alledge, that none of the things about them do indeed afford this pretended evidence, and this degree of light. But since religion, on the contrary, represents men as in a state of darkness, and of estrangement from God; since it affirms him to have withdrawn himself from their discovery, and to have chosen in his word, the very style and appellation of Deus absconditus; lastly, since it employs itself alike, in establishing these two maxims, that God has left in his church certain characters of himself, by which they who sincerely seek him shall not fail of a sensible conviction—and yet that he has, at the same time, so far shaded and obscured these characters as to render them imperceptible to those who do not seek him with their whole heart; what advantage is it to men who profess themselves negligent in the search of truth, to complain so frequently that nothing reveals and displays it to them? For this very obscurity under which they labour, and which they make an exception against the church, does itself evince one of the two grand points which the church maintains, (without affecting the other) and is so far from overthrowing its doctrines, as to lend them a manifest confirmation and support.

If they would give their objections any strength, they ought to urge, that they have applied their utmost endeavour, and have used all means of information, even those which the church recommends, without satisfaction. Did they express themselves thus, they would indeed attack religion in one of its chief pretensions. But I hope to shew, in the following papers, that no rational person can speak after this manner, and I dare assert that none ever did. We know very well how men, under this indifference of spirit, behave themselves in the case. They suppose themselves to have made the mightiest efforts towards the instruction of their minds, when they have spent some hours in reading the scriptures, and have asked some questions of a clergyman concerning the articles of faith. When this is done, they declare to all the world they have consulted books and men without success. I shall be excused, if I refrain from not telling such men (what I have often told them) that this neglect of theirs is insupportable. It is not a foreign or a petty interest which is here in debate; we are ourselves the parties, and all our hopes and fortunes are the depending stake.

The immortality of the soul is a thing which so deeply concerns, so infinitely imports us, that we must have utterly lost our feeling, to be altogether cold and remiss in our enquiries about it. And all our actions, or designs, ought to bend so very different a way, according as we are either encouraged or forbidden to embrace the hope of eternal rewards, that it is impossible for us to proceed with judgment and discretion, otherwise than as we keep this point always in view, which ought to be our ruling object and final aim.

Thus is it our highest interest, no less than our principal duty, to get light into a subject on which our whole conduct depends. And therefore, in the number of wavering and unsatisfied men, I make the greatest difference imaginable between those who labour with all their force to obtain instruction, and those who live without giving themselves any trouble, or so much as any thought, in this affair.

I cannot but be touched with a hearty compassion for those who sincerely groan under this dissatisfaction; who look upon it as the greatest of misfortunes, and who spare no pains to deliver themselves from it, by making these researches their chief employment and most serious study. But as for those who pass their life without reflecting on its issue, and who, for this reason alone, because they find not in themselves a convincing testimony, refuse to seek it elsewhere, and to examine to the bottom, whether the opinion proposed be such as we are wont to entertain by popular simplicity and credulity, or such as though obscure in itself, yet is built on solid and immoveable foundations, I consider them after quite another manner. The carelessness which they betray in an affair where their person, their interest, their whole eternity, is embarked, rather provokes my resentment than engages my pity; nay, it strikes me with amazement and astonishment; it is a monster to my apprehension. I speak not this as transported with the pious zeal of a spiritual and rapturous devotion. On the contrary, I affirm, that the love of ourselves, the interest of mankind, and the most simple and artless reason, do naturally inspire us with these sentiments; and that to see thus far, is not to exceed the sphere of unrefined, uneducated men.

It requires no great elevation of soul to observe, that nothing in this world is productive of true contentment; that our pleasures are vain and fugitive, our troubles innumberable and perpetual; and that after all, death, which threatens us every moment, must, in the compass of a few years, (perhaps of a few days) put us into the eternal condition of happiness, or misery, or nothing. Between us and these three great periods, or states, no barrier is interposed but life, the most brittle thing in all nature; and the happiness of heaven being certainly not designed for those who doubt whether they have an immortal part to enjoy it, such persons have nothing left but the miserable chance of annihilation, or of hell.

There is not any reflection which can have more reality than this, as there is none which has greater terror. Let us set the bravest face on our condition, and play the heroes as artfully as we can, yet see here the issue which attends the goodliest life upon earth!

‘Tis in vain for men to turn aside their thoughts from this eternity which awaits them, as if they were able to destroy it, by denying it a place in their imaginations. It subsists in spite of them; it advanceth unobserved: and death, which is to draw the curtain from it, will, in a short time, infallibly reduce them to the dreadful necessity of being forever nothing, or forever miserable.

We have here a doubt of the most affrighting consequence, and which therefore to entertain may be well esteemed the most grievous of misfortunes; but, at the same time, it is our indispensable duty not to lie under it without struggling for deliverance.

He then who doubts, and yet seeks not to be resolved, is equally unhappy and unjust. But if withal he appears easy and composed; if he freely declares his indifference; nay, if he takes a vanity in professing it, and seems to make this most deplorable condition the subject of his pleasure and joy, have not words to fix a name on so extravagant a creature. Where is the very possibility of entering into these thoughts and resolutions? what delight is there in expecting misery without end? what vanity in finding one’s self encompassed with impenetrable darkness? or what consolation in despairing forever of a comforter?

SECT. I.

I. General division of the following discourse, with regard to Pagan and Jewish authors, who mention particulars relating to our Saviour.

II. Not probable that any such should be mentioned by Pagan writers who lived at the same time, from the nature of such transactions.

III. Especially when related by the Jews.

IV. And heard at a distance by those who pretended to as great miracles of their own.

V. Besides, that no Pagan writers of that age lived in Judea, or its confines.

VI. And because many books of that age are lost.

VII. An instance of one record proved to be authentic.

VIII. A second record of probable, though not undoubted, authority.

I. THAT I may lay before you a full state of the subject under our consideration and methodise the several particulars that I touched upon in discourse with you, I shall first take notice of such Pagan authors as have given their testimony to the history of our Saviour; reduce these authors under their respective classes, and shew what authority their testimonies carry with them. Secondly, I shall take notice of

The author did not live to write this second part.

II. There are many reasons why you should not expect that matters of such a wonderful nature should be taken notice of by those eminent Pagan writers, who were contemporaries with Jesus Christ, or by those who lived before his disciples had personally appeared among them, and ascertained the report which had gone abroad concerning a life so full of miracles.

Supposing such things had happened at this day in Switzerland, or among the Grisons, who make a greater figure in Europe than Judea did in the Roman Empire, would they be immediately believed by those who live at a great distance from them? or would any certain account of them be transmitted into foreign countries, within so short a space of time as that of our Saviour’s public ministry? Such kinds of news, though never so true, seldom gain credit, till some time after they are transacted, and exposed to the examination of the curious, who, by laying together circumstances, attestations, and characters of those who are concerned in them, either receive or reject what at first none but eye-witnesses could absolutely believe or disbelieve. In a case of this sort, it was natural for men of sense and learning to treat the whole account as fabulous: or, at farthest, to suspend their belief of it, until all things stood together in their full light.

III. Besides, the Jews were branded not only for superstitions different from all the religions of the Pagan world, but in a particular manner ridiculed for being a credulous people: so that whatever reports of such a nature came out of that country, were looked upon by the Heathen world as false, frivolous, and improbable.

SECT. II.

I. What facts in the history of our Saviour might be taken notice of by Pagan authors.

II. What particular facts are taken notice of, and by what Pagan authors.

III. How Celsus represented our Saviour’s miracles.

IV. The same representation made of them by other unbelievers, and proved unreasonable.

V. What facts in our Saviour’s history not to be expelled from Pagan writers.

I. WE come now to consider what undoubted authorities are extant among Pagan writers: and here we must premise, that some parts of our Saviour’s history may be reasonably expected from Pagans. I mean such parts as might be known to those who lived at a distance from Judea, as well as to those who were the followers and eye-witnesses of Christ.

II. Such particulars are most of these which follow, and which are all attested by some one or other of those Heathen authors, who lived in or near the age of our Saviour and his disciples. “That Augustus Cæsar had ordered the whole empire to be censed or taxed,” which brought our Saviour’s reputed parents to Bethlehem: this is mentioned by several Roman historians, as Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dion. “That a great light, or a new star, appeared in the east, which directed the wise men to our Saviour:” this is recorded by Chalcidius. “That Herod, the king of Palestine, so often mentioned in the Roman history, made a great slaughter of innocent children,” being so jealous of his successor, that he put to death his own sons on that account: this character of him is given by several historians: and this cruel fact mentioned by Macrobius, a Heathen author, who tells it as a known thing, without any mark or doubt upon it. “That our Saviour had been in Egypt:” this Celsus, though he raises a monstrous story upon it, is so far from denying, that he tells us, our Saviour learned the arts of magic in that country. “That Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea; that our Saviour was brought in judgment before him and by him condemned and crucified:” this is recorded by Tacitus. “That many miraculous cures and works, out of the ordinary course of nature, were wrought by him; this is confessed by Julian the apostate, Porphyry, and Hierocles, all of them not only Pagans, but professed enemies and persecutors of Christianity. “That our Saviour foretold several things which came to pass according to his predictions;” this was attested by Phlegon in his annals, as we are assured by the learned Origen against Celsus. “That at the time when our Saviour died, there was a miraculous darkness, and a great earthquake:” this is recorded by the same Phlegon the Trallian, who was likewise a Pagan, and freeman to Adrian the emperor. We may here observe, that a native of Trallium, which was not situate at so great a distance from Palestine, might very probably be informed of such remarkable events as had passed among the Jews in the age immediately preceding his own times, since several of his countrymen with whom he had conversed might have received a confused report of our Saviour before his crucifixion, and probably lived within the shake of the earthquake, and the shadow of the eclipse, which are recorded by this author. “That Christ was worshipped as a God among the Christians; that they would rather suffer death than blaspheme him: that they received a sacrament, and by it entered into a vow of abstaining from sin and wickedness,” conformable to the advice given by St. Paul: “That they had private assemblies of worship, and used to join together in hymns;” this is the account which Pliny the younger gives of Christianity in his days, about seventy years after the death of Christ, and which agrees in all its circumstances with the accounts we have in holy writ, of the first state of Christianity after the crucifixion of our blessed Saviour. “That St. Peter, whose miracles are many of them recorded in holy writ, did many wonderful works,” is owned by Julian the apostate, who therefore represents him as a great magician, and one who had in his possession a book of magical secrets, left him by our Saviour. “That the devils or evil spirits were subject to them,” we may learn from Porphyry, who objects to Christianity, that since Jesus had begun to be worshipped, Esculapius, and the rest of the Gods, did no more converse with men. Nay, Celsus himself affirms the same thing in effect, when he says, that the power which seemed to reside in Christians proceeded from the use of certain names, and the invocation of certain demons. Origen remarks on this passage, that the author doubtless hints at those Christians who put to flight evil spirits, and healed those who were possessed with them: a fact which had been often seen, and which he himself had seen, as he declares in another part of his discourse. against Celsus. But at the same time he assures us, that this miraculous power was exerted by the use of no other name but that of Jesus; to which were added several passages in this history, but nothing like any invocation to demons.

III. Celsus was so hard set with the report of our Saviour’s miracles, and the confident attestations concerning him, that though he often intimates that he did not believe them to be true, yet knowing he might be silenced in such an answer, provides himself with another retreat, when beaten out of this, viz. that our Saviour was a magician. Thus he compares the feeding of so many thousands, at two different times, with a few loaves and fishes, to the magical feasts of those Egyptian impostors, who would present their spectators with visionary entertainments, that had in them neither substance nor reality: which, by the way, is to suppose, that a hungry and fainting multitude were filled by an apparition, or strengthened and refreshed with shadows. He knew very well that there was so many witnesses and actors, if I may call them such, in these two miracles, that it was impossible to refute such multitudes, who had doubtless sufficiently spread the fame of them, and was therefore in this place forced to resort to the other solution, that it was done by magic. It was not enough to say that a miracle, which appeared to so many thousand eye-witnesses, was a forgery of Christ’s disciples; and therefore supposing them to be eye-witnesses, he endeavours to shew how they might be deceived.

IV. The unconverted Heathens, who were pressed by the many authorities that confirmed our Saviour’s miracles, as well as the unbelieving Jews, who had actually seen them, were driven to account for them after the same manner: for, to work by magic, in the Heathen way of speaking, was, in the language of the Jews, to cast out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. Our Saviour, who knew that unbelievers, in all ages, would put this perverse interpretation on his miracles, has branded the malignity of those men, who, contrary to the dictates of their own hearts, started such an unreasonable objection as a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and declared not only the guilt, but the punishment of so black a crime. At the same time he condescended to shew the vanity and emptiness of this objection against his miracles, by representing, that they evidently tended to the destruction of those powers, to whose assistance the enemies of his doctrine then ascribed them: an argument, which, if duly weighed, renders the objection so very frivolous and groundless, that we may venture to call it even blasphemy against common sense. Would magic endeavour to draw off the minds of men from the worship which was paid to stocks and stones; to give them an abhorrence of those evil spirits, who rejoiced in the most cruel sacrifices, and in offerings of the greatest impurity; and, in short, to call upon mankind to exert their whole strength in the love and adoration of that one Being, from whom they derived existence, and on whom only they were taught to depend every moment for the happiness and continuance of it? Was it the business of magic to humanize our natures with compassion, forgiveness, and all the instances of the most extensive charity? Would evil spirits contribute to make men sober, chaste, and temperate; and, in a word, to produce that reformation which was wrought in the moral world by those doctrines of our Saviour that received their sanction from his miracles? Nor is it possible to imagine, that evil spirits would enter into a combination with our Saviour to cut off all their correspondence and intercourse with mankind, and to prevent any for the future from addicting themselves to those rites and ceremonies which had done them so much honour. We see the early effect which Christianity had on the minds of men in this particular, by that number of books which were filled with the secrets of magic, and made a sacrifice to Christianity by the converts mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. We have likewise an eminent instance of the inconsistency of our religion with magic in the history of the famous Aquila. This person, who was a kinsman of the emperor Trajan, and likewise a man of great learning, notwithstanding he had embraced Christianity; could not be brought off from the studies of magic by the repeated admonitions of his fellow Christians; so that at length they expelled him their society, as rather chusing to loose the reputation of so considerable a proselyte, than communicate with one who dealt in such dark and infernal practices. Besides, we may observe, that all the favourers of magic were the most professed and bitter enemies to the Christian religion. Not to mention Simon Magus, and many others, I shall only take notice of those two great persecutors of Christianity, the emperors Adrian and Julian the apostate, both of them initiated in the mysteries of divination, and skilled in all the depths of magic, I shall only add, that evil spirits cannot be supposed to have concurred in the establishment of a religion which triumphed over them, drove them out of the places they possessed, and divested them of their influence on mankind: nor would I mention this particular, though it be unanimiously reported by all the ancient Christian authors, did it not appear, from the authorities above cited, that this was a fact confessed by Heathens themselves.

SECT. III.

I. Introduction to a second list of Pagan authors, who give testimony of our Saviour.

II. A passage concerning our Saviour from a learned Athenian.

III. His Conversion from Paganism to Christianity makes his evidence stronger than if he had continued a Pagan.

IV. Of another Athenian philosopher converted to Christianity.

V. Why their conversion, instead of weakening, strengthens their evidence in defence of Christianity.

VI. Their belief in our Saviour’s history founded at first upon the principles of historical faith.

VII. Their testimonies extended to all the particulars of our Saviour’s history.

VIII. As related by the four Evangelists.

I. TO this list of Heathen writers, who make mention of our Saviour, or touch upon any particulars of his life, I shall add those authors who were at first Heathens, and afterwards converted to Christianity; upon which account, as I shall here shew, their testimonies are to be looked upon as the more authentic. And, in this list of evidences, I confine myself to such learned Pagans as came over to Christianity in the three first centuries, because those were the times in which men had the best means of informing themselves of the truth of our Saviour’s history; and because, among the great number of philosophers who came in afterwards, under the reigns of Christian emperors, there might be several of them who did it partly out of worldly motives.

II. Let us now suppose that a learned Heathen writer, who lived within sixty years of our Saviour’s crucifixion, after having shewn that false miracles were generally wrought in obscurity, and before few or no witnesses, speaking of those which were wrought by our Saviour, has the following passage. “But his works were always seen, because they were true; they were seen by those who were healed, and by those who were raised from the dead. Nay, these persons who were thus healed, and raised, were seen not only at the time of their being healed and raised, but long afterwards. Nay, they were seen not only all the while our Saviour was upon earth, but survived after his departure out of this world; nay, some of them were living in our days.”

III. I dare say you would look upon this as a glorious attestation for the cause of Christianity, had it come from the hand of a famous Athenian philosopher. These forementioned words, however, are actually the words of one who lived about sixty years after our Saviour’s crucifixion, and was a famous philosopher in Athens. But it will be said he was a convert to Christianity: now consider this matter impartially, and see if his testimony is not much more valid for that reason. Had he continued a Pagan philosopher, would not the world have it said that he was not sincere in what he writ, or did not believe it; for if so, would not they have told us he would have embraced Christianity? This was indeed the case of this excellent man; he had so thoroughly examined the truth of our Saviour’s history, and the excellency of that religion which he taught, and was so entirely convinced of both, that he became a proselyte and died a martyr.

IV. Aristides was an Athenian philosopher, at the same time famed for his learning and wisdom, but converted to Christianity. As it cannot be questioned that he perused and approved the apology of Quadratus, in which is the passage just now cited, he joined with him in an apology of his own to the same emperor on the same subject. This apology, though now lost, was extant in the time of Ado. Vinesis, A. D. 870, and highly esteemed by the most learned Athenians, as that author witnesses. It must have contained great arguments for the truth of our Saviour’s history, because in it he asserted the divinity of our Saviour which could not but engage him in the proof of his miracles.

V. I do allow, that generally speaking, a man is not so acceptable and unquestioned an evidence, in facts which make for the advancement of his own party. But we must consider, that, in the case before us, the persons to whom we appeal were of an opposite party, till they were persuaded of the truth of those very facts which they report. They bear evidence to a history in defence of Christianity; the truth of which history was their motive to embrace Christianity. They attest facts which they had heard while they were yet Heathens, and had they not found reason to believe them, they would have still continued Heathens, and have made no mention of them in their writings.

VI. When a man is born under Christian parents, and trained up in the profession of that religion from a child, he generally guides himself by the rules of Christian faith, in believing what is delivered by the evangelists; but the learned Pagans of antiquity, before they became Christians, were only guided by the common rules of faith; that is, they examined the nature of the evidence which was to be met with in common fame, traditions, and the writings of those persons who related them, together with the number, concurrence, veracity, and private characters of those persons; and being convinced upon all accounts that they had the same reason to believe the history of our Saviour, as that of any other person to which they themselves were not actually eye-witnesses, they were bound, by all the rules of historical faith, and of right reason, to give credit to this history. This they did accordingly, and in consequence of it published the same truths themselves, suffered many afflictions, and very often death itself in the assertion of them. When I say, that an historical belief of the acts of our Saviour induced these learned Pagans to embrace his doctrine, I do not deny that there were many other motives which conduced to it, as the excellency of his precepts, the fulfiling of prophecies, the miracles of his disciples, the irreproachable lives and magnanimous sufferings of their followers, with other considerations of the same nature; but whatever other collateral arguments wrought more or less with philosophers of that age, it is certain, that a belief in the history of our Saviour was one motive with every new convert, and that upon which all others turned, as being the very basis and foundation of Christianity.

VII. To this I must further add, that as we have already seen many particular facts which are recorded in holy writ, attested by particular Pagan authors, the testimony of those I am now going to produce, extends to the whole history of our Saviour, and to that continued series of actions which are related of him and his disciples in the books of the New Testament.

VIII. This evidently appears from their quotations out of the evangelists, for the confirmation of any doctrine or account of our blessed Saviour. Nay, a learned man of our nation, who examined the writings of our most ancient fathers in another view, refers to several passages in Irenæus, Tertullian, Clements of Alexandria, Origen, and Cyprian; by which he plainly shews that each of these early writers ascribed to the four evangelists by name, their respective histories; so that there is not the least room for doubting of their belief in the history of our Saviour as recorded in the gospels. I shall only add, that three of the five fathers here mentioned, and probably four, were Pagans converted to Christianity, as they were all of them very inquisitive and deep in the knowledge of Heathen learning and philosophy.

SECT. IV.

I. Character of the times in which the Christian religion was propagated.

IL And of many who embraced it.

III. Three eminent and early instances.

IV. Multitudes of learned men who came over to it.

V. Belief in our Saviour’s history the first motive to their conversion.

VI. The names of several Pagan philosophers who were Christian converts.

I. IT happened very, providentially, to the honour of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height, and when there were men who made it the business of their lives to search after truth, and sift the several opinions of philosophers and wise men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happiness of reasonable creatures.

II. Several of these, therefore, when they had informed themselves of our Saviour’s history, and examined, with unprejudiced minds, the doctrines and manners of his disciples and followers, were struck and convinced, that they professed themselves of that sect; notwithstanding, by this profession, that juncture of time, they bid farewell to all the pleasures of this life, renounced all the views of ambition, engaged in an uninterrupted course of severities, and exposed themselves to public hatred and contempt, to sufferings of all kinds, and to death itself.

III. Of this sort we may reckon those three early converts to Christianity, who each of them was a member of a senate famous for its wisdom and learning. Joseph the Arimathean was of the Jewish sanhedrim, Dionysius of the Athenian, Areopagus, and Flavius Clemens, of the Roman senate; nay, at the time of his death, consul of Rome. These three were so thoroughly satisfied of the truth of the Christian religion, that the first of them, according to all the reports of antiquity, died a martyr for it; as did the second, unless we disbelieve Aristides, his fellow citizen and contemporary; and the third, as we are informed both by Roman and Christian authors.

IV. Among those innumerable multitudes, who, in most of the known nations of the world, came over to Christianity at its first appearance, we may be sure there were great numbers of wise and learned men, besides those whose names are in the Christian records, who, without doubt, took care to examine the truth of our Saviour’s history before they would leave the religion of their country, and of their forefathers, for the sake of one that would not only cut them of from the allurements of this world, but subject them to every thing terrible or disagreeable in it. Tertullian tells the Roman governors, that their corporations, councils, armies, tribes, companies, the palace, senate, and courts of judicature, were filled with Christians; as Arnobius asserts, that men of the finest parts and learning, orators, grammarians, rhetoricians, lawyers, physicians, philosophers, despising the sentiments they had been once fond of, took up their rest in the Christian religion.

V. Who can imagine that men of this character did not thoroughly inform themselves of the history of that person whose doctrines they embraced? For however consonant to reason his precepts appeared, how good soever were the effects which they produced in the world, nothing could have tempted men to acknowledge him as their God and Saviour, but their being firmly persuaded of the miracles he wrought, and the many attestations of his divine mission, which were to be met with in the history of his life. This was the groundwork of the Christian religion; and, if this failed, the whole superstructure sunk with it. This point, therefore, of the truth of our Saviour’s history, as reckoned by the evangelists, is every where taken for granted in the writings of those who, from Pagan philosophers, became Christian authors, and who, by reason of their conversion, are to be looked upon as of the strongest collateral testimony for the truth of what is delivered concerning our Saviour.

VI. Besides innumerable authors that are lost, we have the undoubted names, works, or fragments of several Pagan philosophers, which shew them to have been as learned as any unconverted Heathen authors of the age in which they lived. If we look into the greatest, nurseries of learning in those ages of the world, we find in Athens, Dionysius, Quadratus, Aristides, Athenagoras; and in Alexandria, Dionysius Clements, Ammonius, and Anatolius, to whom we may add Origen; for though his father was a Christian martyr, he became, without all controversy, the most learned and able philosopher of his age, by his education at Alexandria, in that famous seminary of arts and sciences.

SECT. V.

I. The learned Pagans had means and opportunities of informing themselves of the truth of our Saviour’s history.

II. From the proceedings,

III. The charmers, sufferings,

IV. And miracles of the persons who published it.

V. How these first apostles perpetrated their tradition, by ordaining persons to succeed them.

VI. How their successors in the three first centuries preserved their tradition.

VII. That five generations might derive this tradition from Christ, to the end of the third century.

VIII. Four eminent Christians that delivered it down successively to the year of our Lord 254.

IX. The faith of the four above mentioned persons the same with that of the churches of the east, of the west and of Egypt.

X. Another person added to them, who brings us to the year 343, and that many other lists might be added in as direct and short a succession.

XI. Why the tradition of the three first centuries, was more authentic than that of any other age, proved from the conversation of the primitive Christians.

XII. From the manner of initiating men into their religion.

XIII. From the correspondence between the churches.

XIV. From the long lives of several of Christ’s disciples, of which two are instances.

I. IT now therefore only remains to consider, whether these learned men had means and opportunities of informing themselves of the truth of our Saviour’s history; for unless this point can be made out, their testimonies will appear invalid, and their inquiries ineffectual.

II. As to this point, we must consider, that many thousands had seen the transactions of our Saviour in Judah; and that many hundred thousands had received an account of them from the mouths of those who were actually eye-witnesses. I shall only mention among these eyewitnesses, the twelve apostles, to whom we must add St. Paul, who had a particular call to this high office, tho’ many other disciples and followers of Christ had also their share in the publishing this wonderful history. We learn from the ancient records of Christianity, that many of the apostles and disciples made it the express business of their lives, travelled into the remotest parts of the world, and in all places gathered multitudes about them, to acquaint them with the history and doctrines of their crucified Master. And indeed, were all christian records of these proceedings intirely lost, as many have been, the effect plainly evinces the truth of them; for how else, during the apostles’ lives could Christianity have spread itself with such an amazing progress through the several nations of the Roman empire? how could it fly like lightning, and carry conviction with it from one end of the earth to the other?

III. Heathens therefore of every age, sex, and quality, born in the most different climates, and bred up under the most different institutions, when they saw men of plain sense, without the help of learning, armed with patience and courage, instead of wealth, pomp, or power, expressing in their lives those excellent doctrines of morality, which they taught as delivered to them from our Saviour, avering that they had seen his miracles during his life, and conversed with him after his death: when, I say, they saw no suspicion of falshood, treachery, or worldly interest in their behaviour and conversation, and that they submitted to the most ignominious and cruel deaths, rather than retract their testimony; or even be silent in matters which they were to publish by our Saviour’s especial command, there was no reason to doubt of the veracity of these facts which they related, or of the divine mission in which they were employed.

SECT. VI.

I. The tradition of the apostles secured by other excellent instructions;

II. But chiefly by the writings of the evangelists.

III. The diligence of the disciples and first Christian converts to send abroad these writings.

IV. That the written account of our Saviour was the same with that delivered by tradition;

V. Proved from the reception of the gospel by those churches which were established before it was written.

VI. From the uniformity of what was believed in the several churches.

VII. From a remarkable passage in Irenæus.

VIII. Records which are now lost of use to the three first centuries, for confirming the history of our Saviour.

IX. Instances of such records.

I. THUS far we see how the learned Pagans might apprize themselves, from oral information, oral information, of the particulars of our Saviour’s history. They could hear, in every church planted in every distant part of the earth, the account which was there received and preserved among them, of the history of our Saviour. They could learn the names, and characters of those first missionaries that brought to them these accounts and the miracles by which God Almighty attested their reports. But the apostles and disciples of Christ, to preserve the history of his life, and to secure their accounts of him from error and oblivion, did not only set aside certain persons for that purpose, as has been already shewn, but appropriated certain days to the commemoration of those facts which they had related, concerning him. The first day of the week was in all its returns a perpetual memorial of his resurrection as the devotional exercises adapted to Friday and Saturday were to denote to all ages that he was crucified on the one of those days and that he rested in the grave on the other. You may apply the same remark to several of the annual festivals instituted by the apostles themselves, or at furtherest by their immediate successors, in memory of the most important particulars in our Saviour’s history to which we must add the sacraments instituted by our Lord himself, and many of those rites and ceremonies which obtained in the most early times of the church. These are to be regarded as standing marks of such facts as were delivered by those who were eye-witnesses to them, and which were contrived with great wisdom to last till time should be no more. These, without any other means, might have, in some measure, conveyed to posterity the memory of several transactions in the history of our Saviour, as they were related by his disciples. At least, the reason of these institutions, though they might be forgotten, and obscured by a long course of years, could not but be very well known by those who lived in the three first centuries; and a means of informing the inquisitive Pagans in the truth of our Saviour’s history, that being the view in which I am to consider them.

II. But lest such a tradition, though guarded by so many expedients, should wear out by the length of time, the four evangelists, within above fifty, or, as Theodoret affirms, thirty years after our Saviour’s death, while the memory of his actions was fresh among them, consigned to writing that history, which for some years had been published only by the mouths of the apostles and disciples. The further consideration of these holy penmen will fall under another part of this discourse.

III. It will be sufficient to observe here, that in the age which succeeded the apostles, many of their immediate disciples sent or carried in person the books of the four evangelists, which had been written by the apostles, or at least approved by them, to most of the churches which they had planted in the different parts of the world. This was done with so much diligence, that when Pantænus, a man of great learning and piety, had travelled into India for the propagation of Christianity, about the year of our Lord 200, he found among that remote people the gospel of St. Matthew, which, upon his return from that country, he brought with him to Alexandria. This gospel is generally supposed to have been left in those parts by St. Bartholomew, the apostle of the Indies, who probably carried it with him, before the writings of the three other evangelists were published.

IV. That the history of our Saviour as recorded by the evangelists, was the same with that which had been before delivered by the apostles and disciples, will further appear in the prosecution of this discourse, and may be gathered from the following considerations.

V. Had these writings differed from the sermons of the first planters of Christianity, either in history or doctrine, there is no question but they would have been rejected by those churches which they had already formed. But so consistent and uniform was the relation of the apostles, that those histories .appeared to be nothing else but their tradition and oral attestations made fixed and permanent. Thus was the fame of our Saviour, which in so few years had gone through the whole earth, confirmed and perpetuated by such records as would preserve the traditionary account of him to after ages, and rectify it, if at any time, by passing through several generations, it might drop any part that was material, or contract any thing that was false or fictitious.

SECT. VII.

I. The sight of miracles in those ages, a further confirmation of Pagan philosophers in the Christian faith.

II. The credibility of such miracles.

III. A particular instance.

IV. Martyrdom, why considered as a standing miracle.

V. Primitive Christians thought many of the martyrs were supported by a miraculous power.

VI. Proved from the nature of their sufferings.

VII. How martyrs further induced the Pagans to embrace Christianity.

I. THERE were other means which I find had a great influence on the learned of the three first centuries, to create and confirm in them the belief of our blessed Saviour’s history, which ought not to be passed over in silence. The first was, the opportunity they enjoyed of examing those miracles, which were on several occasions performed by Christians, and appeared in the church more or less during these first ages of Christianity. These had great weight with the men I am now speaking of, who, from learned Pagans, became fathers of the church; for they frequently boast of them in their writings, as attestations given by God himself to the truth of their religion.

II. At the same time that these learned men declare how disingenuous, base, and wicked it would be, how much beneath the dignity of philosophy, and contrary to the precepts of Christianity, to utter falsehoods or forgeries in the support of a cause, though never so just in itself, they confidently assert this miraculous power which then subsisted in the church; nay, tell us, that themselves had been eye witnesses of it at several times, and in several instances; nay, appeal to the Heathens themselves for the truth of several facts they relate; nay, challenge them to be prefect at their assemblies, and satisfy themselves if they doubt of it; nay, we find that Pagan authors have in some instances confessed this miraculous power.

III. The letter of Marcus Aurelius, whose army was preserved by a refreshing shower, at the same time that his enemies were discomfited by a storm of lightning, and which the Heathen historians themselves allow to have been supernatural, and the effect of magic; I say, this letter, which ascribed this unexpected assistance to the prayers of the Christians, who then served in the army, would have been thought an unquestionable testimony of the miraculous power I am speaking of, had it been still preserved. It is sufficient for me in this place to take notice, that this was one of those miracles which had its influence on the learned converts, because it is related by Tertullian, and the very letter appealed to. When their learned men saw sickness and frenzy cured, the dead raised, the oracles put to silence, the demons and evil spirits forced to confess themselves no gods, by persons who only made use of prayer and adjurations in the name of their crucified Saviour, how could they doubt of their Saviour’s power on the like occasions, as represented to them by the traditions of the church, and the writings of the evangelists?

SECT. VIII.

I. The completion of our Saviour’s Prophecies confirmed Pagans in their belief of the gospel.

II. Origen’s observation on our Saviour’s disciples being brought before kings and governors;

III. On their being persecuted for their religion;

IV. On their preaching the gospel to all nations.

V. On the destruction of Jerusalem, and ruin of the Jewish œconomy.

VI. These arguments strengthened by what has happened since Origen’s time.

I. THE second of these extraordinary means, of great use to the learned and inquisitive Pagans of the first three centuries, for evincing the truth of the history of our Saviour, was the completion of such prophecies as are recorded of him in the evangelists. They could not indeed form any arguments from what he foretold, and was fulfilled during his life, because both the prophecy and the completion were over before they were published by the evangelists; though as Origen observes, what end could there be in forging some of these predictions, as that of St. Peter’s denying his Master, and all his disciples forsaking him in the greatest extremity, which reflects so much shame on the great apostle, and on all his companions? Nothing but a strict adherence to truth, and to matters of fact, could have prompted the evangelists to relate a circumstance so disadvantageous to their own reputation, as that father has well observed.

II. But to pursue his reflections on this subject: There are predictions of our Saviour recorded by the evangelists, which were not completed till after their deaths, and had no likelihood of being so, when they were pronounced by our blessed Saviour. Such was that wonderful notice he gave them, that they should be brought before governors, and kings, for his sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles, Mat. x. 28. with the other like prophecies, by which he foretold that his disciples were to be persecuted. Is there any other doctrine in the world, says this father, whose followers are punished? can the enemies of Christ say, that he knew his opinions were false and impious, and that therefore he might well conjecture and foretel what would be the treatment of those persons who would embrace them? Supposing his doctrines were really such, why should this be the consequence? What likelihood that men should be brought before kings and governors for opinions and tenets of any kind, when this never happened even to the Epicureans, who absolutely denied a providence; nor to the Peripatetics themselves, who laughed at the prayers and sacrifices which were made to the Divinity? Are there any but the Christians who, according to this prediction of our Saviour, being brought before kings and governors for his sake, are pressed to their latest gasp of breath, by their respective judges, to renounce Christianity, and to procure their liberty and rest, by offering the same sacrifices, and taking the same oaths that others did?

III. Consider the time when our Saviour pronounced those words, Mat. x. 32. 33. “Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father who is in heaven: but whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven.” Had you heard him speak after this manner, when as yet his disciples were under no such trials, you would certainly have said within yourself, if these speeches of Jesus are true, and if, according to his prediction, governors and kings undertake to ruin and destroy those who shall profess themselves his disciples, we will believe, not only that he is a prophet, but that he has received power from God sufficient to preserve and propagate his religion; and that he would never talk in such a peremptory and discouraging manner, were he not assured that he was able to subdue the most powerful opposition, that could be made against the faith and doctrine which he taught.

SECT. IX.

I. The lives of primitive Christians another means of bringing learned Pagans into, their religion.

II. The change and reformation of their manners.

III. This looked upon as supernatural by the learned Pagans.

IV. And strengthened the accounts given of our Saviour’s life and history.

V. The Jewish prophecies of our Saviour an argument for the Heathens’ belief:

VI. Pursued:

VII. Purfued.

I. THERE was one other means enjoyed by the learned Pagans of the three fist centuries, for satisfying them in the truth of our Saviour’s history which I might have flung under one of the foregoing heads but as it is so shining a particular, and does so much honour to our religion, I shall make a distinct article of it, and only consider it with regard to the subject I am upon: I mean the lives and manners of those holy men who believed in Christ during the first ages of Christianity. I should be thought to advance a paradox, should I affirm that there were more Christians in the world during those times of persecution than there are at present in these which we call the flourishing times of Christianity. But this will be found an indisputable truth, if we form our calculation upon the opinions which prevailed in those days, that every one who lives in the habitual practice of any voluntary sin actually cuts himself off from the benefits and profession of Christianity, and whatever he may call himself, is in reality no Christian, nor ought to be esteemed as such.

II. In the time that we are now surveying, the Christian religion shewed its full force and efficacy on the minds of men, and by many examples demonstrated what great and generous souls it was capable of producing. It exalted and refined its proselytes, to a very high degree of perfection, and set them far above the pleasures, and even the pains, of this life. It strengthened the infirmity, and broke the fierceness of human nature. It lifted up the minds of the ignorant to the knowledge and worship of him that made them, and inspired the vicious with a rational devotion, a strict purity of heart, and an unbounded love to their fellow-creatures. In proportion as it spread thro’ the world it seemed to change mankind into another species of beings. No sooner was a convert initiated into it, but, by an easy figure, he became a new man, and both acted and looked upon himself as one regenerated and born a second time into another state of existence.

SECT. I.

OF GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.

Qui mare et terras variisque mundum
Temperat horis:
Unde nil majus generatur ipso,
Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum.

Hor. Od. 12. Lib. I. V. 15.

Who guides below, and rules above, The great Disposer and the mighty King: Than he none greater, next him none, That can be, is or was; Supreme he singly fills the throne.

Creech.

SIMONIDES, being armed by Dionysius the tyrant what God was, desired a day’s time to consider of it before he made his reply. When the day was expired, he desired two days; and afterwards, instead of returning his answer, demanded still double time to consider of it. This great poet and philosopher, the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth; and that he lost himself in the thought, instead of finding an end of it.

If we consider the idea which wise men, by the light of reason, have framed of the Divine Being, it amounts to this: that he has in him all the perfection of a spiritual nature; and since we have no notion of any kind of spiritual perfection but what we discover in our own souls, we join infinitude to each kind of these perfections, and what is a faculty, in a human soul, becomes an attribute in God. We exist in place and time, the Divine Being fills the immensity of space with his presence, and inhabits eternity. We are possessed of a little power and a little knowledge, the Divine Being is almighty and omniscient. In short, by adding infinity to any kind of perfection we enjoy, and by joining all these different kinds of perfections in one being, we form our idea of the great Sovereign of nature.

Though every one who thinks must have made this observation, I shall produce Mr. Locke’s authority to the same purpose, out of his essay on human understanding. “If, we examine the idea we have of the incomprehensible Supreme Being, we shall find, that we come by it the same way; and that the complex ideas we have both: of God and separate spirits, are made up of the simple ideas we receive from reflection: v. g. from having, by what we experience in ourselves, got the ideas of existence and duration, of knowledge and power, of pleasure and happiness, and of several other qualities and powers, which it is better to have, than to be without; when we would frame an idea the most suitable we can to the Supreme Being, we enlarge every one of these with our idea of infinity; and so, putting them togther, make our complex idea of God.”

It is not impossible that there may be many kinds of spiritual perfection, besides those which are lodged in an human soul; but it is impossible that we should have ideas of any kinds of perfection, except those of which we have some small rays and short imperfect strokes in ourselves. It would be therefore a very high presumption to determine whether the Supreme Being has not many more attributes than those which enter into our conceptions of him. This is certain, that if there be any kind of spiritual perfection which is not marked out in an human soul, it belongs, in its fulness, to the Divine Nature.

Several eminent philosophers have imagined that the soul, in her separate state, may have new faculties springing up in her, which she is not capable of exerting during her present union with the body; and whether these faculties may not correspond with other attributes in the Divine Nature, and open to us hereafter new matter of wonder and adoration, we are altogether ignorant. This, as I have said before, we ought to acquiesce in, that the Sovereign Being, the great author of nature, has in him all possible perfection, as well in kind as in degree; to speak according to our methods of conceiving. I shall only add under this head, that when we have raised our notion of this infinite Being as high as it is possible for the mind of man to go, it will fall infinitely short of what he really is. There is no end of his greatness; the most exalted creature he has made, is only capable of adoring it, none but himself can comprehend it.

The advice of the son of Sirach is very just and sublime in this light. “By his word all things consist. We may speak much, and yet come short: wherefore in sum, he is all. How shall we be able to magnify him? For he is great above all his works. The Lord is terrible and very great; and marvellous in his power. When you glorify the Lord, exalt him as much as you can; for even yet will he far exceed. And, when you exalt him, put fourth all your strength, and be not weary; for you can never go far enough. Who hath seen him, that he might tell us? and who can magnify him as he is? There are yet hid greater things than those be, for we have seen but a few of his works.”

I have here only considered the Supreme Being by the light of reason and philosophy. If we would see him in all the wonders of his mercy, we must have recourse to revelation, which represents him to us, not only as infinitely great and glorious, but as infinitely good and just in his dispensations towards men. But as this is a theory which falls under every one’s consideration, though indeed it can never be sufficiently considered, I shall here only take notice of that habitual worship and veneration which we ought to pay to this Almighty Being. We should often refresh our minds with the thought of him and annihilate ourselves before him in the contemplation of our own worthlessness, and of his transcendent excellency and perfection. This would imprint in our minds such a constant and uninterrupted awe and veneration as that which I am here recommending, and which is in reality a kind of incessant prayer, and reasonable humiliation of the soul before him who made it.

This would effectually kill in us all the little seeds of pride, vanity, and self-conceit, which are apt to shoot up in the minds of such whose thoughts turn more on those comparative advantages which they enjoy over some of their fellow-creatures, than on that infinite distance which is placed between them and the supreme model of all perfection. It would likewise quicken our desires and endeavours of uniting ourselves to him by all the acts of religion and virtue.

Such an habitual homage to the Supreme Being would, in a particular manner, banish from among us that prevailing impiety of using his name on the most trivial occasions.

I find the following passage in an excellent sermon, preached at the funeral of a gentleman, who was an honour to his country, and a more diligent as well as successful inquirer into the works of nature than any other our nation has ever produced. “He had the profoundest veneration for the great God of heaven and earth that I have ever observed in any person. The very name of God was never mentioned by him without a pause, and a visible stop in his discourse; in which, one that knew him most particularly above twenty years, has told me, that he was so exact, that he does not remember to have observed him once to fail in it.”

Every one knows the veneration which was paid by the Jews to a name so great, wonderful, and holy. They would not let it enter even in their religious discourses. What can we then think of those who make use of so tremendous a name in the ordinary expressions of their anger, mirth, and most impertinent passions? of those who admit it into the most familiar questions and assertions, ludicrous phrases, and works of humour? not to mention those who violate it by solemn perjuries. It would be an affront to reason to endeavour to set forth the horror and profaneness of such a practice. The very mention of it exposes it sufficiently to those in whom the light of nature, not to say religion, is not utterly extinguished.

—Deum namque ire per omnes
Terrasque, tractusque maris, calumque profundum.

Virg. Georg. 4. ver. 221.

Dryden,

I WAS yesterday, about sun set, walking in the open field, till the night insensibly fell upon me. I at first amused myself with all the richness and variety of colours which appeared in the western part of the heaven: in proportion as they faded away and went out, several stars and planets appeared one after another, till the whole firmament was in a glow. The blueness of æther was exceedingly heightened and enlivened by the season of the year, and by the rays of all those luminaries that passed through it. The Galaxy appeared in its most beautiful white. To complete the scene, the full moon rose at length in that clouded majesty, which Milton takes notice of, and opened to the eye a new picture of nature, which was more finely shaded and disposed among softer light than that which the sun had before discovered to us.

As I was surveying the moon walking in her brightness, and taking her progress among the constellations, a thought rose in me, which I believe very often perplexes and disturbs men of serious and contemplative natures. David himself fell into it in that reflection: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” In the same manner, when I considered that infinite host of stars, or, to speak more philosophically, of suns, which were then shining upon me, with those innumerable sets of planets or worlds which were moving round their respective suns: when I still enlarged the idea, and supposed another heaven of suns and worlds rising still above this which we discovered, and these still enlightened by a superior firmament of luminaries, which are planted at so great a distance, that they may appear to the inhabitants of the former as the stars do to us: in short, while I pursued this thought, I could not but reflect on that little insignificant figure which I myself bore amidst the immensity of God’s works.

Were the sun, which enlightens this part of the creation, with all the host of the planetary worlds that move about him, utterly extinguished and annihilated, they would not be missed more than a grain of sand upon the sea-shore. The space they possess is so exceedingly little in comparison of the whole, that it would scarce make a blank in the creation. The chasm would be imperceptible to any eye that could take in the whole compass of nature, and pass from one end of the creation to the other; and it is possible there may be such a sense in ourselves hereafter, or in creatures which are at present more exalted than ourselves. We see many stars, by the help of glasses, which we cannot discover with our naked eyes: and the finer our telescopes are, the more, still, are our discoveries. Huygenius carries this thought so far, that he does not think it impossible there may be stars whose light has not yet travelled down to us since their first creation. There is no question but the universe has certain bounds set to it: but when we consider that it is the work of infinite power, prompted by infinite goodness, with an infinite space to exert itself in, how can our imagination set any bounds to it?

To return therefore to my first thought, I could not but look upon myself with secret horror, as a being that was not worth the smallest regard of one who had so great a work under his care and superintendency. I was afraid of being overlooked amidst the immensity of nature, and lost among that infinite variety of creatures, which, in all probability, swarms through all these immeasurable regions of matter.

In order to recover myself from this mortifying thought, I considered it took its rise from those narrow conceptions which we are apt to entertain of the divine nature. We ourselves cannot attend to many different objects at the same time. If we are careful to inspect some things, we must of course neglect others. This imperfection which we observe in ourselves is an imperfection that cleaves in some degree to creature of the highest capacities, as they are creatures, that is, beings of finite and limited natures. The presence of every created being is confined to a certain measure of space, and consequently his observation is stinted to a certain number of objects. The sphere in which we move, and act, and understand, is of a wider circumference to one creature than another, according as we rise one above another in the scale of existence. But the widest of these our spheres has its circumference. When therefore we reflect on the divine nature, we are so used and accustomed to this imperfection in ourselves, that we cannot forbear, in ascribing it to him in whom there no shadow of imperfection. Our reason indeed assures us, that his attributes are infinite; but the poorness of our conception is such that it cannot forbear setting bounds to every thing it contemplates, till our reason comes again to our succour, and throws down all those little prejudices which arise in us unawares, and are natural to the mind of man.

We shall therefore utterly extinguish this melancholy thought of our being overlooked by our Maker in the multiplicity of his works, and the infinity of those objects among which he seems to be incessantly employed, if we consider, in the first place, that he is omnipresent: and in the second, that he is omniscient.

If we consider him in his omnipresence, his being passes through, actuates and supports the whole frame of nature. His creation, and every part of it, is full of him. There is nothing he has made that is either so distant, so little, or so inconsiderable, which he does not essentially inhabit. His substance is within the substance of every being, whether material or immaterial, and as intimately present to it as that being is to itself. It would be an imperfection in him, were he able to remove out of one place into another, or to withdraw himself from any thing he has created, or from any part of that space which is diffused and spread abroad to infinity. In short, to speak of him in the language of the old philosopher, he is a Being whose centre is every where and his circumference no where.

In the second place, he is omniscient as well as omnipresent. His omniscience indeed necessarily and naturally flows from his omnipresence; he cannot but be conscious of every motion that arises in the whole material world, which he thus essentially pervades, and of every thought that is stirring in the intellectual world, to every part of which he is thus intimately united. Several moralists have considered the creation as the temple of God, which he has built with his own hands, and which is filled with his presence. Others have considered infinite space as the receptacle, or rather the habitation of the Almighty. But the noblest and most exalted way of considering this infinite space, is that of Sir Isaac Newton, who calls it the cenforium of the Godhead. Brutes and men have their cenforiola or little cenforiums by which they apprehend the presence, and perceive the actions of a few objects that lie contiguous to them. Their knowledge and observation turns within a very narrow circle. But as God Almighty cannot but perceive and know every thing in which he resides, infinite space gives room to infinite knowledge, and is as it were an organ to omniscience.

HIS ATTRIBUTES.

—Cælum quid querimus ultra? Luc. lib. ix.

Than heav’n what further can we seek?

IN your paper of Friday the 9th instant you had occasion to consider the ubiquity of the Godhead, and at the same time to shew, that as he is present to every thing, he cannot but be attentive to every thing, and privy to all the modes and parts of its existence; or, in other words, that his omniscience and omnipresence are coexistent, and run together through the whole infinitude of space. This consideration might furnish us with many incentives to devotion, and motives to morality; but as this subject has been handled by several excellent writers, I shall consider it in a light wherein I have not seen it placed by others.

First, How disconsolate is the condition of an intellectual being, who is thus present with his Maker, but at the same time receives no extraordinary benefit or advantage from this his presence!

Secondly, How deplorable is the condition of an intellectual being, who feels no other effects from this his pretence but such as proceed from divine wrath and indignation!

Thirdly, How happy is the condition of that intellectual being, who is sensible of his Maker’s presence from the secret effects of his mercy and loving kindness!

First, How disconsolate is the condition of an intellectual being who is thus present with his Maker, but at the same time receives no extraordinary benefit or advantage from this his presence! Every particle of matter is actuated by this Almighty Being which passes through it. The heavens and the earth, the stars and planets, move and gravitate by virtue of this great principle within them. All the dead parts of nature are invigourated by the presence of their creator, and made capable of exerting their respective qualities. The several instincts in the brute creation, do likewise operate and work towards the several ends which are agreeable to them by this divine energy. Man only, who does not cooperate with this Holy Spirit, and is unattentive to his presence, receives none of those advantages from it, which are perspective of his nature, and necessary to his well being. The divinity is with him, and in him, and every where about him, but of no advantage to him. It is the same thing to a man with out religion, as if there were no God in the world. It is indeed impossible for an infinite Being to remove himself from any of his creatures, but though he cannot withdraw his essence from us which would argue an imperfection in him, he can withdraw from us all the joys and consolations of it. His, presence may perhaps be necessary to support us in our existence but he may leave this our existence to itself, with regard to its happiness or misery. For, in this sense he may cast us away from his presence, and take his Holy Spirit from us. This single consideration one would think sufficient to make us open our hearts to all those infusions of joy and gladness which are so near at hand, and ready to be poured in upon us; especially when we consider, secondly, The deplorable condition of an intellectual being who feels no other effects from his Maker’s presence, but such as proceed from divine wrath and indignation!

We may assure ourselves, that the great Author of nature will not always be as one, who is indifferent to any of his creatures. Those who will not feel him in his love, will be sure at length to feel him in his displeasure. And how dreadful is the condition of that creature, who is only sensible of the being of his Creator, by what he suffers from him! He is as essentially present in hell as in heaven, but the inhabitants of the former place behold him only in his wrath, and shrink within the flames to conceal themselves from him. It is not in the power of imagination to conceive the fearful effects of omnipotence incensed.

But I shall only consider the wretchedness of an intellectual being, who, in this life, lies under the displeasure of him, that, at all times, and in all places, is intimately united with him. He is able to disquiet the soul, and vex it in all its faculties. He can hinder any of the greatest comforts of life from refreshing us, and give an edge to every one of its calamities. Who then can bear the thought of being an outcast from his presence, that is, from the comforts of it, or feeling it only in its terrors? How pathetic is that expostulation of Job, when, for the trial of his patience, he was made to look upon himself in this deplorable condition! “Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am become a burden to myself?” But, thirdly, how happy is the condition of that intellectual being, who is sensible of his Maker’s presence from the secret effects of his mercy and loving-kindness!

The blessed in heaven behold him face to face; that is, are as sensible of his presence as we are of the presence of any person whom we look upon with our eyes. There is doubtless a faculty in spirits by which they apprehend one another, as our senses do material objects and there is no question but our souls, when they are disembodied or placed in glorified bodies, will, by this faculty in whatever part of space they reside, be always sensible of the divine presence. We who have this veil of flesh standing between us and the world of spirits, must be content to know that the spirit of God is present with us, by the effects which he produceth in us. Our outward senses are too gross to apprehend him; we may however taste and see how gracious he is, by his influence upon our minds, by those virtuous thoughts he awakens in us, by those secret comforts and refreshments which he conveys into our souls, and by these ravishing joys and inward satisfactions, which are perpetually springing up, and diffusing themselves among all the thoughts of good men. He is lodged in our very essence, and is as a soul within the soul, to irradiate its understanding, to rectify its will, purify its passions, and enliven all the powers of man. How happy therefore is an intellectual being, who, by prayer and meditation, by virtue and good works, opens this communication between God and his own soul! Though the whole creation frowns upon him, and all nature looks black upon him, he has light and support within him, that are able to cheer his mind and bear him up in the midst of all those horrors which encompass him. He knows that his helper is at hand, and is always nearer to him than any thing else can be, which is capable of annoying or terrifying him. In the midst of calumny or contempt, he attends to that Being who whispers better things within his soul, and whom he looks upon as his defender, his glory and the lifter up of his head. In his deepest solitude and retirement, he knows that he is in company with the greatest of Beings; and perceives within himself such real sensations of his presence, as are more delightful than any thing that can be met with in the conversation of his creatures. Even in the hour of death he considers the pains of his dissolution to be nothing else but the breaking down of that partition, which stands betwixt his soul, and the light of that Being, who is always present with him, and is about to manifest itself to him in fulness of joy.

If we would be thus happy, and thus sensible of our Maker’s presence from the secret effects of his mercy and goodness, we must keep such a watch over all our thoughts, that, in the language of the scripture, his soul may have pleasure in us. We must take care not to grieve his Holy Spirit, and endeavour to make the meditations of our hearts always acceptable in his sight, that he may delight thus to reside and dwell in us. The light of nature could direct Seneca to this doctrine in a very remarkable passage among his epistles; Sacer inest in nobis spiritus bonorum malorumque custos, et observator, et quem admodum nos illum tractamus, ita et ille nos. “There is a holy spirit residing in us, who watches and observes both and evil men, and will treat us after the same manner that we treat him.” But I shall conclude this discourse with those more emphatical words in divine revelation, “If a man love me; he will keep my words, and my father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

SECT. II.

THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD IN THE CREATION.

THOUGH there is a great deal of pleasure in contemplating the material world, by which I mean that system of bodies into which nature has so curiously wrought the mass of dead matter, with the several relations which those bodies bear to one another; there is still, methinks, something more wonderful and surprising in contemplations on the world of life, by which, I mean all those animals with which every part of the universe is furnished. The material world is only the shell of the universe; the world of life are its inhabitants.

If we consider the parts of the material world which lie the nearest to us, and are therefore subject to our observations and inquiries, it is amazing to consider the infinity of animals with which it is stocked. Every part of matter is peopled; every green leaf swarms with inhabitants. There is scarce a single humour in the body of a man, or of any other animal, in which our glasses do not discover myriads of living creatures. The surface of animals is also covered with other animals, which are in the same manner the basis of other animals that live upon it; nay we find in the most solid bodies, as in marble itself, innumerable cells and cavities that are crouded with such imperceptible inhabitants, as are too little for the naked eye to discover. On the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts of nature, we see the seas, lakes and rivers teeming with numberless kinds of living creatures: we find every mountain and marsh, wilderness and wood, plentifully stocked with birds and beasts, and every part of matter affording proper necessaries and conveniencies for the livelihood of multitudes which inhabit it.

The author of the plurality of worlds draws a very good argument from this consideration, for the peopling of every planet as indeed it seems very probable from the analogy of reason, that if no part of matter, which we are acquainted with, lies waste and useless, those great bodies which are at such a distance from us, should not be desart and unpeopled, but rather that they should be furnished with beings adapted to their respective situations.

SECT. III.

THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.

IT is very reasonable to believe that part of the pleasure which happy minds shall enjoy in a future state will arise from an enlarged contemplation of the divine wisdom in the government of the world, and a discovery of the secret and amazing steps of Providence, from the beginning to the end of time. Nothing seems to be an entertainment more adapted to the nature of man, if we consider that curiosity is one of the strongest and most lasting appetites implanted in us, and that admiration is one of our most pleasing passions; and what a perpetual succession of enjoyments will be afforded to both these, in a scene so large and various as shall then be laid open to our view in the society of superior spirits, who perhaps will join with us in so delightful a prospect.

It is not impossible, on the contrary, that part of the punishment, of such as are excluded from bliss, may consist not only in their being denied this privilege but in having their appetites at the same time vastly increased, with out any satisfaction afforded to them. In these the vain pursuit of knowledge shall perhaps add to their infelicity, and bewilder them into labyrinths of error, darkness, distraction, and uncertainty of every thing but their own evil state. Milton has thus represented the fallen angels reasoning together in a kind of respite from their torments, and creating to themselves a new disquiet amidst their very amusements: he could not properly have described the sports of condemned spirits, without that cast of horror and melancholy he had so judicioufly mingled with them.

Others apart sat on a hill retir’ed, In thoughts more elevate, and reason’d high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix’d fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost.

In our present condition, which is a middle state, our minds are, as it were, chequered with truth and falsehood: and as our faculties are narrow, and our views imperfect, it is impossible but our curiosity must meet with many repulses. The business of mankind in this life being rather to act, than to know, their portion of knowledge is dealt to them accordingly.

From hence it is, that the reason of the inquisitive has so long been exercised with difficulties, in accounting for the promiscuous distribution of good and evil to the virtuous and the wicked in this world. From hence come all those pathetical complaints of so many tragical events, which happen to the wise and the good: and of such surprising prosperity which is often the reward of the guilty and the foolish; that reason is sometimes puzzled, and at a loss what to pronounce upon so mysterious a dispensation.

Plato expresses his abhorrence of some fables of the poets, which seem to reflect on the gods as the authors of injustice; and lays it down as a principle, that whatever is permitted to befal a just man, whether poverty, sickness, or any of those things which seem to be evils, shall either in life or death conduce to his good. My reader will observe how agreeable this maxim is to what we find delivered by a greater authority. Seneca has written a discourse purposely on this subject, in which he takes pains, after the doctrine of the Stoics, to shew, that adversity is not in itself an evil; and mentions a noble saying of Demetrius, “That nothing would be more unhappy than a man who had never known affliction.” He compares prosperity to the indulgence of a fond mother to a child which often proves his ruin; but the affection of the Divine Being to that of a wise father, who would have his sons exercised with labour, disappointment, and pain, that they might gather strength, and improve their fortitude. On this occasion the philosopher rises into that celebrated sentiment, that there is not on earth a spectacle more worthy the regard of a Creator intent on his works, than a brave man superior to his sufferings; to which he adds, that it must be a pleasure to Jupiter himself to look down from heaven and see Cato, amidst the ruins of his country, preserving his integrity.

This thought will appear yet more reasonable, if we consider human life as a state of probation, and adversity as the post of honour in it, assigned often, to the best and most select spirits.

But what I would chiefly insist on here, is, that we are not at present in a proper situation to judge of the counsels by which Providence acts, since but little arrives at our knowledge, and even that little we discern imperfectly; or, according to the elegant figure in holy writ, “we see but in part, and as in a glass darkly.” It is to be considered, that Providence, in its economy, regards the whole system of time and things together, so that we cannot discover the beautiful connexions between incidents, which lie widely separated in time, and by losing so many links of the chain, our reasonings become broken and imperfect. Thus those parts in the moral world which have not an absolute, may yet have a relative beauty, in respect of some other parts concealed from us, but open to his eye, before whom past, present, and to come, are set together in one point of view: and those events, the permission of which seems now to accuse his goodness, may, in the consummation of things, both magnify his goodness, and exalt his wisdom. And this is enough to check our presumption, since it is in vain to apply our measures of regularity to matters of which we know neither the antecedents nor the consequents, the beginning nor the end.

I shall relieve my readers from this abstracted thought, by relating here a Jewish tradition concerning Moses, which seems to be a kind of parable illustrating what I have last mentioned. That great prophet, it is said, was called up by a voice from heaven to the top of a mountain; where, in a conference with the Supreme Being, he was permitted to propose to him some questions concerning his administration of the universe. In the midst of this divine colloquy he was commanded to look down on the plain below. At the foot of the mountain there issued out a clear spring of water, at which a soldier alighted from his horse to drink. He was no sooner gone than a little boy came to the same place, and finding a purse of gold which the soldier had dropped, took it up, and went away with it. Immediately after this came an infirm old man, weary with age and travelling, and having quenched his thirst, sat down to rest himself by the side of the spring.. The soldier missing his purse returns to search for it,. and demands it of the old man, who affirms he had not seen it, and appeals to heaven in witness of his innocence. The soldier, not believing his protestation, kills him. Moses fell on his face with horror and amazement, when the divine voice thus prevented his expostulation; “Be not surprised, Moses, nor ask, why the judge of the whole earth has suffered this thing to come to pass: the child is the occasion that the blood of the old man is spilt; but know, that the old man, whom thou sawest, was the murderer of that child’s father.”

Fortune favours still the wise and brave.

THE famous Gratian, in his little book wherein he lays down maxims for a man’s advancing himself at court, advises his reader to associate himself with the fortunate, and to shun the company of the unfortunate; which, notwithstanding the baseness of the precept to an honest mind, may have something useful in it for those who push their interest in the world. It is certain, a great part of what we call good or ill fortune, rises out of right or wrong measures or schemes of life. When I hear a man complain of his being unfortunate in all his undertakings, I shrewdly suspect him for a weak man in his affairs. In conformity with this way of thinking, Cardinal Richlieu used to say, that unfortunate and imprudent were but two words for the same thing. As the Cardinal himself had a great share both of prudence and good fortune, his famous antagonist, the Count D’Olivarez, was disgraced at the court of Madrid, because it was alledged against him that he had never any success in his undertakings. This, says an eminent author; was indirectly accussing him of imprudence.

Cicero recommended Pompey to the Romans for their general, upon three accounts, as he was a man of courage, conduct, and good fortune. It was perhaps for the reason above mentioned, namely, that a series of good fortune supposes a prudent management in the person to whom it befals, that not only Sylla the dictator, but several of the Roman emperors, as is fill to be seen upon their medals, among their other titles, give themselves that of Felix or Fortunate. The heathens indeed seem to have valued a man more for his good fortune than for any other quality, which I think is very natural for those who have not a strong belief of another world. For how can I conceive a man crowned with many distinguishing blessings, that has not some extraordinary fund of merit and perfection in him, which lies open to the Supreme eye, though perhaps it is not discovered by my observation? What is the reason Homer and Virgil’s heroes do not form a resolution, or strike a blow, without the conduct and direction of some deity?—Doubtless because the poets esteemed it the greatest honour to be favoured by the gods, and thought the best way of praising a man was to recount those favours which naturally implied an extraordinary merit in the person on whom they descended.

Those who believe a future state of rewards and punishments, act very absurdly if they form their opinions of a man’s merit from his successes.

But certainly if I thought the whole circle of our being was concluded between our births and deaths, I should think a man’s good fortune the measure and standard of his real merit, since Providence would have no opportunity of rewarding his virtue and perfections but in the present life. A virtuous unbeliever, who lies under the pressure of misfortunes, has reason to cry out, as they say Brutus did, a little before his death, “O virtue! I have worshipped thee as a substantial good, but I find thou art an empty name.”

But to return to our first point, though prudence does undoubtedly in a great measure produce our good or ill fortune in the world, it is certain that there are many unforeseen accidents and occurrences, which very often pervert the finest schemes that can be laid by human wisdom. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Nothing les than infinite wisdom can have an absolute command over fortune: the highest degree of it which man can possess is by no means equal to fortuitous events, and to such contingencies as may rise in the prosecution of our affairs. Nay, it very often happens, that prudence, which has always in it a great mixture of caution, hinders a man from being so fortunate as he might possibly have been without it. A person who only aims at what is likely to succeed, and follows closely the dictates of human prudence, never meets with those great and unforeseen successes, which are often the effect of a sanguine temper, or a more happy rashness; and this perhaps may be the reason, that according to the common observation, fortune, like other females, delights rather in favouring the young than the old.

Upon the whole, since man is so sighted a creature, and the accidents which may happen to him so various, I cannot but be of Dr. Tillotson’s opinion in another case, that were there any doubt of a Providence, yet it certainly would be very desirable there should be such a being of infinite wisdom and goodness, on whose direction we might rely in the conduct of human life.

It is a great presumption to ascribe our successes to our own management, and not to esteem ourselves upon any blessing, rather as it is the bounty of Heaven than the acquisition of our own prudence. 1 am very well pleased with a medal which was struck by Queen Elizabeth, a little after the defeat of the invincible Armada, to perpetuate the memory of that extraordinary event. It is well known how the king of Spain, and others, who were the enemies of that great princes, to derogate from her glory, ascribed the ruin of their fleet rather to the violence of storms and tempests than to the bravery of the English. Queen Elizabeth, instead of looking upon this as a diminution of her honour, valued herself upon such a signal favour of Providence: and accordingly, in the reverse of the medal above mentioned, has represented a fleet beaten by a tempest, and falling foul upon one another, with that religious inscription, Afflavit Deus, et dissipantur; “He blew with his wind, and they were scattered.”

It is remarked of a famous Grecian General, whose name I cannot at present recollect, and who had been a particular favourite of fortune, that upon recounting his victories among his friends, he added, at the end of several great actions, And in this fortune had no share. After which, it is observed in history, he never prospered in any thing he undertook.

As arrogance, and a conceitedness of our own abilities are very shocking and offensive to men of sense and virtue; we may be sure they are highly displeasing to that Being who delights in an humble mind, and by several of his dispensations, seems purposely to show us that our own schemes or prudence have no share in our advancements.

SECT. IV.

THE WORSHIP OF GOD.

Religentem esse sportet, religiosum nefas.

Incerti autoris apuid. Aul. Gell.

A man should be religious, not superstitious.

IT is of the last importance to season the passions of a child with devotion, which seldom dies in a mind that has received an early tincture of it. Though it may seem extinguished for a while by the cares of the world, the heats of youth, or the allurements of vice, it generally breaks out, and discovers itself again, as soon as discretion, consideration, age, or misfortunes, have brought the man to himself. The fire may be covered and overlaid, but cannot be entirely quenched or smothered.

A state of temperance, sobriety, and justice, without devotion, is a cold, lifeless, insipid condition of virtue; and is rather to be stiled philosophy than religion. Devotion opens the mind to great conceptions, and fills it with more sublime ideas than any that are to be met with in the most exalted science, and at the same time warms and agitates the soul more than sensual pleasure.

It has been observed by some writers, that man is more distinguished from the animal world by devotion than by reason, as several brute creatures discover their actions something like a faint glimmering of reason, though they betray, in no single circumstance of their behaviour, any thing that bears the least affinity to devotion. It is certain, the propensity of the mind to religious worship, the natural tendency of the soul to fly to some superior Being for succour in dangers and distresses, the gratitude to an invisible Superintendent, which arises in us upon receiving any extraordinary and unexpected good fortune, the acts of love and admiration with which the thought of men are so wonderfully transported, meditating upon the divine perfections, and the universal concurrence of all the nations under heaven in the great article of adoration, plainly shew that devotion or, religious worship must be the effect of a tradition from some first founder of mankind, or that it is conformable to the natural light of reason, or that it proceeds from an instinct implanted in the soul itself. For my part, I look upon all these to be the concurrent causes; but which ever of them shall be assigned as the principle of divine worship, it manifestly points to a Supreme Being as the first author of it.

I may take same other opportunity of considering those particular forms and methods of devotion which are taught us by Christianity; but shall here observe into what errors even this divine principle may sometimes lead us, when it is not moderated by that right reason which was given us as the guide of all our actions.

The two great errors into which a mistaken devotion may betray us are enthusiasm and superitition.

SECT. V.

ADVANTAGES OF REVELATION ABOVE NATURAL REASON.

RELIGION may be considered under two general heads. The first comprehends what we are to believe, the other what we are to practise. By those things which we are to believe, I mean whatever is revealed to us in the holy writings, and which we could not have obtained the knowledge of by the light of nature; by the things which we are to practise, I mean all those duties to which we are directed by reason or natural religion. The first of these I shall distinguish by the name of faith, the second by that of morality.

If we look into the mere serious part of mankind we find many who lay so great a stress upon faith, that they neglect morality; and many who build so much upon morality, that they do not pay a due regard to faith. The perfect man should be defective in neither of these particulars, as will be very evident to those who consider the benefits which arise from each of them, and which I shall make the subject of this day’s paper.

Notwithstanding this general division of Christian duty into morality and faith, and that they have both their peculiar excellencies, the first has the preeminence in several respects.

First, Because the greatest part of morality (as I have stated the notion of it) is of a fixed eternal nature, and will endure when faith shall fail, and be lost in conviction.

Secondly, Because a person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind, and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith, than by faith without morality.

Thirdly, Because morality gives a greater perfection to human nature, by quieting the mind, moderating the passions, and advancing the happiness of every man in his private capacity.

Fourthly, Because the rule of morality is much more certain than that of faith: all the civilized nations in the world agreeing in the great points of morality as much as they differ in those of faith.

Fifthly, Because infidelity is not of so malignant a nature as immorality; or, to put the same reason in another light, because it is generally owned there may be salvation for a virtuous infidel, (particularly in the case of invincible ignorance,) but none for a vicious believer.

Sixthly, because faith seems to draw its principle, if not all its excellency, from the influence it has upon morality; as we shall see more at large, if we consider wherein consists the excellency of faith, or the belief of revealed religion; and this I think is,

First, In explaining and carrying to greater heights several points of morality.

Secondly, In furnishing new and stronger motives to enforce the practice of morality.

Thirdly, In giving us more amiable ideas of the Supreme Being, more endearing notions of one another, and a truer state of ourselves, both in regard to the grandeur and vileness of our natures.

Fourthly, By shewing us the blackness and deformity of vice, which, in the Christian system, is so very great, that he who is possessed of all perfection, and the sovereign judge of it, is represented by several of our divines, as having sin to the same degree that he loves the sacred person who was made the propitiation of it.

SECT. VI.

EXCELLENCY OF THE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTION.

Dryden.

IT is owing to pride, and a secret affectation of a certain self-existence, that the noblest motive for action that ever was proposed to man, is not acknowledged the glory and happiness of their being. The heart is treacherous to itself, and we do not let our reflections go deep enough to receive religion as the most honourable incentive to good and worthy actions. It is our natural weakness, to flatter ourselves into a belief, that if we search into our inmost thoughts, we find ourselves wholly disinterested, and divested of any views arising from self-love and vain glory. But however spirits of superficial greatness may disdain at first sight to do any thing, but from a noble impulse in themselves, without any future regards in this or another being: upon stricter inquiry they will find to act worthily and expect to be rewarded only in another world, is as heroic a pitch of virtue as human nature can arrive at. if the tenor of our actions have any other motive, than the desire to be pleasing in the eye of the Deity, it will necessarily follow that we must be more than men, if we are not too much exalted in prosperity, and depressed in adversity; but the Christian world has a leader, the contemplation of whose life and sufferings must administer comfort in affliction, while the sense of his power and omnipotence must give them humiliation in prosperity.

It is owing to the forbidden and unlovely constraint with which men of low conceptions act when they think they conform themselves to religion, as well as to the more odious conduct of hypocrites, that the word Christian does not carry with it, at first view, all that is great, worthy, friendly, generous, and heroic. The man who suspends his hopes of the reward of worthy actions till after death, who can bestow unseen, who can overlook hatred, do good to his slanderer, who can never be angry at his friend, never revengeful to his enemy, is certainly formed for the benefit of society; yet these are so far from heroic virtues, that they are but the ordinary duties of a Christian.

When a man with a steady faith, looks back on the great catastrophe of this day, with what bleeding emotions of heart must he contemplate the life and sufferings of his Deliverer? When his agonies occur to him, how will he weep to reflect that he has often forgot them for the glance of a wanton, for the applause of a vain world, for an heap of fleeting past pleasures, which are at present aching sorrows!

How pleasing is the contemplation of the lowly steps our Almighty Leader took in conducting us to his heavenly mansions! In plain and apt parable, similitude, and allegory, our great Master enforced the doctrine of our salvation; but they of his acquaintance, instead of receiving what they could not oppose, were offended at the presumption of being wiser than they: they could not raise their little ideas above the consideration of him, in those circumstances familiar to them, or conceive that he who appeared not more terrible or pompous, should have any thing more exalted than themselves; he in that place therefore would not longer ineffectually exert a power which was incapable of conquering the prepossession a their narrow and mean conceptions.

Multitudes followed him, and brought him the dumb, the blind, the sick, and maimed; whom when their Creator had touched, with a second life they saw, spoke, leaped, and ran. In affection to him, and admiration of his actions, the crowd could not leave him, but waited near him till they were almost as faint and helpless as others they brought for succour. He had compassion on them, and by a miracle supplied their necessities. Oh! the ecstatic entertainment, when they could behold their food immediately increase to the distributer’s hand, and see their God in person feeding and refreshing his creatures! Oh envied happiness! But why do I say envied? as if our God did not still preside over our temperate meals, chearful hours, and innocent conversations.

But though the sacred story is every where full of miracles not inferior to this, and though in the midst of those acts of divinity he never gave the least hint of a design to become a secular Prince, yet had not hitherto the apostles themselves any other hopes than of worldly power, preferment, riches and pomp; for Peter, upon an accident of ambition among the apostles, hearing his Master explain that his kingdom was not of this world, was so scandalized, that he, whom he had so long followed, should suffer the ignominy, shame, and death which he foretold, that he took him aside, and said, “Be it far from thee, Lord! this shall not be unto thee:” for which he suffered a severe reprehension from his Master, as having in his view the glory of man rather than that of God.

The great change of things began to draw near, when the Lord of nature thought fit as a Saviour and Deliverer to make his public entry into Jerusalem with more than the power of joy, but none of the ostentation and pomp of a triumph; he came humble, meek, and lowly; with an unfelt new extasy, multitudes strewed his way with garments and olive branches, crying with loud gladness and acclamation, “Hosannah to the son of David, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” At this great King’s accession to his throne, men were not ennobled, but saved; crimes were not remitted, but sins forgiven; he did not bestow medals, honours, favours, but health, joy, sight, speech. The first object the blind ever saw, was the author of sight; while the lame ran before, and the dumb repeated the Hosannah. Thus attended, he entered into his own house, the sacred temple, and, by his divine authority, expelled traders and worldlings that profaned it; and thus did he, for a time, use a great and despotic power, to let unbelievers understand, that it was not want of, but superiority to, all worldly dominion, that made him not exert it. But is this then the Saviour? is this the Deliverer? shall this obscure Nazarene command Israel, and sit on the throne of David? Their proud and disdainful hearts, which were petrified with the love and pride of this world, were impregnable to the reception of so mean a benefactor, and were now enough exasperated with benefits to conspire his death. Our Lord was sensible of their design, and prepared his disciples for it, by recounting to them now more distinctly what should befal him; but Peter, with an ungrounded resolution, and in a flush of temper, made a sanguine protestation, that though all men were offended in him, yet would not he be offended. It was a great article of our Saviour’s business in the world, to bring us to a sense of our inability, without God’s assistance, to do any thing great or good; he therefore told Peter, who thought so well of his courage and fidelity, that they would both fail him, and even he should deny him thrice that very night.

“But what heart can conceive, what tongue utter the sequel? Who is that yonder, buffeted, mocked and spurned? Whom do they drag like a felon? Whither do they carry my Lord, my King, my Saviour, and my God? And will he die to expiate those very injuries? See where they have nailed the Lord and giver of life! how his wounds blacken, his body writhes, and heart heaves with pity and with agony! Oh Almighty Sufferer! look down, look down from thy triumphant infamy: lo, he inclines his head to his sacred bosom! hark, he groans! see, he expires! The earth trembles, the temple rends, the rocks burst, the dead arise: which are the quick? which are the dead! Sure nature, all nature is departing with her Creator.”

IF to inform the understanding and regulate the will, is the most lasting and diffusive benefit, there will not be found so useful and excellent an institution as that of the Christian priesthood which is now become the scorn of fools. That a numerous order of men should be consecrated to the study of the most sublime and beneficial truths, with a design to propagate them by their discourses and writings, to inform their fellow-creatures of the being and attributes of the Deity, to possess their minds with the sense of a future state, and not only to explain the nature of every virtue and moral duty, but likewise to persuade mankind to the practice of them by the most powerful and engaging motives, is a thing so excellent and necessary to the well being of the world, that no body but a modern free-thinker could have the forehead or folly to turn it into ridicule.

The light in which these points should be exposed to the view of one who is prejudiced against the names, religion, church, priest, and the like, is, to consider the clergy as so many philosophers, the churches as schools, and their sermons as lectures, for the information and improvement of the audience. How would the heart of Socrates or Tully have rejoiced, had they lived in a nation, where the law had made provision for philosophers to read lectures of morality and theology every seventh day, in several thousands of schools erected at the public charge throughout the whole country, at which lectures all ranks and sexes, without distinction, were obliged to be present for their general improvement? And what wicked wretches would they think those men, who should endeavour to defeat the purpose of so divine an institution?

It is indeed usual with that low tribe of writers, to pretend their design is only to reform the church, and expose the vices and not the order of the clergy. The author of a pamphlet printed the other day, (which, without my mentioning the title, will on this occasion occur to the thoughts of those who have read it) hopes to insinuate by that artifice what he is afraid or ashamed openly to maintain. But there are two points which clearly shew what it is he aims at. The first is, that he constantly uses the word priest in such a manner, as that his reader cannot but observe he means to throw an odium on the clergy of the church of England, from their being called by a name which they enjoy in common with Heathens and Imposters. The other is, his raking together and exaggerating with great spleen and industry, all those actions of churchmen, which either by their own illness, or the bad light in which he places them, tend to give men an ill impression of the dispensers of the Gospel: all which he pathetically addresses to the consideration of his wise and honest countryman of the laity. The sophistry and ill-breeding of these proceedings are so obvious to men who have any pretence to that character, that I need say no more either of them or their author.

SECT. VII.

DIGNITY OF THE SCRIPTURE LANGUAGE.

THERE is a certain coldness and indifference in the phrases of our European languages, when they are compared with the Oriental forms of speech: and it happens very luckily, that the Hebrew idioms run into the English tongue with a particular grace and beauty. Our language has received innumerable elegancies and improvements, from that infusion of Hebraisms, which are derived to it out of the poetical pates in holy writ. They give a force and energy to our expressions, warm and animate our language, and convey our thoughts in more ardent and intense phrases, than any that are to be met with in our own tongue.

There is something so pathetic in this kind of diction, that it often sets the mind in a flame, and makes our hearts burn within us. How cold and dead does a prayer appear, that is composed in the most elegant and polite forms of speech, which are natural to our tongue, when it is not heightened by that solemnity of phrase, which may be drawn from the sacred writings. It has been said by some of the ancients, that if the gods were to talk with men, they would certainly speak in Plato’s style; but I think we may say with justice, that when mortals converse with their Creator, they cannot do it in so proper a style as in that of the holy Scriptures.

If any one would judge of the beauties of poetry that are to be met with in the divine writings, and examine how kindly the Hebrew manners of speech mix and incorporate with the English language; after having perused the book of Psalms, let him read a literal translation of Horace or Pindar. He will find in these two last such an absurdity and confusion of style, with such a comparative poverty of imagination as will make him very sensible of what I have been here advancing.

Since we have therefore such a treasury of words, so beautiful in themselves, and so proper for the airs of music, I cannot but wonder that persons of distinction should give so little attention and encouragement to that kind of music which would have its foundation in reason, and which would improve our virtue in proportion as it raised our delight. The passions that are excited by ordinary composition generally flow from such silly and absurd occasions, that a man is ashamed to reflect upon them seriously; but the fear, the love, the sorrow, the indignation that are awakened in the mind by hymns and anthems, Make the heart better and proceed from such causes as are altogether reasonable and praiseworthy. Pleasure and duty go hand in hand, and the greater our satisfaction is, the greater is our religion.

SECT. VIII.

AGAINST ATHEISM AND INFIDELITY.

THE watchman, who does me particular honours, as being the chief man in the lane, gave so very great a thump at my door last night that I awakened at the knock, and heard myself complimented with the usual salutation of Good-morrow, Mr. Bickerstaff, Good-morrow, my masters all. The silence and darkness of the night disposed me to be more than ordinarily serious; and as my attention was not drawn out among exterior objects by the avocations of sense, my thoughts naturally fell upon myself. I was considering, amidst the stillness of the night, what was the proper employment of a thinking being; what were the perfections it should propose to itself; and what the end it should aim at. My mind is of such a particular cast, that the falling of a shower of rain, or the whistling of wind, at such a time, is apt to fill my thoughts with something awful and solemn. I was in this disposition, when our bellman began his midnight homily (which he has been repeating to us every winter night for these twenty years) with the usual exordium,

Oh! mortal man, thou that art born in sin!

SECT. IX.

AGAINST THE MODERN FREE-THINKERS.

Sir,

THERE arrived in this neighbourhood, two days ago, one of your gay gentlemen of the town, who being attended at his entry with a servant of his own, besides a countryman he had taken up for a guide, excited the curiosity of the village to learn whence and what he might be. The countryman (to whom they applied as most easy of access) knew little more than that the gentleman came from London to travel and see fashions, and was, as he heard say, a Free-thinker; what religion that might be he could not tell; and for his own part, if they had not told him the man was a Free-thinker he should have guessed, by his way of talking, he was little better than a Heathen; excepting only that he had been a good gentleman to him, and made him drunk twice in one day, over and above what they had bargained for.

I do not look upon the simplicity of this, and several odd inquiries with which I shall not trouble you, to be wondered at; much less can I think that our youths of fine wit and enlarged understandings have any reason to laugh. There is no necessity that every squire in Great Britain should know what the word Free-thinker stands for: but it were much to be willed that they who value themselves upon that conceited title were a little better instructed in what it ought to stand for, and that they would not persuade themselves a man is really and truly a Free-thinker in any tolerable sense, merely by virtue of his being an Atheist, or an Infidel of any other distinction. It may be doubted with good reason, whether there ever was in nature a more abject, slavish, and bigotted generation than the tribe of Beaux Efprits at present so prevailing in this island. Their pretension to be Free-thinkers is no other than rakes have to be free-livers, and savages to be free-men; that is, they can think whatever they have a mind to, and give themselves up to whatever conceit the extravagancy of their inclination or their fancy shall suggest; they can think as wildly as talk and act, and will not endure that their wit should be controlled by such formal things as decency and common sense; deduction, coherence, consistency, and all the rules of reason, they accordingly disdain, as too precise and mechanical for men of a liberal education.

This, as far as I could ever learn from their writings, or my own observation, is a true account of the British Free-thinker. Our visitant here who gave occasion for this paper, has brought with him a new system of common sense, the particulars of which I am not yet acquainted with, but will lose no opportunity of informing myself whether it contains any thing worth Mr. Spectator’s notice. In the mean time, Sir, I cannot but think it would be for the good of mankind if you would take this subject into your own consideration, and convince the hopeful youth of our nation that licentiousness is not freedom: or, if such a paradox will not be understood, that a prejudice towards Atheism is not impartiality.

l am, Sir, your most humble Servant,

Philonous.

Quicquid est illud, quod sentit, quod sapit, quod vult, quod viget, cæleste et divinum est, ab eamque rem æternum sit necesse est.

Tull.

Whatever that principle is, which lives, perceives, understands, and wills, the same is heavenly and divine, and consequently eternal.

I AM diverted from the account I was giving the town of my particular concerns by casting my eye upon a treatise, which I could not overlook without an inexcuseable negligence and want of concern for all the civil as well as religious interests of mankind. This piece has for its title “A Discourse of Free-thinking, occasioned by the rise and growth of a sect called Free-thinkers.” The author very methodically enters upon his argument, and says, “By Free-thinking, I mean the use of the understanding in endeavouring, to find out the meaning of any proposition whatsoever, in considering the nature of the evidence for or against, and in judging of it according to the seeming force or weakness of the evidence.” As soon as he has delivered this definition, from which one would expect he did not design to shew a particular inclination for or against any thing before he had considered it, he gives up all title to the character of a Free-thinker, with the most apparent prejudice against a body of men, whom of all others a good man would be most careful not to violate, I mean, men in holy orders. Persons who have devoted themselves to the service of God are venerable to all who fear him: and it is a certain characteristic of a dissolute and ungoverned mind to rail or speak disrespectfully of them in general. It is certain, that in so great a crowd of men some will intrude who are of tempers very unbecoming their function: but because ambition and avarice are sometimes lodged in that bosom, which ought to be the dwelling of sanctity and devotion, must this unreasonable author vilify the whole order! He has not taken the least care to disguise his being an enemy to the persons against whom he writes, nor any where granted, that the institution of religious men to serve at the altar, and instruct such who are not so wise as himself, is at all necessary or desirable, but proceeds, without the least apology, to undermind their credit, and frustrate their labours. Whatever clergymen, in disputes against each other, have unguardedly uttered, is here recorded in such a manner as to affect religion itself by wresting concessions to its disadvantage from its own teachers. If this be true, as sure any man that reads the discourse must allow it is; and if religion is the strongest tie of human society, in what manner are we to treat this our common enemy, who promotes the growth of such a sect as he calls Free-thinkers? He that should burn a house, and justify the action, by asserting he is a free agent, would be more excuseable than this author in uttering what he has from the right of a Free-thinker; but they are a set of dry, joyless, dull fellows, who want capacities and talents to make a figure amongst mankind upon benevolent and generous principles, that think to surmount their own natural meanness, by laying offences in the way of such as make it their endeavour to excel upon the received maxims and honest arts of life. If it were possible to laugh at so melancholy an affair as what hazards salvation, it would be no unpleasant inquiry to ask what satisfaction they reap, what extraordinary gratification of sense, or what delicious libertinism this sect of Free-thinkers enjoy, after getting loose of the laws which confine the passions of other men? Would it not be a matter of mirth to find, after all, that the heads of this growing sect are sober wretches, who prate whole evenings over coffee, and have not themselves fire enough to be any farther debauchees than merely in principle? These sages of iniquity are, it seems, themselves only speculatively wicked, and are contented that all the abandoned young men of the age are kept safe from reflection, by dabbling in their rhapsodies, without tasting the pleasures for which their doctrines leave them unaccountable. Thus do heavy mortals, only to gratify a dry pride of heart, give up the interests of another world, without enlarging their gratifications in this; but it is certain that there are a sort of men that can puzzle truth, but cannot enjoy the satisfaction of it. The same Freethinker is a creature unacquainted with the emotions which possess great minds when they are tuned for religion; and it is apparent that he is untouched with any such sensation as the rapture of devotion. Whatever one of these scorners may think, they certainly want parts to be devout; a sense of piety towards heaven, as well as the sense of any thing else, is lively and warm in proportion to the faculties of the head and heart. This gentleman may be assured he has not a taste for what he pretends to decry, and the poor man is certainly more a blockhead than an Atheist. I must repeat, that he wants capacity to relish what true piety is: and he is as capable of writing an heroic poem as making a fervent prayer. When men are thus low and narrow in their apprehensions of things, and at the same time vain, they are naturally led to think every thing they do not understand not to be understood. Their contradiction to what is urged by others is a necessary consequence of their incapacity to receive it. Atheistical fellows, who appeared the last age, did not serve the devil for nought, but revelled in excesses suitable to their principles, while in these unhappy days mischief is done for mischief’s sake. These Free-thinkers, who lead the lives of recluse students, for no other purpose but to disturb the sentiments of other men, put me in mind of the monstrous recreation of these late wild youths, who, without provocation, had a wantonness in stabbing and defacing those they met with. When such writers as this, who has no spirit but that of malice, pretend to inform the age, Mohocks and cut-throats may well set up for wits and men of pleasure.

It will be perhaps expected, that I should produce some instances of the ill intention of this Free-thinker, to support the treatment I here give him. In his 52d page he says,

“2dly. The priests throughout the world differ about Scriptures, and the authority of Scriptures. The Bramins have a book of Scripture called the Shafter. The Persees have their Zundavastaw. The Bonzes of China have books written by the disciples of Fo-he, whom they call the God and Saviour of the world, who was born to teach the way of salvation, and to give satisfaction for all men’s sins. The Taiapoins of Siam have a book of Scripture, written by Sommonocodom, who, the Siamese say, was born of a virgin, and was the God expected by the universe. The Dervizes have their Alcoran.”

I believe their is no one will dispute the author’s great impartiality in setting down the accounts of there different religions. And I think it is pretty evident he delivers the matter with an air, that betrays the history of one born of a virgin has as much authority with him, from St. Sommonocodom, as from St. Matthew. Thus he treats revelation. Then as to philosophy, he tells you, p. 136, “Cicero produces this as an instance of a probable opinion, that they who study philosophy do not believe there are any gods;” and then, from consideration of various notions he affirms Tully concludes, “That there can be nothing after death.”

As to what he misrepresents of Tully, the short sentence on the head of this paper is enough to oppose; but who can have patience to reflect upon the assembly of impostures among which our author places the religion of his country? As for my part, I cannot see any possible interpretation to give this work, but a design to subvert and ridicule the authority of Scripture. The peace and tranquility of the nation, and regards even above those, are so much concerned in this matter, that it is difficult to express sufficient sorrow for the offender, or indignation against him. But if ever man deserved to be denied the common benefits of air and water, it is the author of a discourse of Free-thinking.

AS I was the other day taking a solitary walk in St. Paul’s, indulged my thoughts in the pursuit of a certain analogy between the fabric and the Christian church in the largest sense. The divine order and œconomy of the one seemed to be emblematically set forth by the just, plain and majestic architecture of the other. And as the one consists of a great variety of parts united in the same regular design, according to the truest art, and most exact proportion; so the other contains a decent subordination of members, various sacred institutions, sublime doctrines, and solid precepts of morality digested into the same design, and with an admirable concurrence tending to one view, the happiness and exaltation of human nature.

In the midst of my contemplation I beheld a fly upon one of the pillars; and it straight-way came into my head, that this same fly was a Free-thinker. For it required some comprehension in the eye of the spectator to take in at one view the various parts of the building, in order to observe their symmetry and design. But to the fly, whose prospect was confined to a little part of one of the stones of a single pillar, the joint beauty of the whole, or the distinct use of its parts, were inconspicuous, and nothing could appear but small inequalities in the surface of the hewn none, which, in the view of that insect, seemed so many deformed rocks and precipices.

The thoughts of a Free-thinker are employed on certain minute particularities of religion, the difficulty of a single text, or the unaccountableness of some step of Providence or point of doctrine to his narrow faculties, without comprehending the scope and design of Christianity, the perfection to which it raiseth human nature, the light it hath shed abroad in the world, and the close connection it hath as well with the good of public societies, as with that of particular persons.

This raised in me some reflections on that frame or disposition which is called largeness of mind, its necessity towards forming a true judgment of things, and where the soul is not incurably stinted by nature, what are the likeliest methods to give it enlargement.

It is evident that philosophy doth open and enlarge the mind, by the general views to which men are habituated in that study, and by the contemplation or more numerous and distant objects than fall within the sphere of mankind in the ordinary pursuits of life. Hence it comes to pass that philosophers judge of most things very differently from the vulgar. Some instances of this may be seen in the Theætetus of Plato, where Socrates makes the following remarks among others of the like nature.

“When a philosopher hears ten thousand acres mentioned as a great estate, he looks upon it as an inconsiderable spot, having been used to contemplate the whole globe of earth; or when he beholds a man elated with the nobility of his race, because he can reckon a series of seven rich ancestors, the philosopher thinks him a stupid ignorant fellow, whose mind cannot reach to a general view of human nature, which would shew him that we have all innumerable ancestors, among whom are crouds of rich and poor, kings and slaves, Greeks and Barbarians.” Thus far Socrates, who was accounted wiser than the rest of the Heathens, for notions which approach the nearest to Christianity.

As all parts and branches of philosophy, or speculative knowledge, are useful in that respect, astronomy is peculiarly adapted to remedy a little and narrow spirit. In that science, there are good reasons assigned to prove the sun an hundred thousand times bigger than our earth; and the distance of the stars so prodigious, that a cannon bullet, continuing in its ordinary rapid motion, would not arrive from hence at the nearest of them in the space of an hundred and fifty thousand years. These ideas wonderfully dilate and expand the mind. There is something in the immensity of this distance, that shocks and overwhelms the imagination, it is too big for the grasp of the human intellect: estates, provinces, and kingdoms, vanish at its presence. It were to be wished a certain prince, who hath encouraged the study of it in his subjects, had been himself a proficient in astronomy. This might have shewed him how mean an ambition that was, which terminated in a small part of what is in itself but a point, in respect of that part of the universe which lies within our view.

But the Christian religion ennobleth and enlargeth the mind beyond any other profession or science whatsoever. Upon that scheme, while the earth, and the transient enjoyments of this life, shrink in the narrowest dimensions, and are accounted as “the dast of a balance, the drop of a bucket, yea less than nothing,” the intellectual world opens wider to our view: the perfections of the Deity, the nature and excellency of virtue, the dignity of the human soul, are displayed in the largest characters. The mind of man seems to adapt itself to the different nature of its objects; it is contracted and debased by being conversant in little and low things, and feels a proportionable enlargement arising from the contemplation of these great and sublime ideas.

The greatness of things is comparative; and this does not only hold, in respect of extension, but likewise in respect of dignity, duration, and all kinds of perfection. Astronomy opens the mind, and alters our judgment, with regard to the magnitude of extended beings but Christianity produceth an universal greatness of soul. Philosophy increaseth our views in every respect but Christianity extends them to a degree beyond the light of nature.

How mean must the most exalted potentate upon earth appear to that eye which takes in innumerable orders of blessed spirits, differing in glory and perfection? How little must the amusements of sense, and the ordinary occupations of mortal men, seem to one who engaged in so noble a pursuit, as the assimulation of himself to the Deity, which is the proper employment of every Christian!

And the improvement which grows from habituating the mind to the comprehensive views of religion must not be thought wholly to regard the understanding. Nothing is of greater force to subdue the inordinate motions of the heart, and to regulate the will. Whether a man be actuated by his passions or his reason, these are first wrought upon by some object, which stirs the soul in proportion to its apparent dimensions. Hence irreligious men, whose short prospects are filled with earth, and sense, and mortal life, are invited by these mean ideas, to actions proportionably little and low. But a mind whose views are enlightened and extended by religion, is animated to nobler pursuits, by more sublime and remote objects.

There is not any instance of weakness in the Free-thinkers that raises my indignation more, than their pretending to ridicule Christians, as men of narrow understandings, and to pass themselves upon the world for persons of superior sense, and more enlarged views. But I leave it to any impartial man to judge which hath the nobler sentiments, which the greater views; he whose notions are stinted to a few miserable inlets of sense, or he whose sentiments are raised above the common taste, by the anticipation of those delights which will satiate the soul, when the whole capacity of her nature is branched out into new faculties? he who looks for nothing beyond this short span of duration, or he whose aims are so extended with the endless length of eternity? he who derives his spirit from the elements, or he who thinks it was inspired by the Almighty?

Sir,

“SINCE you have not refused to insert matters of a theological nature in those excellent papers, with which you daily both instruct and divert us, I earnestly desire you to print the following paper. The notions therein advanced are, for ought I know, new to the English reader, and, if they are true, will afford room for more useful inferences.

No man that reads the Evangelists, but must observe that our blessed Saviour does upon every occasion bend all his force and zeal to rebuke and correct the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Upon that subject he shews a warmth which one meets with in no other part of his sermons. They were so enraged at the public detection of their secret villanies, by one who saw through all their disguises, that they joined in the prosecution of him; which was so vigorous that Pilate at last consented to his death. The frequency and vehemence of these reprehensions of our Lord, have made the word Pharisee to be looked upon as odious among Christians, and to mean only one who lays the utmost stress upon the outward, ceremonial and ritual part of his religion, without having such an inward sense of it as would lead him to a general and sincere observance of those duties which can only arise from the heart, and which cannot be supposed to spring from a desire of applause or profit.

This is plain from the history of the life and actions of our Lord, in the four Evangelists. One of them, St. Luke, continued his history down in a second part, which we commonly call the Acts of the Apostles. Now it is observable, that in this second part, in which he gives a particular account of what the apostles did and suffered at Jerusalem upon their firstl entering upon their commission, and also of what St. Paul did after he was consecrated to the apostleship till his journey to Rome, we find not only no opposition to Christianity from the Pharisees, but several signal occasions in which they assisted its first teachers, when the Christian church was in its infant state. The true, zealous and heart persecutors of Christianity at that time were the Sadducees, whom we may truly call the Free-thinkers among the Jews. They believed neither resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, i.e., in plain English, they were Deists at least, if not Atheists. They could outwardly comply with, and conform to the establishment in church and state, and they pretended forsooth to belong only to a particular sect; and because there was nothing in the law of Moses, which, in many words, asserted a resurrection, they appeared to adhere to that in a particular manner beyond any other part of the Old Testament. These men therefore justly dreaded the spreading of Christianity after the ascension of our Lord, because it was wholly founded upon his resurrection.

Accordingly, therefore, when Peter and John had cured the lame man at the beautiful gate of the temple, and had thereby raised a wonderful expectation of themselves among the people, the priests and Sadducees, clapt them up, and sent them away for the first time with a severe reprimand. Quickly after, when the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, and many miracles wrought after those severe instances of the apostolical power had alarmed the priests, who looked upon the temple worship, and consequently their bread, to be struck at; these priests, and all they that were with them, who were of the sect of the Sadducees, imprisoned the apostles, intending to examine them in the great council the next day: where, when the council met, and the priests and Sadducees proposed to proceed with great rigour against them, we find that Gamaliel, a very eminent Pharisee, St. Paul’s master, a man of great authority among the people, many of whose determinations we have still preserved in the body of the Jewish traditions, commonly called the Talmud, opposed their heat, and told them, for ought they knew, the apostles might be actuated by the Spirit of God, and that in such a case it would be in vain to oppose them; since, if they did so, they would only fight against God, whom they could not overcome. Gamaliel was so considerable a man amongst his own sect, that we may reasonably believe he spoke the sense of his party as well as his own. St. Stephen’s martyrdom came on presently after, in which we do not find the Pharisees, as such, had any hand; it is probable that he was prosecuted by those who had before imprisoned Peter and John. One novice indeed of that sect was so zealous that he kept the clothes of those that stoned him. This novice, whose zeal went beyond all bounds, the great St. Paul, who was particularly honoured with a call from heaven by which be was converted, and he was afterwards, by God himself, appointed to be the Apostle of the Gentiles. Besides him, and him too reclaimed in so glorious a manner, we find no one Pharisee, either named or hinted at by St. Luke, as an opposer of Christianity in these earliest days. What others might do we know not. But we find the Sadducees pursuing St. Paul even to death at his coming to Jerusalem, in the 21st of the Acts. He then, upon all occasions, owned himself to be a Pharisee. In the 22d chapter he told the people, that he had been bred up at the feet of Gamaliel after the strictest manner, in the law of his fathers. In the 23d chapter he told the council that he was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, and that he was accused for asserting the hope and resurrection of the dead, which was their darling doctrine. Hereupon the Pharisees stood by him, and though they did not own our Saviour to be the Messiah, yet they would not deny but some angel or spirit might have spoken to him, and then if they opposed him, they should fight against God. This was the very argument Gamaliel had used before. The resurrection of our Lord, which they saw so strenuously asserted by the apostles, whose miracles they also saw and owned, (Acts iv. 16) seems to have struck them, and many of them were converted (Acts xv. 5.) even without a miracle, and the rest stood still and made no opposition.

SECT. X.

IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, AND A FUTURE STATE.

THE course of my last speculation

See Spectator, Vol. II. No. 111.

SECT. XI.

DEATH AND JUDGEMENT.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE GUARDIAN.

Sir,

THE inclosed is a faithful translation from an old author, which if it deserves your notice, let the reader guess whether he was a Heathen or a Christian.

I am, Your most humble Servant.

“I cannot, my friends, forbear letting you know what I think of death; for, methinks, I view and understand it much better, the nearer I approach to it. 1 am convinced that your fathers, those illustrious persons whom 1 so much loved and honoured, do not cease to live, though they have passed through what we call death; they are undoubtedly still living, but it is that sort of life which alone deserves truly to be called life. In effect, while we are confined to bodies, we ought to esteem ourselves no other than a sort of galley slaves at the chain, since the soul, which is somewhat divine, and descends from heaven as the place of its original, seems debased and dishonoured by this mixture of flesh and blood, and, to be in a state of banishment from its celestial country. I cannot help thinking too, that one main reason of uniting souls to bodies, was, that the great work of the universe might have spectators to admire the beautiful order of nature, the regular motion of heavenly bodies, who should strive to express that regularity in the uniformity of their lives. When I consider the boundless activity of our minds, the remembrance we have of things past, our foresight of what is to come: when I relied on the noble discoveries, and vast improvements, by which these minds have advanced arts and sciences; I am entirely persuaded, and out of all doubt, that a nature which has in itself a fund of so many excellent things cannot possibly be mortal. I observe further, that my mind is altogether simple without the mixture of any substance of nature different from its own; I conclude from thence that it is indivisible, and consequently cannot perish.

By no means think, therefore, my dear friends, when 1 shall have quitted you, that I cease to be, or shall subsist no where. Remember that while we live together you do not see my mind, and yet are sure that I have one actuating and moving my body: doubt not then but that this same mind will have a being when it is separated, though you cannot then perceive its actions. What nonsense would it be to pay those honours to great men after their deaths, which we constantly do, if their souls did not then subsist? For my own part, I could never imagine that our minds live only when united to our bodies, and die when they leave them; or that they shall cease to think and understand, when disengaged from bodies, which without them have neither sense or reason: on the contrary, I believe the soul, when separated from matter, to enjoy the greatest purity and simplicity of its nature, and to have much more wisdom and light than while it was united. We see when the body dies, what becomes of all the parts which compose it; but we do not see the mind, either in the body, or when it leaves it. Nothing more resembles death than sleep: and it is in that state that the soul chiefly shews it has something divine in its nature. How much more then must it shew it, when entirely disengaged?

THE following letter comes to me from that excellent man in holy orders, whom I have mentioned more than once, as one of that society who assists me in my speculations. It is a thought in sickness, and of a very serious nature, for which reason I give it a place in the paper of this day,

Sir,

The indisposition which has long hung upon me, is at last grown to such a head, that it must quickly make an end of me, or of itself. You may imagine, that whilst I am in this bad state of health, there are none of your works which I read with greater pleasure than your Saturday’s papers. I should be very glad if I could furnish you with any hints for that day’s entertainment. Were I able to dress up several thoughts of a serious nature, which have made great impressions on my mind during a long fit of sickness, they might not be an improper entertainment for that occasion.

Among all the reflections which usually rise in the mind of a sick man, who has time and inclination to consider his approaching end, there is none more natural than that of his going to appear naked and unbodied before him who made him. When a man considers, that, as soon as the vital union is dissolved, he shall see that Supreme Being, whom he now contemplates at a distance, and only in his works; or, to speak more philosophically, when by some faculty in the soul he shall apprehend the divine Being, and be more sensible of his presence, than we are now of the presence of any object which the eye beholds: a man must be lost in carelessness and stupidity, who is not alarmed at such a thought! Dr. Sherlock, in his excellent treatise upon death, has represented, in very strong and lively colours, the state of the soul in its first separation from the body, with regard to that invisible world which every where surrounds us, though we are not able to discover it through this grosser world of matter, which is accommodated to our senses in this life. His words are as follow.

“That death, which is our leaving this world, is nothing else but our putting off these bodies, teaches us, that it is only our union to these bodies which intercepts the sight of the other world: the other world is not at such a distance from us as we may imagine: the throne of God indeed is at a great remove from this earth, above the third heavens, where he displays his glory to those blessed spirits which encompass his throne; but as soon as we step out of these bodies, we step into the other world, which is not so properly another world, (for there is the same heaven and earth still) as a new state of life. To live in these bodies is to live in this world, to live out of them is to remove into the next: for while our souls are confined to these bodies, and can look only through these material casements, nothing but what is material can affect us; nay, nothing but what is so gross, that it can reflect light, and convey the shapes and colours of things with it to the eye; so that, though within this visible world there be a more glorious scene of things than what appears to us, we perceive nothing at all of it; for this veil of flesh parts the visible and invisible world: but when we put off these bodies, there are new and surprising wonders present themselves to our views: when these material spectacles are taken off, the soul, with its own naked eyes, sees what was invisible before; and then we are in the other world, when we can see, and converse with it: thus St. Paul tells us, That when we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; but when we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord, 2 Cor. v. 6. 8. And, methinks, this is enough to cure us of our fondness for these bodies, unless we think it more desirable to be confined to a prison, and to look through a grate all our lives, which gives us but a very narrow prospect, and that none of the best neither, than to be set at liberty to view all the glories of the world. What would we give now for the least glimpse of that invisible world, which the first step we take out of these bodies will present us with? There are such things as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive: Death opens our eyes, enlarges our prospect, presents us with a new and more glorious world, which we can never see while we are shut up in flesh which should make us as willing to part with this veil as to take the film off our eyes which hinders our sight.

As a thinking man cannot but be very much affected with the idea of his appearing in the presence of that Being whom none can see and live, he must be much more affected when he considers that this Being whom he appears before will examine all the actions of his past life, and reward or punish him accordingly. I must confess that I think there is no scheme of religion, besides that of Christianity, which can possibly support the most virtuous person under this thought. Let a man’s innocence be what it will, let his virtues rise to the highest pitch of perfection attainable in his life, there will be still in him so many secret sins, so many human frailties, so many offences of ignorance, passion, and prejudice, so many unguarded words and thoughts, and in short, so many defects in his best actions, that without the advantages of such an expiation and atonement as Christianity has revealed to us, it is impossible that he should be cleared before his sovereign Judge, or that he should be able to stand in his sight. Our holy religion suggests to us the only means whereby our guilt may be taken away, and our imperfect obedience accepted.

It is this series of thought that I have endeavoured to express in the following hymn, which I have composed during this my sickness.

I.

II.

III.

Index of Scripture References

Index of Latin Words and Phrases

Index of Pages of the Print Edition