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BOOK among the Israelites, which was more largely commented II. on by the prophets of succeeding ages; whose care it was to unlock this cabala, and to raise up the hearts of the people in a higher expectation of the great things which were to come. Thence we not only read of the solemn prayer of the Church of the Jews, that the knowPs. Ixvii. 2. ledge of God might be dispersed over all the nations of the Isaiah ii. 2. earth, but we have many prophecies, that when the mounMal. i. 11. tain of the Lord's house should be exalted, all nations should

20.

5, 6.

Ver. 3.

flow unto it: that from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, God's name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense should be offered to his name, and a pure offering; for his name shall be great among the Heathen. That the inscription on the High Priest's forehead, Holiness to the Lord, should, by reason of the large diffusion of a Spirit of Holiness in the days Zach. xiv. of the Gospel, be set upon the bells of horses; that the pots in the Lord's house should be as the bowls before the altar, i. e. that when the Levitical service should be laid aside, and that holiness, which was that appropriated to the Priests and instruments of the Temple, should be discerned in those things which seemed most remote from Psal. cx. 4. it. That a priesthood, after another order than that of Aaron, should be established, viz. after the order of Melchisedec, and that he that was the priest after this order should judge among the Heathen, and wound the heads over many countries; that in the day of his power the people should not be frighted to obedience with thunder-claps and earthquakes, (as at Mount Sinai,) but should come and yield themselves as a free-will offering unto him; and yet their number be as great as the drops of the dew which distil in the morning. That God out of other nations would take unto himself for Priests and for Levites; that the deMal. lii. 1. sire of all nations should speedily come; that the messenger Dan. ix. 24, of the covenant should come into his Temple; nay, that seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city; that then the vision and prophecy should be sealed up; that the sacrifice and oblation should be caused to cease; that the city and the sanctuary should be destroyed, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined; that after threescore and two weeks Messias should be cut off, but not for himself; that by him transgression should be finished, and reconciliation for iniquity should be made, and everlasting righteousness should be brought in. And lest all these things should be apprehended to be only a higher advancing of the Le

21.

Hag. ii. 7.

26, 27.

VII.

vitical worship, and the way of external ceremonies, God CHAP. expressly saith, That he would make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not ac- Jer. xxxi. cording to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in 31, 32. the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband to them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. Can any one, that now considers seriously the state of things thus described as it should come to pass, ever imagine that the Levitical service was ever calculated for this state? Was God's worship to be confined to his Temple at Jerusalem, when all the nations of the earth should come to serve him? Was the High Priest to make an atonement there, when an order of priesthood, different from the Aaronical, should be set up? Must the tribe of Levi only attend at the Temple, when God should take the Priests and Levites out of all nations that serve him? What would become of the magnificence and glory of the Temple, when both city and sanctuary shall be destroyed; and that must be within few prophetical weeks after the Messias is cut

off? And must the covenant God made with the Israelites continue for ever, when God expressly saith he would make a new one; and that not according to the covenant which he made with them then? It is so evident then, as nothing can well be more, that under the Old Testament such a state of religion was described and promised, with which the Levitical worship would be inconsistent; and so that the ceremonial law was not at first established upon an immutable reason, which was the thing to be proved.

CHAP. VIII.

General Hypotheses concerning the Truth of the Doctrine

of Christ.

1. The great Prejudice against our Saviour among Jews and Heathens, was the Meanness of his Appearance. The Difference of the Miracles at the Delivery of the Law and Gospel. II. Some general Hypotheses to clear the Subserviency of Miracles to the Doctrine of Christ. 1. That where the Truth of a Doctrine depends not on Evidence, but Authority, the only Way to prove the Truth of the Doctrine, is to prove the Testimony of the Revealer to be infallible. Things may be true, which depend not on Evidence of the Things. What that is, and on what it depends. The Uncertainty of natural Knowledge. III. The Existence of God the Foundation of all Certainty. The Certainty of Matter of Faith proved from the same Principle. Our Knowledge of any Thing supposeth something incomprehensible. IV. The Certainty of Faith as great as that of Knowledge; the Grounds of it stronger. The Consistency of rational Evidence with Faith: yet Objects of Faith exceed Reason; the Absurdities following the contrary Opinion. VI. The Uncertainty of that which is called Reason. VII. Philosophical Dictates no Standard of Reason. Of Transubstantiation and Ubiquity, &c. why rejected as contrary to Reason. The Foundation of Faith in Matters above Reason. VIII. Which is infallible Testimony; that there are Ways to know which is infallible, proved. 2 Hypoth. A Divine Testimony the most infallible. The Resolution of Faith into God's Veracity as its formal Object. IX. 3 Hypoth. A Divine Testimony may be known, though God speak not immediately. Of Inspiration among the Jews, and Divination among the Heathens. XII. 4 Hypoth. The Evidence of a Divine Testimony must be clear and certain. XIII. Of the common Motives of Faith, and the Obligation to Faith arising from them. The Original of Infidelity.

BOOK HAVING now cleared that the law of Moses was capaII. ble of a repeal, I come to the second enquiry, Whether the miracles of our Saviour did give a sufficient evidence of his power and authority to repeal it. I shall not (to prevent too large an excursion) insist on any other evidences of our Saviour's being the promised Messias, but keep close to the matter of our present debate, concerning the evidence which ariseth from such a power of miracles as our Saviour had, in order to his establishing that doc

VIII.

trine which he came to publish to the world. The great CHAP. stumbling-block in reference to our blessed Saviour among both the Jews and learned Heathens, was the meanness of his appearance in the world, not coming attended with that state and magnificence which they thought to be inseparable from so great a person. The Jews had their senses so possessed with the thunderings and lightnings on Mount Sinai, that they could not imagine the structure of their ceremonial worship could be taken down with less noise and terror than it was erected with. And withal collecting all those passages of the Old Testament, which seemed to foretel such glorious things of the days of the Messias, (which either refer to his second coming, or must be understood in a spiritual sense,) they having their minds oppressed with the sense of their present calamities, applied them wholly to an external greatness, whereby they might be delivered from the tyranny of the Roman power. The Heathens, as appears by Celsus and others, thought it very strange that the Son of God should appear in the world with so little grandeur, and have no greater train than twelve such ob

scure persons as the Apostles were. For, saith Celsus,

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Ὡς γὰρ ὁ ἥλιος πάντα τὰ ἀλλὰ φωτίζων πρῶτον αὐτὸν δεικνύει, Apud Orig. Ed. Spen

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ὕτως ἐχρὴν πεποιηκέναι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ· as the sun, which en. 1. ii. p. 79. lightens all other things, doth first discover himself, so it was fitting the Son of God should do when he appeared to the world. And so we say he did to all such whose minds were not blinded through obstinacy and wilful ignorance. For although this Sun of Righteousness was pleased, for the better carrying on his design in the world, to wrap up himself in a cloud, yet his glory could not be confined within it, but did break through that dark veil of his human nature, and did discover itself in a most clear and convincing manner. His appearances indeed were not like those upon Mount Sinai; because his de sign was not to amuse men with the glory of his majesty, and to terrify them from idolatry, (which was a great rea son of those dreadful phenomena at the delivery of the law,) but he came to draw all men to him by the power and energy of his grace, and therefore afforded them all. rational convictions in order to it; and therefore the qua lity of our Saviour's miracles was considerable, as well as the greatness of them. The intent of them all was to do good, and thereby to bring the world off from its sin and folly, to the embracing of that holy doctrine which he came to publish to the world.

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BOOK

II.

11.

1 Hypoth.

Now that such a power of miracles in our Saviour had the greatest subserviency to the giving full and convincing evidence that he was the person he declared himself to be, and that his doctrine was thereby so clearly attested, that it was nothing but obstinacy which could withhold assent, will appear by these following hypotheses, which I lay down in order to the proving it.

Where the truth of a doctrine depends not on the evidence of the things themselves, but on the authority of him that reveals it, there the only way to prove the doctrine to be true, is to prove the testimony of him that revealed it to be infallible. Several things are necessary to be proved for the clearing this proposition.

1. That it is not repugnant to reason that a doctrine should be true which depends not upon the evidence of the thing itself. By evidence of the thing I understand so clear and distinct a perception of it, that every one who hath the use of his rational faculties, cannot but upon the first apprehensions of the terms yield a certain assent to it; as, that the whole is greater than a part; that if we take away equal things from equal, the remainder must be equal. Now we are to observe, that as to all these common notices of human nature which carry such evidence with them, the certainty of them lies in the proposition, as it is an act of the mind abstracted from the things themselves; for these do not suppose the existence of the things; but whether there be any such things in the world or no as whole or parts, the understanding is assured that the idea of the whole carries more in its representation than that of a part does. This is the great reason of the certainty and evidence of mathematical truths; not, as some imagine, because men have no interest or design in those things, and therefore they never question them, but because they proceed not upon sensible but abstracted matter; which is not liable to so many doubts as the other is: for that a triangle hath three angles, no man questions; but whether such sensible parts of matter make a triangle, may be very questionable. Now that the truth of beings, or the certainty of existence of things, cannot be so certain as mathematical demonstrations, appears from hence; because the manner of conveyance of these things to my mind cannot be so clear and certain as in purely intellectual operations, abstracted from existent matter. For the highest evidences of the existence of things must be either the judgment of sense, or clear and distinct perception of the mind: now pro

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