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CHR. What I have faid, is only to difpofe you to hear me impartially, and not to be prejudiced against your own Happiness, both here and hereafter.

(2.) DE. Well, without more prefacing, the Cafe is this; I believe a God as well as you; but for Revelation, and what you call the Holy Scriptures, I may think they were wrote by pious and good Men, who might take this Method of Speaking as from God, and in his Name, as fuppofing that thofe good Thoughts came from him, and that it would have a greater Effect upon the People; and might couch their Morals under Hiftories of Things fuppofed to be done; as feveral of the wife Heathens have taken this Course, in what they told of Jupiter and Juno, and the rest of their Gods and Godnees: But, as to the Facts themfelves, I believe the one no more than the other; or that all the Facts in Ovid's Metamorphofes, or in Efop's: Fables, were true.

CHR. You feem willing by this to preferve a respectful Efteem and Value for the Holy Scriptures, as being wrote by pious and good Men, and with a good Defign to reform the Manners of Men; but your Argument proves directly against the Purpose for which you brought it; and makes the Penmen of the Scriptures to be far from good Men, to be not only Cheats and Impoftors, but Blafphemers, and an Abomination before God: For fuch thefe fame Scriptures frequently call thofe who prefume to speak as from God, and in his Name, when he had not sent them, and given them Authority fo to do: And the Law in the Scriptures condemns fuch to be ftoned to Death, as Blafphemers.

It was not fo with the Heathen; their Moralifts did not use the Style of, Thus faith the Lord; and their Philofophers oppofed and wrote against one another without any Offence: For all the Matter was, which of them could reafon beft; they pretended to no more.

And for the Facts of the Fables of their Gods, themfelves did not believe them, and have wrote the Mythology or Moral that was intended by them.

DE.

DE. But many of the common People did believe the Facts themselves; as it is with the common People now in the Church of Rome, who believe the most fenfelefs and ridiculous Stories in their Books of Legends to be as true as the Gospel; though the more wife among them call them only pious Frauds to increase the Devotion of the People. And fo we think of your Gospel itfelf, and all the other Books you fay were wrote by Men divinely inspired: We will let you keep them to cajole the Mob; but when you would impose them upon Men of Senfe, we must come to the Teft with you.

CHR. That is what I defire; and to fee whether there are no more Evidences to be given for the Truth of Chriftianity, that is, of the Holy Scriptures, than are given for the Legends, and all the fabulous Stories of the Heathen Gods: And if fo, I will give up my Argument, and confess that it is not in my Power to convince you.

DE. I cannot refufe to join Issue with you upon this. To begin then I defire to know your Evidences for the Truth of your Scriptures, and the Facts therein related.

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(3). CHR. If the Truth of the Book, and the Facts therein related, be proved, I fuppofe you will not deny the Doctrines to be true.

DE. No: For if I faw fuch Miracles with my Eyes, as are faid to have been done by Mofes and Christ, I could not think of any greater Proof to be given, that fuch an one was fent of God. Therefore if your Bible be true as to the Facts, I must believe it in the Doctrine But there are other Books which pretend to give us Revelations from God, and we must know which of thefe is true.

too.

CHR. To diftinguifh this Book from all others which pretend to give Revelations from God, these four Marks or Rules were fet down.

I. That the Facts related be fuch of which Mens outward Senfes, their Eyes and Ears, may judge.

[This cuts off enthufiaftical Pretences to Revelation, and Opinions which may be propagated in the Dark,

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and, like the Tares, not known till they are grown up, and the first Beginning of them not discovered.]

II. That these Facts be done openly in the Face of the World.

III. That not only publick Monuments, but outward Inflitutions and Actions, should be appointed, and perpetually kept up, in Memory of them.

IV. That these Inftitutions to be obferved fhould commence from the Time that the Facts were done; and, confequently, that the Book wherein these Facts and Inftitutions are recorded, should be written at the Time, and by those who did the Facts, or by Eye and EarWitnees. For that is included in this Mark, and is the main Part of it, to prevent falfe Stories being coined in After-Ages, of Things done many hundred Years before, which none alive can difprove. Thus Mofes wrote his five Books containing his Actions and Infitutions: And those of Christ were wrote by his Difciples, who were Eye and Ear-Witnesses of what they related: And particular Care was taken of this, as you may see, Aas i. 21, 22. upon choofing one to fupply the Place of Judas; Wherefore of these M n which have companied with us, all the Time that the Lord Jefus vent in and out among us, beginning from the Baptifm of John, until that fame Day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be Witness with us of his Resurrection. And St. John begins his first Epistle thus, That which was from the Beginning, which we have heard, which we have feen with our Eyes, which we have looked upon, and our Hands have handled-That which we have feen and heard declare we unto you.

I have explained this fourth Mark, because the Author of the Detection, either wilfully, or ignorantly, feems not to understand it. And this alone overthrows all the Stories he has told, which he would make a Parallel to the Facts of Mofes, and of Chrift; and there. fore alleges that they have all these four Marks. But he must begin again, and own that these four Marks fill ftand an irrefragable Proof of the Truth of any Fact which has them all; till he can produce a Bok D

which

which was wrote by the Actors or Eye-Witnesses of the Facts it relates, and fhew, that such Facts, having the other three Marks, have been detected to be falfe. Which when he can do, I will give him up these four Marks as an infufficient Proof, and own I was mistaken in them. But hitherto they have ftood the Teft; for he himself will not fay, he has produced any fuch Book in all his Detection.

If he fays, that Facts may be true, tho' no fuch Book can be produced for them, and tho' they have not all the aforefaid Marks; I will easily grant it. But all I contend for is, that whatever Fact has all these four Marks cannot be falfe: For example: Could Mofes have perfuaded Six hundred thousand Men that he had led them through the Sea, in the Manner related in Exodus, if it had not been true? If he could, it would have been a greater Miracle than the other. The like of their being fed forty Years in the Wilderness, without Bread, by Manna rained down to them from Heaven. The like of Chrift's feeding Five thousand at a Time with five Loaves. And fo of all the rest. The two frit Marks fecure from any Cheat or Impofture at the Time the Facts were done; And the two laft Marks fecure equally from any Impofition in After-Ages; because this Book, which relates these Facts, speaks of itself as written at that Time, by the A&tors or Eye-Witnesses; and as commanded by God to be carefully kept and preferved to all Generations, and read publickly to all the People at ftated Times, as is commanded, Deut. xxxi. 10, 11, 12. And was practifed, Joh. viii. 34, 35. Neb. viii. &c. And the Inftitutions, appointed in this Book, were to be perpetually obferved from the Day of the Inflitution for ever among thefe People, in Memory of the Facts; as the Passover, Exod. xii.; and fo of the reft. Now fuppofe this Book to have been forged a thousand Years after Mofes, would not every one fay, when it first appeared, We never heard of this Book before, we know of no fuch Inftitutions, as of a Passover, or Circumcifion, or Sabbaths, and the many Feafts and Faßs therein appointed, of a Tribe of Levi, and a Tabernacle

bernacle, wherein they were, to ferve in such an Order. of Priesthood, &c. Therefore this Book must be an errant Forgery; for it wants all thofe Marks it gives of itfelf, as to its own Continuance, and of those Institutions it relates? No Inftance can be fhewn, fince the World began, of any Book, fo circumftantiated, that was a Forgery upon any People: I think it impoffible; and therefore that the four Marks are ftill an invincible Proof of the Truth of that Book, and those Facts wherein all thefe Marks do meet.

But, fince I am come upon this Subject again, I will endeavour to improve it, and give four other Marks ; fome of which no Fact, however true, ever had, or can have, but the Fact of Chrift a’one. Thus while I fupport the Fact of Mofes, I fet that of Chrift above him, as the Lord is above the Servant. And the Jews being herein principally concerned, I will confider their Cafe likewife as we go along. Therefore I add this fifth Mark, as peculiar to our Bible, and to distinguifh it from all other Hiftories which relate Facts formerly done.

V. That the Book, which relates the Facts, contains likewife the Law of that People to whom it belongs, and be their Statute-Book by which their Caufes are determined. This will make it impoffible for any to coin or forge fuch a Book, fo as to make it pafs upon any People: For example: If I fhould forge a Statute-Book for England, and publish it next Term, could I make all the Judges, Lawyers, and People, believe, that this was their true and only Statute Book, by which their Causes had been determined thefe many hundred Years paft? They must forget their old Statute-Book, and believe that this new Book, which they never faw or heard of before, was the fame old Book which has been pleaded in Weftminster-Hall for fo many Ages, which has been fo often printed, and the Originals of which are now kept in the Tower, to be confulted as there is Occa fion.

DE. I grant that to be impoffible. But how do you apply it?

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CHR.

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