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been trump'd upon us, interpolated and corrupted, fo that no Stress can be laid upon them, tho' it cannot be fhewn wherein they are fo corrupted; which, in Reafon, ought to lie upon them to prove, who allege it; otherwife it is not only a precarious, but a guilty Plea: And the more, that they refrain not to quote Books on their Side, for whofe Authority there are no better, or not fo good Grounds. However, you say it makes your Difputes endless, and they go away with Noife and Clamour, and a Boaft, That there is nothing, at leaft nothing certain, to be faid on the Chriftian Side: Therefore you are defirous to find fome one Topic of Reafon, which fhould demonftrate the Truth of the Chriftian Religion, and, at the fame time, diftinguifh it from the Impoftures of Mahomet, and the old Pagan World; that our Deifts may be brought to this Teft, and be either oblig'd to renounce their Reason, and the common Reafon of Mankind, or fubmit to the clear Proof, from Reafon, of the Chriftian Religion; which must be fuch a Proof as no Impofture can pretend to; otherwise it cannot prove the Chriftian Religion not to be an Imposture. And whether fuch a Proof, one fingle Proof (to avoid Confufion) is not to be found out, you defire to know from me.

And you fay, that you cannot imagine but there must be fuch a Proof, because every Truth is in itself clear, and one; and therefore that one Reafon for it, if it be the true Reason, must be sufficient: And, if sufficient, it is better than many; For Multiplicity confounds, efpecially to weak Judgments.

Sir, you have impos'd an hard Task upon me; I wish I could perform it: For tho' every Truth is one, yet our Sight is fo feeble, that we cannot (always) come to it directly, but by many Inferences, and laying of things together.

But I think that in the Cafe before us, there is fuch a Proof as you require; and I will fet it down as hort and plain as I can,

II. First then I fuppofe, that the Truth of the Doctrine of CHRIST will be fufficiently evinced, if the

Matters

Matters of Fact which are recorded of him in the Gofpels be true; for his Miracles, if true, do vouch the Truth of what he delivered.

The fame is to be faid as to Mofes; If he brought the Children of Ifrael through the Red-Sea, in that miraculous manner which is related in Exodus, and did fuch other wonderful things as are there told of him, it muft neceffarily follow, that he was fent from GOD; these being the strongest Proofs we can defire, and which every Deift will confefs he would acquiefce in, if he saw them with his Eyes. Therefore the Strefs of this Cause will depend upon the Proof of these Matters of Fact.

I. And the Method I will take, is, Firft, to lay down fuch Rules, as to the Truth of Matters of Fact in general, that where they all meet, fuch Matters of Fact cannot be falfe. And then, Secondly, to fhew that all these Rules do meet in the Matters of Fact of Mofes, and of Chrift; and that they do not meet in the Matters of Fact of Mahomet, of the Heathen Deities, or can poffibly meet in any Impofture whatfoever.

2. The Rules are thefe; 1ft, That the Matter of Fact be fuch as that Mens outward Senfes, their Eyes and Ears, may be Judges of it. 2. That it be done Publickly in the Face of the World. 3. That not only publick Monuments be kept up in Memory of it, but fome outward Actions be performed. That fuch Monuments and fuch Actions or Obfervances be instituted, and do commence, from the time that the Matter of Fact was done.

;

3. The two firft Rules make it impoffible for any fuch Matter of Fact to be impofed upon Men, at the Time when fuch Matter of Fact was faid to be done because every Man's Eyes and Senfes would contradict it. For Example: Suppofe any Man should pretend that Yefterday he divided the Thames, in Prefence of all the People of London, and carried the whole City, Men, Women, and Children, over to Southwark, on dry Land, the Waters standing like Walls on both Sides: I fay it is morally impoffible that he could perfuade the People of London that this was true, when every Man,

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Woman,

Woman, and Child, could contradict him, and fay, That this was a notorious Falfehood, for that they had not feen the Thames fo divided, or had gone over on dry Land. Therefore I take it for granted, (and, I fuppofe with the Allowance of all the Deifts in the World) that no fuch Impofition could be put upon Men at the Time when fuch publick Matter of Fact was

faid to be done.

4. Therefore it only remains that fuch Matter of Fact might be invented fome time after, when the Men of that Generation wherein the thing was faid to be done are all paft and gone; and the Credulity of AfterAges might be impos'd upon to believe that things were done in former Ages, which were not.

And for this, the two last Rules fecure us as much as the two firft Rules in the former Cafe: For whenever fuch a Matter of Fact came to be invented, if not only Monuments were faid to remain of it, but likewise that publick Actions and Obfervances were conftantly used ever fince the Matter of Fact was faid to be done, the Deceit must be detected, by no fuch Monuments appearing, and by the Experience of every Man, Woman, and Child, who must know that no fuch Actions or Obfervances were ever us'd by them. For Example: Suppose I should now invent a Story of fuch a thing done a thousand Years ago, I might, perhaps, get fome to believe it: But if I fay, that not only fuch a thing was done, but that, from that Day to this, every Man, at the Age of twelve Years, had a Joint of his little Finger cut off, and that every Man in the Nation did want a joint of fuch a Finger, and that this Inftitution was faid to be Part of the Matter of the Fact done fo many Years ago, and vouch'd as a Proof and Confirmation of it, and as having defcended, without Interruption, and been conftantly practis'd, in Memory of fuch Matter of Fact, all along from the time that fuch Matter of Fact was done; I fay, it is impoffible I fhould be believ'd in fuch a Cafe; because every one could contradict me, as to the Mark of cutting off a Joint of the Finger; and

that

that being Part of my original Matter of Fact, must demonftrate the whole to be falfe.

III. Let us now come to the Second Point, to fhew, that the Matters of Fact of Mofes and of Chrift have all these Rules or Marks before-mentioned; and that neither the Matters of Fact of Mahomet, or what is reported of the Heathen Deities, have the like; and that no Impofture can have them all.

1. As to Mofes, I fuppofe it will be allowed me, that he could not have perfuaded 600,000 Men that he had brought them out of Egypt, through the Red-Sea, fed them 40 Years without Bread, by miraculous Manna, and the other Matters of Fact recorded in his Books, if they had not been true; because every Man's Senfes, that were then alive, must have contradicted it. And therefore he must have impos'd upon all their Senfes, if he could have made them believe it when it was false, and no fuch things done. So that here are the firft and second of the above-mentioned four Marks.

For the fame Reafon, it was equally impoffible for him to have made them receive his five Books as Truth, and not to have rejected them, as a manifest Imposture, which told of all these things as done before their Eyes, if they had not been fo done. See how pofitively he speaks to them. Deut. xi. 2. to ve 8. And know you this Day: For I speak not with your Children, which have not known, and which have not feen the Chaftifement of the Lord your God, his Greatn's, his mighty Hand, and his stretched out Arm, and his Miracles, and bis Acts which he did in the midst of Egypt, unto Pharaoh the King of Egypt, and unto all his Land, and what he did unto the Army of Egypt, unto their Horfes and to their Chariots, how he made the Water of the Red-Sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord hath deftroyed them unto this Day: And what he did unto you in the Wilderness, until ye came into this Place: And what he did unto Dathan and Abiram the Sons of Eliab, the Son of Reuben, how the Earth opened her Mouth and fwallowed them up, and their Houfholds, and their Tents, and all the Subftance that was in their Possession, in the midst of all

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Ifrael.

Ifrael.

But your Eyes have seen all the great Acts of the Lord, which he did, &c.

From hence we may suppose it impoffible that these Books of Mofes (if an Impofture) could have been invented and put upon the People, who were then alive when all these Things were faid to be done.

The utmost therefore that even a Suppofe can stretch to, is, that these Books were wrote in fome Age after Mofes, and put out in his Name.

And to this I fay, that if it was fo, it was impoffible that those Books fhould have been receiv'd as the Books of Mofes, in that Age wherein they may be fuppos'd to have been first invented. Why? Because they fpeak of themselves as deliver'd by Mofes, and kept in the Ark from his time. And it came to pass when Moses had made an end of writing the Words of this Law in a Book, until they were finished, that Mofes commanded the Levites who bare the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, faying, Take this Book of the Law, and put it in the Side of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, that it be there for a Witness against thee. Deut. xxxi. 24, 25, 26. And there was a Copy of this Book to be left likewife with the King. And it shall be, when he fitteth upon the Throne of his Kingdom, that he shall write him a Copy of this Law in a Book, out of that which is before the Prisfts the Levites: And it shall be with him, and he fhall read therein all the Days of his Life: That he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the Words of this Law and thefe Statutes to do them. Deut. xvii. 18, 19.

may

Here you fee tha this Book of the Law fpeaks of itfelf for only as an Hiftory or Relation of what Things were then done, but as the ftanding and municipal Law and Statutes of the Nation of the Jews, binding the King as well as the People.

Now, in whatever Age after Mofes you will fuppose this Book to have been forged, it was impoffible it could have been received as Truth; because it was not then to be found, either in the Ark, or with the King, or anywhere elfe; for, when firft invented, every body muft know that they had never heard of it before.

And

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