AND if, for the Reafons before given, no fuch Impofition cou'd be put upon Us, as to the Stonage at Salisbury-Plain; How much lefs cou'd it be as to the Stonage at Gilgal?

AND if where we know not the Reafon of a bare naked Monument, fuch a Sham-Reafon cannot be impos'd How much more is it impoffible to impofe upon Us, in Actions and Obfervances, which we celebrate in Memory of particular Paffages? How impoffible to make Us forget thofe Paffages which we daily Commemorate; and perfuade Us, that we had always kept fuch Inftitutions in Memory of what we never heard of before; That is, that We knew it, before We knew it!

AND if we find it thus impoffible for an Impofition to be put upon Us, even in fome Things, which have not all the Four Marks before mentioned : How much more impoffible is it, that any Deceit fhou'd be in that Thing, where all the Four-Marks do.meet!

THIS has been fhew'd in the First Place, as to the Matters of Fact of Mofes.

2. THEREFORE I Come now (Secondly) to fhew, that, as in the Matters of Fact of Mofes, fo likewife, all these Four Marks do meet in the Matters of Fact which are recorded in the Gospel, of Our Bleffed Saviour, And my Work herein will be the fhorter, because all that is faid before, of Mofes and his Books, is every Way as applicable to Chrift and His Gospel. His Works and Miracles are there faid to be done publickly, in the Face of the World, as he argu'd to his Accufers, I fpake openly to the World, and in Secret have I faid Nothing, Joh. xviii. 20. It is told, and Ad. ii. 41. that Three thoufand at one Time, A. iv. 4. that above Five thousand at another Time, were converted, upon Conviction of what themselves had feen, what had been done publickly before their Eyes, wherein it was impoffible to have impos'd upon them. There. B 2

fore

fore here were the two Firft of the Rules beforemention'd.

THEN for the Two fecond: Baptifm and the Lord's Supper were inftituted as perpetual Memorials of thefe Things; and they were not inftituted. in after-Ages, but at the very Time when thefe Things were faid to be done; and have been obferved without Interruption, in all Ages through the whole Chriftian World, down all the Way from that Time to this. And Chrift Himfelf did ordain Apoftles, and other Minifters of His Gospel, to Preach, and Adminifter thefe Sacraments; and to Matth. Govern His Church: And that always, xxviii. 20. even unto the End of the World. Accordingly they have continu'd by regular Succeffion, to this Day: And, no Doubt, ever fhall, while the Earth fhall laft. So that the Chriftian Clergy are as notorious a Matter of Fact, as the Tribe of Levi among the Jews. And the Gospel is as much a Law to the Chriftians, as the Book of Mofes to the Jews And it being Part of the Matter of Fact related in the Gospel, that fuch an Order of Men were appointed by Chrift, and to continue to the End of the World; confequently, if the Gofpel was a Fiction, and invented (as it muft be) in fome Ages after Chrift; then, at that Time, when it was firft invented, there cou'd be no fuch Order of Clergy, as deriv'd themselves from the Inftitution of Chrift; which muft give the Lye to the Gofpel, and demonftrate the whole to be Falfe. And the Matters of Fact of Chrift being prefs'd to be True, no otherwife than as there was, at that Time (whenever the Deifts will fuppofe the Gospel to be Forged) not only publick Sacraments of Chrift's Inftitution, but an Order of Clergy, likewife of his Appointment to Adminifter them: And it being impoffible there cou'd be any fuch Things before they were Invented, it is as impoffible that they should be Received when Invented. And therefore, by what was faid

above,

above, it was as impoffible to have impos'd upon Mankind in this Matter, by inventing of it in afterAges, as at the Time when thofe Things were faid to be done.

3. THE Matters Of Fact of Mahomet, or what is Fabled of the Deities, do all want fome of the aforefaid four Rules, whereby the Certainty of Matters of Fact is demonftrated. First, for Mahomet, he pretended to no Miracles, as he tells us in his Alcoran, c. 6. &c. and thofe which are commonly told of him pafs among the Mahometans themfelves, but as Legendary Fables; and, as fuch are rejected by the Wife, and Learned among them; as the Legends of their Saints are in the Church of Rome. See Dr. Prideaux his Life of Mabomet, Page 34.

BUT, in the next Place, those which are told of him, do all want the Two firft Rules before-mentioned. For his pretended Converse with the Moon; his Merfa, or Night-Journey from Mecca to Jerufalem, and thence to Heaven, &c. were not performed before any Body. We have only his own Word for them. And they are as groundlefs as the Delufions of Fox, or Muggleton among our felves. The fame is to be faid (in the fecond Place) of the Fables of the Heathen Gods, of Mercury's ftealing Sheep, Jupiter's turning himself into a Bull, and the like; befides the Folly and Unworthiness of fuch fenfelefs pretended Miracles. And, moreover, the Wife among the Heathen did reckon no otherwife of these but as Fables, which had a Mythology, or Myftical meaning in them, of which feveral of them have given us the Rationale, or Explication. And it is plain enough that Ovid meant no other by all his Metamorphofes.

IT is true, the Heathen Deities had their Priests: They had likewife Feafts, Games, and other publick Inftitutions in Memory of them. But all thefe want the Fourth Mark, viz. That fuch Prieft-Hood and Inftitutions fhou'd Commence from the Time that fuch

B 3

Things

1

Things as they Commemorate, were faid to be done, otherwife they cannot fecure after Ages from the Impofture, by detecting it, at the Time when first Invented, as hath been argu'd before. But the Bacchanalia, and other Heathen-Feafts were inftituted many Ages after what was reported of thefe Gods was faid to be done, and therefore can be no Proof o them. And the Prifts of Bacchus, Apollo, &c. were not Ordain'd by thefe fuppofed Gods: But were appointed by others, in after Ages, only in Honour to them. And therefore thefe Orders of Priefts are no Evidence to the Truth of the Matters of Fact, which are reported of their Gods.

IV. Now, to apply what has been faid, You may challenge all the Deifts in the World to fhew any Action that is Fabulous, which has all the four Rules, or Marks before-mention'd. No, it is impoffible. And (to refume a little what is fpoke to before) the Hiftories of Exodus, and the Gofpel cou'd never have been receiv'd, if they had not been true; because the Inftitution of the Priesthood of Levi, and of Chrift: Of the Sabbath, the Pafs over, of Circumcifion, of Baptifm, and the Lord's Supper, &c. are there related, as defcending all the way down from thofe Times, without Interruption. And it is full as impoffible to perfuade Men, that they had been Circumcis'd, Baptiz'd, had Circumcis'd or Baptiz'd their Children, celebrated Pafs-overs, Sabbaths, Sacraments, &c. under the Government, and Adminiftration of a certain Order of Priefs, if they had done none of these Things, as to make them believe that they had gone through Seas upon Dry land, feen the Dead raifed, &c. And without believing of thefe, it was impoffible that either the Law, or the Gospel cou'd have been receiv'd.

AND the Truth of the Matters of Fact of Exodus and the Gospel, being no otherwife prefs'd upon

Men,

Men, than as they have practifed fuch publick Inftitutions; it is appealing to the Senfes of Mankind for the Truth of them: And makes it impoffible for any to have invented fuch Stories in after Ages, without a palpable detection of the Cheat, when firft invented; as impoffible as to have impos'd upon the Senfes of Mankind at the Time, when fuch publick Matters of Fact were faid to be done.

V. I do not fay, that every thing which wants thefe four Marks is Falfe: But, that nothing can be Falfe which has them All.

I have no manner of Doubt, that there was fuch a Man as Julius Cafar; that he fought at Pharfalia, was kill'd in the Senate-Houfe; and many other Matters of Fact of Antient Times, tho' we keep no publick Obfervances in Memory of them.

BUT this fhews that the Matters of Fact of Mofes and of Chrift, have come down to us better guarded than any other Matters of Fact how true. foever.

AND yet our Deifts who would laugh any Man out of the World, as an irrational Brute, that íhould offer to deny Cafar, or Alexander, Homer or Virgil, their publick Works and Actions, do, at the fame time value themselves as the only Men of Wit and Senfe, of Free, Generous, and Unbyaft Fudgments, for ridiculing the Hiftories of Mofes and Chrift, that are infinitely better attefted, and guarded with infallible Marks, which the others want.

VI. BESIDES that, the Importance of the Sub. ject wou'd oblige all Men to enquire more narrowly into the one than the other: For what Confequence is it to me, or to the World, whether there was fuch a Man as Cafar; whether he beat or was beaten at Pharfalia; whether Homer or Virgil wrote fuch Books, and whether what is related in the Iliads or Eneids be True or Falfe? It is not two Pence up