one according to his Demerits fhall fuffer in eternal Fire, and shall give a strict Account to God in Proportion to the Power he is intrusted with, as Chrift has declar'd, For unto whom- Luk.12.48. foever God has given much, of him shall be much required. XXIV. Turn back your Thoughts upon the past Emperors, and you'll find they all dy'd like other Men; and cou'd you but discover One, to be in a State of Infenfibility, you wou'd make a welcome Discovery to the wicked World; but fince 9 all departed Souls continue in Sensation, and everlasting Fire is treafur'd up for the Unrighteous, let me advise you to look well about you, and lay these things feriously to Heart. For even Necromancy, and the In•spection of the Entrails of found Children, and the calling out the Souls of dead Men, and what the Magicians term Dream-fenders and Familiars, and many other Practices of For even I Here we have two things exprefly afferted by Juftin Martyr, One, that all departed Souls are in a State of Senfation, against Dr. Coward's Notion of their being in the fame fenfeless State with the Body, till the Refurrection; the Other, that all the Wicked whatfoever shall fuffer eternal Torments, against the learned Mr. Dodwell, in his Epiftolary Difcourse, proving from the Scriptures and the First Fathers, that the Soul is a Principle naturally mortal, &c. The feveral Species of Magick you'll find mention'd by Tertullian Ap. c. 23. the Sum of what he drives at in this Section, is, to prove the Immortality of human Souls from the Practice of Magicians, in raifing up, and converfing with departed Spirits; the Infpection of the Entrails of young Childron, fuppofes that the Souls of thefe Children stood by and affifted the Infpectors in the Revelation of things to come; for a more particular Account of this horrid Practice, and for the meaning of the Words overeμol and waged, I refer the more learned Reader to Dr. Grabe's Notes upon this Apology. the the Dealers in this Black Art, may induce you to believe that Souls after Death are in a State of Sensation; and moreover those f Persons who are violently caught up, and dash'd down again by departed Spirits, and who pass among you all for Dæmoniacks and mad, and likewife the Amphilochian, Dodonaan, Pythian, and other like Oracles, and also the Doctrines of many of your Writers, fuch as Empedocles, Pythagoras, Plato, and Socrates, and Homer's Ditch, and Ulyes's Vifit to the Infernal Shades, and their Confabulations with him. These, I fay, all argue the Immortality of human Souls, and feveral others of the fame Opinion about Spirits with our felves, with whom we defire the like Treatment, as having not a lefs but a much greater Faith in God, than they. ever had, being under a full Expectation of being restor❜d to these Bodies, after they are dead and rotten, because we know that with God nothing is impoffible. XXV. And truly what to any confidering Perfon would feem more incredible, were it not that we our felves are in a Body, than to be told, that 'tis poffible for Bones and Nerves, and Flesh to be fpun out from a feminal Drop, into fuch a thing as we fee Man to be; I speak this by way of Hypothefis; fuppofing, I say, before you were in the ftate you now are, and ↑ Such were the two Dæmoniacks in the Country of the Gergefenes, who came out of the Tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no Man might pass by that way, Matt. 8. 28. and from their dwelling only among Tombs, thefe Spirits were concluded to be the Souls of dead Men. generated generated of fuch Parents, any one shou'd come and fhew you this feminal Drop, and the Pi&ture of Man, and withal aver it to be poffible for fuch a Creature to rife out of fuch a Principle, which of you would think it credible, before he saw the Production? Not one, I dare fay, would deny it to be impoffible. In the fame manner you are now poffefs'd with a disbelief of a Refurrection, because you never faw a Perfon rise again from the Dead: But as at first you wou'd not believe it poffible for this little speck to work it self into a Man, tho' now you fee it true in Fact; fo ought you to conclude it as practicable for Humane Bodies cover'd in the Earth, and dead like Seed, to fpring again in their Seafon at the Almighty Word, and put on Incorruption. But how fuitable fuch a Power is to God which those cut out for him, who affirm ev'ry thing to depart into that original Matter from whence it came, and after that Departure to be gone for ever, and irrevocable even beyond the Call of God himself, whether this, I say, is a becoming Notion of Almighty Power, I will not now enquire; but this I will venture to say, that these Gentlemen 'would never have believed it poffible that themselves and the whole World cou'd have been what they now find they are, and from fuch Principles. XXVI. But we have justly prefum'd it the most This great Philofopher and Christian Martyr was fo far from thinking with our modern Reafoners, that his Faith ought to go * no most rational, to believe what may feem inconfiftent with the Nature of things, and to Men impoffible, rather than stand out and imitate others in a foolish Infidelity, especially' Luk.18.27. fince our Master Chrift hath taught us, That the things which are unpoffible with Men, are poffible with God; and likewife given Orders not Mat.10.28. to fear them that kill the Body, and after that have no more that they can do, but fear him who after he hath killed, is able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell. u XXVII. Now Hell is that Place where the wicked Livers, and fuch as disbelieve the Revelations of God by Christ, shall suffer; and the Sybil, and Hyftafpes have both given out that this whole Syftem of Corruptibles fhall be destroy'd by " Fire; nay, the Stoicks have a. Conceit, that God himself shall be refolved into Fire, and that there fhall rife a new World refin❜d from the Ruins of the old; but we conceive far more honourably of God, than to range the Creator of the Universe among things fubject to Alteration. XVIII. If then we hold fome Opinions near of Kin to the Poets and Philofophers in greatest repute among you, and others of a diviner Strain, and far above out of their Sight, and no farther than Clearness and Connection of Ideas, that he thought it "Effe quoque in Fatis reminifcitur affore tempus, Ardeat, & mundi moles operofa laboret. Ovid. Metam. Lib. I. have have Demonstration on our fide into the Bargain, why are we to be thus unjustly hated, and to ftand diftinguish'd in Mifery above the rest of Mankind? For in saying that all things were made in this beautiful Order by God, what do we seem to fay more than Plato? When we teach a general Conflagration, what do we teach more than the Stoicks? When we affert departed Souls to be in a State of Senfibility, and the Wicked to be in Torments, but the Good free from Pain and in a blissful Condition, we affert no more than your Poets and Philofophers. By oppofing the Worship of the Works of Men's Hands, we concur with Menander the Comedian, and fuch as affirm the Workman to be greater than his Work and by declaring the Logos, the First-begotten of God, our Master Jefus Chrift to be born of a Virgin without any humane Mixture, and to be crucify'd and dead, and to have rofe again and afcended into Heaven; we fay no more in this, than what you fay of those whom you style the Sons of Jove. XXIX. For you need not be told what a Parcel of Sons, the Writers most in Vogue a mong The Kingdom of Darknefs had well-nigh overcaft the whole World, when the Sun of Righteousness rofe upon it, the Worship of falfe Gods obtain'd every where but among the Jews, and this univerfal Idolatry being one of the greatest Obftructions to the Light of the Gofpel, and the prevailing Sin of these times, the Reader must be content to find the first Christian Apologists very large upon this Head, in order to root out this pack of Vanities, and to ridicule and argue 'em out of the World; and because the Worfhip of a crucify'd Man, was that which they moftly ftuck at Juftin makes a Parallel, and fhews that this Chrift, the God of E Christians |