historian did acknowledge. He did believe that Christ (the author and finisher of our faith) did suffer under Pontius Pilate; yet this belief was far from making him a Christian. That which we Christians are in the first place to believe, is, that the man Christ Jesus, whom the Jews by the help of Pontius Pilate did crucify, was truly the Son of God, his only Son; so truly and indissolubly the Son of God, as well as of man, that whilst this man was conceived by the Holy Ghost, the Son of God was likewise conceived by the Holy Ghost; whilst this man was born of a pure virgin, the true and only Son of God was born of the same virgin; whilst this man was put to death, crucified, dead, and buried, the Son of God was likewise crucified, dead, and buried; whilst this man Christ was raised again from the dead, the true and only Son of God was so raised; whilst this man ascended into heaven, the Son of God ascended into heaven; whilst this man sitteth at the right hand of God, and maketh intercession for us, the Son of God there sits, and makes the same intercession; that when we expect the same Jesus whom the Jews did crucify shall come in visible manner to judge the quick and the dead, we believe and expect that the Son of God shall come to judge the quick and the dead. Of the first points we ought to have at the least a true historical belief. Our belief of that article concerning Christ's coming to judgment, and of our resurrection from the dead, is more prophetical than historical. 2. Is then an historical belief of Christ's conception, birth, death, and resurrection sufficient for us? Sure Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos, et quæsitissimis pœnis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat. Auctor nominis ejus Christus, qui Tiberio imperitante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus est.-Tacit. Annal. lib. 15. (pag. 255.) cap. 44. it is not, unless withal it be salvifical. No faith can save, unless it be a saving faith but no faith can be salvifical, unless it be historical: for he that doth not believe the history of Christ's death and passion, can have no Christian faith at all. Now the utmost effect whereunto the endeavours of God's seedsmen are immediately terminated, is to plant in the hearts of their hearers a firm persuasion of the divine truth of the 570 sacred histories or prophecies concerning Christ. In respect of this persuasion they are said to plant and water, and to be co-workers with God's Spirit. But to make this persuasion to be salvifical, this is the work of God alone; for unless he give this increase to what we plant and water, all our labours are lost, our best endeavours are to no purpose. Yet as we are to believe that without God we can do nothing, so are we bound to hope that in him and by him we may do all things, or have all things done in us and for us, which can be needful or conducent to our salvation. Now if such as are bound to teach, and such as are bound to learn, would daily season their endeavours (their prayers especially) with serious consideration of this twofold truth, we could have no just occasion either of doubt or fear, but that if our belief of the rehearsed articles of Christ were once truly historical, it would certainly become rightly salvifical. For to be historical and to be salvifical are not membra opposita, no such opposite members as divide belief into two parts or kinds; they are as subordinate one to the other, as natural wit and artificial improvement of it. CHAP. II. Of Historical Belief in general, and how it doth variously affect Believers according to the Variety of Matters related: the several Esteem of the Historians. THAT we call historical belief which hath no other ground besides the authority of the historian or relater, or, at the most, experiments suitable to things related. And such experiments may be known sometimes by sense, sometimes by reasons demonstrative and yet all the credit which they can give to the historian, or all the additions they can make unto historical belief formerly planted, will be but probabilities or presumptions. Whether the moon was eclipsed at the time when Nicias was general for the Athenians against the Syracusians, or when Columbus made first discovery of America, are questions which may be scientifically resolved by astronomical calculations. But whether Nicias through ignorance of natural causes, and gross superstition, committed that intolerable oversight which (as a Plutarch relates) occasioned the overthrow of the Athenian forces by sea and land; or whether Columbus made that witty advantage of the like eclipse which "Benzo a But then it fell out unfortunately for Nicias, who had no expert nor skilful soothsayer: for the party which he was wont to use for that purpose, and which took away much of his superstition, called Stilbides, was dead not long before. For this sign of the eclipse of the moon (as Philochorus saith) was not hurtful for men that would fly, but contrarily very good; for, said he, things that men do in fear, would be hidden, and therefore light is an enemy unto them. But this notwithstanding, their custom was not to keep themselves close above three days in such eclipses of the moon and sun, as Autoclides prescribes in a book he made of such matters, where Nicias bare them in hand, that they should then tarry the whole and full revolution of the course of the moon, as though he had not seen her straight clear again, after she had once passed the shadow and darkness of the earth. But all other things laid aside and forgotten, Nicias disposed himself to sacrifice unto the gods, until such times as the enemies came again as well to besiege their forts and all their camp by land, as also to occupy the whole haven by sea.-Plutarch in Vita Niciæ in fine. b Almirans ob hæc ingenti animi ægritudine anxius, cum hinc Indos nec gratia, nec prece, nec pretio ullo adduci posse videret, ut cibaria exercitui præberent, nec armis ab se cogi propter infirmitatem suorum, alia via idem aggredi statuit. Atque id cœlesti quodam instinctu ei 571 in his History of America mentions, cannot be known by any computation astronomical or chronological: this wholly depends upon the authority of the historians. Yet if by calculations astronomical compared with the annals of those times, it should appear that there were no such eclipses in the years pretended for these practices, this would convince these historians, and those whom they follow, of error, if not of forgery. On the other side, if astronomers should make it clear, that in the points of time assigned by these historians there did fall out such eclipses of the moon, this would free them from suspicion of fiction so much the more, by how much they were less skilful or less observant of the celestial motions or revolutions of times wherein eclipses happen. 2. But sometimes the sensible events or experiments may square so well with historical relations, as to leave no place for curiosity itself to suspect either fiction or falsehood in the historian. As who could suspect the truth of the Roman histories which mention the subjection of this island to their empire for divers successions, if he had seen their coins lately digged out of the earth, bearing the inscriptions of twenty several emperors? Or who could suspect the historical truth of their progress into the northern parts of this kingdom, that have observed the ruins of that wall which they venisse in mentem libens equi- intra dies lunam sanguine fœdatam visuri essent. Id cum eadem die et hora, qua Almirans prædixerat, conspicarentur Indi (lunæ autem defectus is erat) subito victi formidine quæcunque ei ad victum necessaria fuerunt, benigne præbuere, insuper veniam culpæ orantes, neve ipsis irasci pergeret.-Benzo Hist. novi Orbis, 1. 1. c. 14. tom. ii. p. 63. built, and other monuments as suitable to their narrations as the seal is to the signet? The best is, that the experiments which suit unto the histories of the Old and New Testaments are more plentiful and more pregnant than any external ratifications of any other historical narrations can be: for of sacred historical truth, besides the legible testimonies of the great book of the creatures, every little world may have a world of witnesses in himself. Now if our belief of the histories concerning Christ and him crucified be but equal to our belief of other histories, yet their authority or esteem will be much greater, because we cannot believe this truth, but we must withal believe it to be divine; and every man by nature hath a more sacred esteem of matters which he conceives to be divine, than he can have of things merely mundane, or human. same. 3. But where the truth of historical belief is to our apprehension the very same, and the degrees of our assent unto it equal, yet the estimate of the same truth, or its impression upon our affections, is not the These vary according to the several weight of matters related, though by the same author, and believed by equal degrees of the same kind of belief. Of Edward the Second's strange defeat by Robert de Bruce king of Scotland, and of Edward the Third and the Black Prince his son, or Henry the Fifth their success against the French, we have but one and the same historical belief, whether for degree or quality; yet are we not the same way or in the same degree affected with the one story as with the other. The reading of Edward the Third or Henry the Fifth's success delighteth us English with the ancient honour of our nation. The remembrance of Edward the Second's |