[137] I must profess that the nature and wonderful difference of the godly and ungodly, and their conversation in the world, are perpetual, visible evidences in my eyes, of the truth of the holy Scriptures.
1. That there should be so universal and implacable a hatred against the godly in the common sort of unrenewed men, in all ages and nations of the earth, when these men deserve so well of them, and do them no wrong; is a visible proof of Adam's fall, and the need of a Saviour and a Sanctifier.
2. That all those who are seriously christians, should be so far renewed, and recovered from the common corruption, as their heavenly minds and lives, and their wonderful difference from other men showeth, this is a visible proof that christianity is of God.
3. That God doth so plainly show a particular special providence in the converting and confirming souls, by differencing grace, and work on the soul, as the sanctified feel, doth show that indeed the work is his.
4. That God doth so plainly grant many of his servants' prayers, by special providences, doth prove his owning them and his promises.
5. That God suffereth his servants in all times and places ordinarily to suffer so much for his love and service, from the world and flesh, doth show that there is a judgment, and rewards and punishments hereafter. Or else our highest duty would be our greatest loss; and then how should his government of men be just?
6. That the renewed nature (which maketh men better, and therefore is of God) doth wholly look at the life to come, and lead us to it, and live upon it, this showeth that such a life there is; or else this would be delusory and vain, and goodness itself would be a deceit.
7. When it is undeniable that _de facto esse_, the world is not governed without the hopes and fears of another life; almost all nations among the heathens believing it, (and showing, by their very worshipping their dead heroes as gods, that they believed that their souls did live,) and even the wicked generally being restrained by those hopes and fears in themselves. And also that, _de posse_, it is not possible the world should be governed agreeably to man's rational nature, without the hopes and fears of another life; but men would be worse than beasts, and all villanies would be the allowed practice of the world. (As every man may feel in himself what he were like to be and do, if he had no such restraint.) And there being no doctrine or life comparable to christianity, in their tendency to the life to come. All these are visible standing evidences, assisted so much by common sense and reason, and still apparent to all, that they leave infidelity without excuse; and are ever at hand to help our faith, and resist temptations to unbelief.
8. And if the world had not a beginning according to the Scriptures, 1. We should have found monuments of antiquity above six thousand years old. 2. Arts and sciences would have come to more perfection, and printing, guns, &c. not have been of so late invention. 3. And so much of America and other parts of the world would not have been yet uninhabited, unplanted, or undiscovered.
Of atheism I have spoken before in the Introduction; and nature so clearly revealeth a God, that I take it as almost needless to say much of it to sober men.
[138] Neque enim potest Deus qui summa veritas et bonitas est, humanum genus, prolem suam decipere. Marsil. Ficin. de. Rel. Chris. c. 1.
[139] Pietas fundamentum est omnium virtutum. Cic. pro Plan.
[140] Zenophon reporteth Cyrus as saying, If all my familiars were endued with piety to God, they would do less evil to one another, and to me. Lib. viii.
[141] Pietate adversus Deos sublatâ, fides etiam, et societas humani generis, et una excellentissima virtus justitia, tollatur necesse est. Cic. de Nat. Deo. 4.
[142] See my book called "A Saint or a Brute."
[143] Exod. vii. 13, 14; 2 Kings xvii. 14; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 13; Neh. ix. 16, 17, 29; Isa. lxiii. 17; Dan. v. 20; Mark vi. 52; viii. 17; iii. 5; John xii. 40; Acts xix. 9; Prov. xxviii. 14; xxix. 1; Matt. xix. 8; Mark xvi. 14; Rom. ii. 5.
[144] Non tamen ideo beatus est, quia patienter miser est. August de Civit. l. 14. c. 25.
[145] Lento gradu ad vindictam sui divina procedit ira: tarditatemque supplicii gravitate compensat. Valerius Max. de Dionys. 1. 1. c. 2.
[146] Feriemini, moriemini, sentietis: an cæci autem an videntes, id in vestra manu est. Optate igitur bene mori (quod ipsum nisi bene vixeritis frustra est). Optate, inquam, nitimini, et quod in vobis est facile: reliquum illi committite; qui vos in hanc vitam ultro non vocatos intulit; egressuris, non nisi vocatus et rogatus manum dabit. Non mori autem nolite optare. Petrarch. Dial. 107. 1. 2.