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The Prologue to the worke. (Book 1)
CHAP. I.
1. To beleeue there is a God, is the ground of all Religion. 2. The end and purpose of this Booke, is to proue that Position. 3. This cannot be beleeued, but by the helpe of Prayer. 4. It cannot be proued, a Priorj. 5. Yet may it be shewed, a Posteriori.
THe very first foundation of all pietie and Religion,* 1.1 is To beleeue there is a God: as it is generally beleeued, and confessed by all men, both by Christians, Iewes, and Heathen, if they hold any religion. The Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrewes,* 1.2 layeth this, as the first ground of all religion and Godlines, to beleeue, That God is. For, as Lactantius very truly noteth,* 1.3 Caput est primum Diuinae Legis, ipsum Deum nosse: It is the very first head of the law of God, to know and beleeue, that there is a God. And againe, a little after. Hic est Sapientiae primus gradus, vt sciamus, quis sit nobis verus Pater: This is the prime degree of wisedome,* 1.4 to know who is our true God and Father. Yea and Palingenius, vnto the same purpose.
—Prima est virtus, prim•• est sapientia, Regem Coelicolûm Patrem{que} hominum cognoscere— It's Mans prime vertue, Wisdom's chiefest thing, To know his Father to be Heauen's high King.
Nay,* 1.5 Pietas in Deum est super omnia, quasi culmen & corona virtutum; saith Theophilus Alexandrinus: Nay,* 1.6 Virtutum omnium principium, saith Philo Iu∣daeus. True pietie towards God,* 1.7 is not onely the highest, but also the first of all other vertues. Neither doe Christians onely reckon this,* 1.8 for the first stone in the building of Religion:* 1.9 but the Iewes doe also confirme the very same.* 1.10 Aben Ezra,* 1.11 in his Exposition of the ten Commandements, saith of the first of them, that, Hoc primum dictum, est fundamentum omnium nouem ver∣borum, quae sequuntur post ipsum. The first of the Commandements, (which prescribeth vnto vs the hauing of a God) is the very true foundation of all the other nine. Yea and the same is also confessed euen by the very Heathen.