mental parts of the faith once delivered to the saints; and though some of them may seem to be less weighty than others, yet they are so concatenated in themselves, that by the removal or destruction of any one of them, our interest in the others is utterly taken away. It will assuredly be granted, that the persuasion of the coming forth of the word immediately from God, in the way pleaded for, is the foundation of all faith, hope, and obedience. But what I pray will it advantage us, that God did so once deliver his word, if we are not assured also, that that word, so delivered, hath been by his special care and providence preserved entire and uncorrupt unto us; or that it doth not evidence and manifest itself to be his word, being so preserved. Blessed, may we say, were the ages past, who received the word of God in its unquestionable power and purity, when it shone brightly in its own glorious native light, and was free from those defects and corruptions, which through the default of men, in a long tract of time, it hath contracted; but for us, as we know not well where to lay a sure foundation of believing that this book rather than any other doth contain what is left unto us of that word of his, so it is impossible we should ever come to any certainty almost of any individual word, or expression, whether it be from God or no; far be it from the thoughts of any good man, that God, whose covenant with his church, is, that his word and Spirit shall never depart from it, Isa. lix. 21. Matt. v. 18. 1 Pet. i. 25. 1 Cor. xi. Matt. xxviii. 20. hath left it in uncertainties, about the things that are the foundation of all that faith and obedience which he requires at our hands. As then I have in the foregoing treatise, evinced, as I hope, the self-evidencing light and power of the Scripture, so let us now candidly, for the sake and in the pursuit of truth, deal with a mind freed from prejudices and disquieting affections, save only the trouble that arises from the necessity of dissenting from the authors of so useful a work, address ourselves to the consideration of what seems in these prolegomena and appendix to impair the truth of the other assertions, about the entire preservation of the word as given out from God, in the copies which yet remain with And this I shall do, not doubting, but that the per us. sons themselves concerned, will fairly accept and weigh what is conscientiously tendered. As then I do with all thankfulness acknowledge that many things are spoken very honourably of the originals in these prolegomena, and that they are in them absolutely preferred above any translation whatever, and asserted in general as the authentic rule of all versions, contrary to the thoughts of the publisher of the great Parisian Bibles, and his infamous hyperaspistes Morinus; so as they stand in their aspect unto the appendix of various lections, there are both opinions and principles confirmed by suitable practices, that are of the nature and importance before mentoned. 1. After a long dispute to that purpose, it is determined, that the Hebrew points or vowels, and accents, are a novel invention of some Judaical rabbins, about five or six hundred years after the giving out of the gospel. Hence, (1.) An antiquity is ascribed to some translations, two or three at the least, above and before the invention of these points, whose agreement with the original cannot therefore by just consequence be tried by the present text, as now pointed and accented. (2.) The whole credit of our reading and interpretation of the Scripture, as far as regulated by the present punctuation depends solely on the faithfulness and skill of those Jews, whose invention this work is asserted to be. 2. The 'n' of which sort are above eight hundred in the Hebrew Bibles, are various lections, partly gathered by some Judaical rabbins out of ancient copies, partly their critical amendments.e And, therefore, After these various lections, as they are esteemed, are presented unto us, in their own proper order wherein they stand in the great Bibles (not surely to increase the bulk of divers readings, or to present a face of new variety to a less attentive observer, but), to evidence, that they are such various lections as above described, they are given us over a second time, in the method whereinto they are cast by Capellus, the great patriarch of these mysteries.f c Prolegom. 7. sect. 17. d Ibid. 3. sect. 8, et seq. f Append. p. 5. 3. That there are such alterations befallen the original, as in many places may be rectified by the translations that have been made of old. And, therefore, Various lections may be observed and gathered out of those translations, by considering how they read in their copies, and wherein they differed from those which we now enjoy.h 4. It is also declared, that where any gross faults or corruptions are befallen the originals, men may by their faculty of critical conjecturing amend them, and restore the native lections that were lost; though in general without the authority of copies, this be not to be allowed.i And, therefore, A collection of various readings out of Grotius, consisting for the most part in such conjectures, is in the appendix presented unto us. 5. The voluminous bulk of various lections, as nakedly exhibited, seems sufficient to beget scruples and doubts in the minds of men, about the truth of what hath been hitherto by many pretended, concerning the preservation of the Scripture through the care and providence of God. It is known to all men acquainted with things of this nature, that in all these, there is no new opinion coined or maintained by the learned prefacer to these Bibles. The severals mentioned, have been asserted and maintained by sundry learned men. Had the opinion about them been kept in the ordinary sphere of men's private conceptions in their own private writings, running the hazard of men's judgments on their own strength and reputation, I should not from my former discourse have esteemed myself concerned in them. Every one of us must give an account of himself unto God. It will be well for us, if we are found holding the foundation. If we build hay and stubble upon it, though our work perish, we shall be saved. Let every man, in these things, be fully persuaded in his own mind, it shall be to me no offence. It is their being laid as the foun-dation of the usefulness of these Biblia Polyglotta, with an endeavour to render them catholic, not in their own strength, but in their appendage to the authority, that on good grounds Prolegom. 7. sect. 12. h Ibid. 6. sect. 8-10. i Ibid. 6. sect. 12. is expected to this work, that calls for a due consideration of them. All men who will find them stated in these prolegomena, may not perhaps have had leisure, may not perhaps have the ability, to know what issue the most of these things have been already driven unto, in the writings of private men. As I willingly grant then, that some of these things may, without any great prejudice to the truth, be candidly debated amongst learned men; so taking them altogether, placed in the advantages they now enjoy, I cannot but look upon them as an engine suited to the destruction of the important truth before pleaded for; and as a fit weapon put into the hands of men of atheistical minds and principles, such as this age abounds withal, to oppose the whole evidence of truth revealed in the Scripture. I fear with some, either the pretended infallible judge, or the depth of atheism, will be found to lie at the door of these considerations. Hoc Ithacus vellet.' But the debate of the advantage of either Romanists or atheists from hence, belongs to another place and season. Nor is the guilt of any consequences of this nature charged on the workmen, which yet may be feared from the work itself. CHAP. II. Of the purity of the originals. The airóypapa of the Scripture lost. That of Moses, how, and how long preserved; of the book found by Hilkiah. Of the Avroypapa of the New Testament. Of the first copies of the originals: the scribes of those copies not JeóñvevotoL. What is ascribed to them. The great and incomparable care of the scribes of it. The whole word of God, in every tittle of it, preserved entire in the copies of the original extant. Heads of arguments to that purpose. What various lections are granted in the original of the Old and New Testament. Sundry considerations concerning them, manifesting them to be of no importance. That the Jews have not corrupted the text; the most probable instances considered. HAVING given an account of the occasion of this discourse, and mentioned the particulars that are, all, or some of them, to be taken into farther consideration, before I proceed to their discussion, I shall, by way of addition and explanation to what hath been delivered in the former treatise, give a brief account of my apprehensions concerning the purity of the present original copies of the Scripture, or rather copies of the original languages, which the church of God doth now, and hath for many ages enjoyed, as her chiefest treasure; whereby it may more fully appear, what it is we plead for, and defend against the insinuations and pretences above mentioned. k First, then, it is granted that the individual avróypapa of Moses, the prophets, and the apostles, are in all probability, and as to all that we know, utterly perished and lost out of the world. As also the copies of Ezra. The reports mentioned by some to the contrary, are open fictions. The individual ink and parchment, the rolls or books that they wrote, could not without a miracle have been preserved from mouldering into dust before this time. Nor doth it seem improbable, that God was willing by their loss to reduce us to a nearer consideration of his care and providence in the preservation of every tittle contained in them. Had those individual writings been preserved, men would have been ready to adore them, as the Jews do their own àwóɣpapa in their synagogues. Moses indeed delivered his original copy of the Pentateuch, in a public assembly, unto the Levites (that is, the sons of Korah), to be put into the sides of the ark, and there kept for a perpetual monument; Deut. xxxi. 25, 26. That individual book was, I doubt not, preserved until the destruction of the temple. There is indeed no mention made of the book of the law in particular, when the ark was solemnly carried into the holy place after the building of Solomon's temple; 2 Chron. v. 4, 5. but the tabernacle of the congregation continued until then. That, and all that was in it, is said to be brought up; ver. 5. Now the placing of the book by the sides of the ark being so solemn an ordinance, it was no doubt observed. Nor is there any pretence to the contrary. Some think the book found by Hilkiah, in the days of Josiah, was this καλὴ παραθήκη, οι αὐτόγραφον οι Moses, which was placed by the sides of the ark. It rather seems to have been some ancient sacred copy, used in the service of the temple, and laid up there; as there was in the second temple, which was carried in triumph to Rome. Adrianus Ferrariensis flagellum Judæor. lib. 9. c. 2. Rab. Azarias Meor Hepa. 13. cap. 9. Joseph. de Bell. Judaic. lib. 7 cap. 24. naim. |