gloire qu'ils meritent, tout ce qu'ils y gagnent, c'est qu'on les traite de VISIONNAIRES." It is true, if men will come to the study of Scripture with unwashen hands, that is, without a due reverence for the dignity of those sacred Volumes, or, which is as ill, with unpurged heads, that? is, heads stuffed with bigot systems, or made giddy with cabalistic flights, they will deserve that title which Pascal observes is so unjustly given to those who deserve best of the Public.

But to return to those with whom I have principal concern. I make no question but my Freethinking Adversaries, to whose temper and talents I am no stranger, will be ready to object,

I." That the giving a solution of a difficulty in the Old Testament by the assistance of the New, considered together as making up one intire Dispensation, is an unfair way of arguing against an Unbeliever: who supposing both the Jewish and Christian Religions to be false of consequence supposes them to be independent on one another; and that this pretended relation was a contrivance of the Authors of the later imposture to give it strength, by ingrafting the young shoot into the trunk of an old flourishing Superstition. Therefore, will they say, if we would argue with success against them, we must seek a solution of their difficulties in that Religion alone, from which they arise."-Thus I may suppose them to argues. And I apprehend they will have no reason to say I have put worse arguments into their mouths than they are accustomed to employ against Revelation.

I reply then, that it will admit of no dispute, but that, d if they may have the liberty of turning JUDAISM and CHRISTIANITY into two Phantoms of their own devising, they will have a very easy victory over Both. This is t an old trick, and has been often tried with success. By!! this slight-of-hand conveyance TINDAL hath juggled fools out of their Religion. For, in a well-known book written by him against Revelation, he hath taken ad

vantage

vantage of the indiscretion of some late Divines to lay it down as a Principle, that Christianity is ONLY a republication of the Religion of Nature: The consequence of which is, that CHRISTIANITY and JUDAISM are independent Institutions. But sure the Deist is not to obtrude his own Inventions, in the place of those Religions he endeavours, to overthrow. Much less is he to beg the question of their falsity; as the laying it down that the Jewish and Christian are two independent Religions, certainly is: because Christianity claims many of its numerous Titles to divinity from and under Judaisın. If therefore Deists will not, yet Christians of necessity. must take their Religion as they find it. And if they will remove objections to either Economy, they must reason on the Principle of Dependency. And while they do so, their reasonings will not only be fair and logical, but every solution, on such a Principle, will, besides its determination on the particular point in question, be a new proof of the divinity of Both, in general; because such a relation, connexion, and dependency between two Religions of so distant times, could not come about by chance, or by human contrivance, but must needs be the effect of Divine prevision. For a Deist, therefore, to bid us remove his objections on the principle of independency, is to bid us prove our religion true on a principle that implies its falsehood; the New Testament giving us no other idea of Christianity than as of a Religion dependent on, con nected with, and the completion of Judaism.

But now suppose us to be in this excess of complaisance for our Adversaries; and then see whether the ingenuity of their acceptance would not equal the reasonableness of their demand. Without doubt, were we once so foolish to swallow their Chimeras for the heavenly Manna of Revelation, we should have them amongst the first to cry out upon the prevarication. I speak not this at random. The fact hath already happened. Cer

tain advocates of Religion, unable to reconcile to their
notions of logic, the sense of some Prophecies in the Old
Testament, as explained in the applications of the Writers
of the New, thought it best to throw aside the care of
the JEWISH RELIGION, (a burden which they could as
ill bear as the rebellious Israelites themselves) and try
to support the CHRISTIAN, by proving its divine Origi-
nal, independently and from itself alone. Upon this
Mr. COLLINS (for I have chosen to instance in these two
general dealers in Freethinking; the small retailers of
it vanishing as fast as they appear; for who now talks
of Blount or Coward? or who hereafter will talk of
Strutt or Morgan? *) that the world may see how little
they agreed about their own principles, or rather how little
regard they paid to any principles at all; Mr. Collins,
I say, wrote a book to exclaim against our ill faith; and
to remind us of, and to prove to us, the inseparable con-
nexion between the Old and New Testament. This
was no unseasonable reproof, howsoever intended, for so
egregious a folly. I will endeavour to profit by it; and
manage this Controversy on their own terms. For what-
ever prevarication appeared in the Objectors, I conceived
they had demanded no more than what they might rea-
sonably expect. But the advantages arising to us from
this management soon made them draw back, and mo
retract what they had demanded; and now they chicane
with us for calling in the assistance of the New Testa-
ment to repel their attacks upon the Old†; while, at the
same time, they think themselves at liberty to use the
assistance of the Old to overthrow the New. Let the
Friends of Revelation, however, constantly and uniformly
hold the inseparable connexion between the two Dispen-
sations; and then, let our Enemies, if they will, as they
fairly may, take all the advantages they fancy they have
against us, from the necessity we lie under of so doing.

* See note [T] at the end of this Book.
See note [U] at the end of this Book.

In a word, We give them Judaism and Christianity as Religions equally from Heaven; with that reciprocal dependence on each other, which arises between two things bearing the mutual relation of foundation and superstructure. They have it in their choice to oppose our pretensions, either by disputing with us that dependency, or raising difficulties on the foot of it. But while they only suppose it visionary; and then argue against each. Religion, on that supposition, they only beg the question. And while they do that, we keep within the rules of good logic, when we remove their objections on that principle of dependency laid down in Scripture. This restrictive rule of interpretation being however still observed, That, in explaining any difficulty in the Old Testament, we never, on pretence of such dependency, forsake the genius and manners of the times in question, and serve ourselves of those of the later Christian period, as Collins (whether truly or no, let Thein look to, who are concerned in it) upbraids some defenders of Christianity for doing. This rule is here, I presume, observed with sufficient exactness; the foundation of my interpretation of the Command being that ancient mode of converse, so much at that time in use, of conversing by actions.

II. But the Adversaries of Revelation, how easily soever they may be confuted, are not so easily silenced. They are ready to object, that we fly to the old exploded refuge of a TYPE, which the Author of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion hath shewn to be visionary and senseless; the mere illogical whimsy of Cabalistic Jews. To this I answer,

They are doubly mistaken. This interpretation is not founded in any typical sense whatsoever; the person of Isaac on the Mount being no more a Type of Christ than the six letters that compose the name are a Type of him; but only an arbitrary mark to stand for the idea of Christ, as that word does. So that their cry against

Types,

Types, whatever force it may have, does not at all affect this interpretation.

2. But, secondly, I say, A TYPE is neither visionary, nor senseless, notwithstanding the disgrace which this mode of information hath undergone by the mad abuses of Fanaticism and Superstition. On the contrary, I hold it to be a just and reasonable manner of denoting one thing by another: not the creature of the imagination, made out of nothing to serve a turn; but as natural and apposite a figure as any employed in human converse. For Types arose from that original mode of communication, the conversing by actions: the difference there is between these two modes of information being only this, that, where the action is simply significative, it has no moral import: For example, when Ezekiel is bid to shave his beard, to weigh the hair in balances, to divide it into three parts, to burn one, to strike another with a knife, and to scatter the third part in the wind*, this action having no moral import is merely significative of inførmation given. But when the Israelites are commanded to take a male lamb without blemish, and the whole assem bly of the congregation to kill it, and to sprinkle the blood upon the door-posts, this action having a moral import as being a religious Rite, and, at the same time, representative of something future, is properly typicul. Hence arose the mistake of the Interpreters of the Command to offer Isaac. These men supposing the action commanded to have a morul import, as being only for a trial of Abraham's faith; and, at the same time, seeing in it the most exact resemblance of the death of CHRIST, very wrongly concluded that action to be typical which was merely significative: and by this means, leaving in the action a moral import, subjected it to all those cavils of infidelity, which, by taking away all moral import, as not belonging to it, are here entirely evaded.