The general Title of 〈◊〉 Books of the New Testament is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. but is not Canonical say Grotius and Hammond and yet they Comment upon it being added by the Church when the Inspir'd Books were put together That Title The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews is found in all MSS. Copies says Beza except one only which I hope will break no squares Now Grotius is of Opinion Luke wrote this Epistle others Barnabas some Clemens Romanus Dr. Hammond that the Author is uncertain this being the very Reason many Churches receiv'd not this Epistle into the Canon of a good while I must not pass the particular Reason which the Latin Churches gave for their rejecting this Epistle to the Heb. sc because some things were in it favouring the Novatian Heresie as they then judg'd Mr. Pool imputes this to their Ignorance but challenges them not with Blasphemy nor did I ever hear that Grotius Hammond and the rest who deny Paul to be the Author of this Epistle were ever censur'd as Blasphemers St. John doubtless was the Author of those three Epistles that go under his Name but not of the Titles also This Apostle and Evangelist for some special Reasons conceal'd his Name when he wrote contrary to the practice of the rest Nor can I believe any other inspir'd Person affixt those Titles it being highly improbable that John by the Spirit should conceal himself and another by the same Spirit should discover him I hope Mr. O. will not call me Blasphemer for this The meaning of all is the Church of God did ever take the Liberty of giving Titles unto Books sometines by Conjecture and sometimes of certain knowledge as we at this day prefix the Contents before Chapters and call the Books of Psalms in Metre The Psalms of David which is not the Hebrew Title Or else the Copiers of them did it for obvious Reasons viz. that holy Men might more readily upon occasion go to such Books and consult 'em as they lay in their Closets or Libraries among other Volumes of the Scripture Briefly the Titles of the Psalms and of the several Books of Scripture must as I conceive run the same fate all must be of a certainty Canonical or none at all can be Mr. O. has himself confest enough to overthrow the whole Fabrick of his elaborate Discourse on this Subject He acknowledges Vind. p. 47. It was a prevailing Opinion that all the Psalms were Penn'd by David that August Chrysost and Bede and several Jewish Doctors thought so What then will become of the Title of the 90th and of many other Psalms Were they of a certainty of their Penning unto whom they are ascrib'd in the Hebrew Text Or is the Rector singular in a doubtful Point when he has so many giving in their Testimony on his side Tho' by the way I see no great harm in being singular when the Point is doubtful but much more I apprehend not that there is any Blasphemy in such Singularity Besides I pray Sir take notice how Mr. O. expresseth himself concerning the Title of the 137. Psal It is not material to us who compos'd it we are satisfied it was divinely inspir'd But is it not as material that one Psalm should have a Title to unsold its Mysteries as another And why will not he give me leave to declare my self thus It is not material to me what becomes of the Titles I am satisfy'd the Psalms themselves were dâ—vinely Inspir'd I make no reckoning of those Critical Disputes about the 90th Psal whether Moses or David or any other Inspir'd Person penn'd that Psalm I am content to believe it Canonical Great then is the power of Truth you see It will out sometimes even before a Man is aware But after all this I will now suppose what I believe you will not grant that Mr. O. has clear'd his Point beyond contradiction yet still I must condemn Mr. D. and his Vindicator too for reflecting on us because we leave out an essential part of the Psalms in our Liturgy Translation I argu'd formerly Ser. p. 4. R. R. p. 15. The Dissenters translate 'em not all some part of 'em Translated is thrust out of the Text into the Margin like a various Reading or mere conjecture or as not material but to this he offers nothing I added They leave 'em out of the Metrical Psalms neither do they sing ' em But he endeavours to take off this Retort thus The Titles were not design'd to be sung V. p. 53. Good 'T is my very Plea in Defence of the Church of England our Liturgy Translation was design'd for singing but the Titles were not No says Mr. O. You read that Translation I answer 1. Some negligent Ministers do indeed read 'em 't is their Fault 2. Some conforming Nonconformists will read 'em 't is their Crime 3. Some cannot prevail with their People to bear a part in the rehearsing 'em 't is their Unhappiness But still this Translation is design'd not for Reading and Instruction in the Publick Worship but Devotion For the Order of the Church is that the Psalms in this Translation should be said or sung said that is at least repeated alternatim by Minister and People which is a species of singing as we believe Observe then they are sung in all Cathedrals they are repeated in multitudes of Parochial Churches and Noblemens Chappels What would the Man have more Shall the Infelicity of some Ministers the Treachery of others or the Carelessness of another sort be thought sufficient to force the Church to take new measures and lay aside her Liturgy Translation I trow not Besides you should observe further that if the Titles be Canonical they ought at least to have been Printed with the Metrical Psalms tho' not sung So the Jews did Briefly here 's nothing but Cavil not a shadow of Answer But Mr. O. concludes Their the Dissenters not reading the Titles in the Congregation and out of the other Translation is an Innocent Omission Hem an Innocent Omission Verily I cannot get this down If the Titles be an Essential part of the Psalms and useful to unfold the Mysteries in them as Mr. O. Mr. D. will have it can there be a more Sacrilegious Omission than first not to Translate the Titles exactly and then neglect the Reading them Not to make use of the Canonical Key but to burst violently and blindly into the Chambers of Divine Secrets like Thieves and Robbers Besides a little Justice would have taught Mr. O. that our not Printing the Titles is as innocent an Omission as their not Reading ' em One might reasonably expect just Weights and Measures Either let the whole body of Christians throughout the World come under the Charge of being Corrupters of the Psalms or let the Church of England and the Rector pass in the Croud as Innocent also Why should we be made an Example when even our Accusers themselves are
THE Further Vindication c. OF Mr. Owen Consider'd in a LETTER to a Friend SIR IN Obedience to your Commands I send you here a short Account of my Thoughts concerning Mr. O's Further Vindication c. In the way of Writing he has taken up he is not I believe to be parallel'd having out-done all Men living a Bar and half except haply two or three of the United Brethren who have sufficiently expos'd Mr. Baxter and Father Alsop I shall not so much as endeavour to requite him Prov. 26. 4. R. R. being oblig'd to the contrary and having already engag'd my self thereto by Promise which I will religiously observe For which Reason you must not expect here a particular Answer or that I should follow him step by step My Work then as well as Yours would be endless and it would be difficult for me not to retort some of his ill Language and discover many of his Misrepresentations or Mistakes which he is not capable of enduring nor you willing to be troubl'd with All my Design and I suppose your expectation is that the whole Argument be laid plain and open unto the view of any one of common Sense This I propose to my self to do in the Order of the Sermon and as briefly as I can And first you must remember that Mr. De Laune severely tax'd the Church of England as guilty of diminishing from the Word of God by leaving out the Titles of the Psalms in our Liturgy Translation and that I undertook the defence of this Omission first from the uncertainty of the Titles being Canonical Now I submit it to your Judgment or any observant Reader 's weighing the Arguments on both sides as they are to be found in Rem and in R's on R's whether Mr. O. who is Mr. D's Vindicator has given a convincing Proof of the Certainty of the Titles being Canonical I say this is submitted to your Judgment without more ado This notwithstanding I shall here have occasion to repeat some things and observe others de novo which will minister some further satisfaction in this controverted Point Mr. O. Vind. p. has not stuck to pronounce me a Blasphemer and to give me words of Brass because I affirm'd many of the Titles were to no purpose at all nay he will not allow that my suppos'd Ignorance can make any Attonement for me tho' God himself winked at the times of Ignorance But let us look back unto the Rector's obvious meaning Mr. D. contended that the Titles unfolded the Mysteries of the Psalms the Rector deny'd that they serve to any such purpose at all R. R. p. 15. Ex. gr A Psalm a Song c. These Titles unlock no Mysteries that I know of and if they must needs be call'd Keys they want Wards Other Titles are infinitely more Mysterious than the Psalms themselves It cannot be thought the Holy Ghost meant to give us them as Keys to open the secret Sense of the Psalms that would be to explain obscurum per obscurius which I am perswaded the Spirit of God would never have done When Jesus Christ expounded his Parables he made 'em clear as the Sun Besides whereas the Mysteries of the Gospel are confirm'd out of an abundance of Passages in the Psalms I do not find one Title brought to prove any one Mystery tho' indeed some Fathers who delighted Ludere campo Scripturarum as Jerom speaks took a liberty to find out I know not what Mysteries in the Titles But to return R. R. p. 13. I pleaded formerly that the Chaldee Paraphrase the Syriack Arabick and the LXX Version generally us'd by the Hellenistical Jews and the Christians for several Ages differ much from the Hebrew that Gregory Nyssen observ'd there was not an intire Agreement between the Christians and the Jews about the Titles especially of Psal 2 3 4 5 6 8 c. That this Father asserts not the Divine Authority of the Titles but Ecclesiastical Custom By the way note that Mr. O. has declin'd giving any sort of Answer to this Testimony of Nyssen Synop. Crit. I add Grotius believ'd Moses was not the Pen man of the 90th Psal Eben Ezra affirms the 6th Psal was compos'd not by David as the Title has it but in the Captivity by some other Person Doth it not follow hence that according to the judgment of these Churches and these Authors the Titles are not Canonical at least not certainly so And are they to be all damn'd for so many Blasphemers It might have suffic'd Mr. O. to have let alone the charge of Blasphemy which I fancy is a little too much and to have contented himself with ranking me among Dunces tho' at the same time you see I have some not contemptible Company I do not know any better way to clear this Matter than by considering the Titles of the several Books of Scripture some whereof are most certainly not Canonical not one of a certainty such and some doubtful The first Section of Moses's Pentateuch is in Hebrew call'd Beresith but in the LXX Genesis and in our English Translation The first Book of Moses called Genesis Are we Dissenters and all yea and all Christendom Blasphemers for departing from the Hebrew The truth is I do not believe the Author of the Pentateuch divided his Work into Five Sections or Books but the Church of the Jews who for convenience intituled each Section from the first word of it tho' the LXX more judiciously from the principal design and matter contain'd in those Sections I prefer the Title of the LXX to that of the Heb. in the Historical part of the Kings In Heb. we find the First and Second Book of Samuel in the LXX more properly and truly call'd the First and Second Book of Kings Samuel died 1. Sam. 25. The rest of this and the next Book was not neither could be written by Samuel nor concerning him but the Kings of Israel and Samuel himself is I conceive comprehended in Kings being the Supreme Judge The Heb. divides the Psalter into Five Sections Are we and the Dissenters all Blasphemers for leaving this Division out of our Translation If it be answer'd that some Heb. Copies have not these Five Sections or Books of the Psalter which I know not nor will trouble my self to examin I ask which are the true and uncorrupted Copies for both cannot be and why do we follow the latter Copies rather than those which are 〈◊〉 in all Men's hands The Books of the Prophets are thus intitul'd The Book of the Prophet Isaiah c. and the Apostles Epistles thus The Epistle of Paul to the Romans c. I cannot think the inspir'd Prophets and Apostles set these Titles on the head of their Books or Letters For they prefixt their Names themselves at the beginning and as part of the Body of those Books and Letters but the Titles on the top were added for conveniency There needed no Inspiration to do this
guilty of the same Omission I leave you then to judge how well Mr. O. has acquitted himself on this first Question The next is about the Verses interpolated Psal 14. I remit you to what I have in Sermon and R. R. offer'd on this Argument and to inform your self thence whether Mr. D. did honestly impute it unto us that we foisted them in and whether Mr. O. has thoroughly justify'd him But I 'll in a few words consider Mr. O.'s Vindication of Jerom whom he would sain lick clean if it were possible He informs us who they are that have commended him and it 's confest he was a great Man but perhaps his truest Character is Magnae virtutes nec minora In the Point about Bishops it has been often enough laid to his charge that he says and unsays and contradicts himself In the Letters which he exchang'd with St. Austin he maintain'd the lawfulness of Dissimulation and endeavour'd to excuse Peter and Barnabas He is believed to have been disgusted for nor being made a Bishop and on that score depressed the Order as low as he could with any colour of Truth Nor did he escape the suspicion of Besides he was so bent against the LXX that he blusht not to abuse 'em chusing to represent 'em by some corrupt Copies rather than by the known and unquestionable reading I will give you two Instances Zach. 12. 10. cited by St. John 19. 37. They shall look on him whom they pierced Jerom's LXX it seems read not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even as our LXX doth at this day But Jerom might if he would have been ingenuous have taken notice of what he could not be ignorant that the right reading in the LXX was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is witnessed by four Fathers more early than himself Justin M. in his Dialogue against Trypho the Jew Tertullian likewise frequently De Resurrect c. 26 51. De carne Christi c. 24. St. Cyprian in his 20 Testimony against those People To whom add Lactantius also Zach. 13. 4. He makes the LXX speak perfect Nonsense non sum Prophetes ego quia Homo genuit me à Juventute meâ Whereas even in our present LXX we read thus agreeably with the Heb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Finally I observ'd in R. R. how scandalously he abus'd St. Luke No replies Mr. O. For as Paul is call'd a Babler by the Athenians so was Luke accounted by the Nations an obscure vile Person and of no great credit not by Jerom tho' Jerom relates it as Luke did that of Paul But there are many differences between the one and the other Luke was an Inspir'd Historian flourish'd when what he relates of Paul happen'd it may be had his Relation from the Apostle himself and had no Cause to support But Jerom liv'd about 350 Years after Luke Writes what he backs with no Authority or probable proof and was now calling into question the truth of Luke's History There is then all the Reason in the World to believe that this Character of Luke tho' father'd on the Gentiles was the Issue of Jerom's own Brain to disparage the LXX and to set up the Heb. Bible Nor did St. Luke write the Acts for the use of the Gentiles as Mr. O. asserts tho' in time 't is true it might fall into their hands But the Historian addresses it to Theophilus a Christian Chap. 1. 1. And what if Jerom's Gentes were the Gentile Believers Did they esteem Luke obscure vile and of little Reputation Sure if this was his meaning Jerom was not a little mistaken to speak as softly as I can Besides can any one believe Luke was less considerable among the unbelieving Nations than the other Inspir'd Writers He was the most learned of 'em all except perhaps Paul His Greek as Criticks say is the purest of all He was a known Physician which doubtless commended him to the esteem of the Nations both Jews and Gentiles as he travell'd along with Paul and that before his Writings were ever published So that Jerom cannot be shelter'd by pretending not he but the Nations accounted him obscure c. For this Father further affirms Non debuit c. St. Luke ought not to write any thing contrary to the Scriptures that were then in the hands of the Nations that is contrary to the corrupt LXX Here you see he magisterially declares what the Spirit of God ought not to do Belike for fear of disobliging them who as yet had not the Hebrew verity among them Right Jerom all over The Inspirâ—d Evangelist Luke to serve a small turn must tell a Lye Or lest he should offend the Nations must dissemble the Truth The Hebrew verity and this without all regard to the Jews and Jewish Converts whom he must needs scandalize thereby Here is Dissimulation with a witness and made a necessary Duty non debuit in an Inspir'd Pen-man of Scripture Whoever is dispos'd to vindicate Jerom may go to his Letters written to St. Augustin and furnish himself with Arguments enow to that purpose But shall a Man lye for God Surely Jerom's much Oriental Learning made him mad I will not say a Blasphemer In fine that Jerom fram'd this Character for Luke in the name of the Nations will appear from what he adds Hoc generaliter observandum quòd ubicunque SS Apostoli Apostolici viri loquuntur ad populos iis plerumque Testimoniis abutuntur quae jam fuerant in Gentibus divulgata The Holy Apostles and Apostolick Men neglecting the Hebrew verity when they speak to the People make use of those Testimonies viz. which Jerom contended were mistaken and false out of the LXX which had already been divulg'd among the Nations 〈◊〉 Is not this superfine Doctrine One needs not be Hypercritical to observe hence that Jerom makes the Apostles and their Companions in Preaching the Gospel to be a Pack of Dissemblers and guilty of the same pious Frauds and holy Cheats that he before suggested particularly of Luke Once more Commenting on Mic. 5. 2. He thus delivers himself Sunt autem qui asserunt c. There are who affirm I believe no body but himself that almost in all the Testimonies which are brought out of the Old Testament this Error is committed either that the Order is chang'd or the Words and sometimes the very sense is different the Apostles or Evangelists not gathering their Testimonies out of the Book but trusting to their Memories which sometimes faild them Sir Can you read these Lines without Horrour and Amasement The Spirit of God surely whereby they wrote forgot not himself tho' they did That which follows from the whole is that Jerom is not defended The LXX as to that Passage in the Acts Chap. 7. was in Jerom's days more correct than the Hebrew verity now is and that the LXX was follow'd by the Inspir'd Infallible Apostles and Apostolical Men as Jerom acknowledgeth May it not then be inferr'd