at large in the 12th Book of his Jewish Antiquities Some will needs imagine that Antiochus so far prevailed in this undertaking that the Scriptures then Extant were wholly Destroyed But the contrary is most evident and a special providence in their preservation sufficiently visible For no sooner was that storme over but the Bible was every where publickly extant having been particularly preserved by Matthias the Son of Asmonaeus and his sons who as Josephus says resolutely ventured their Lives in the doing it and also by other good men and was universally known in that Age amongst the Jews to be so Calvin in the first book of his Institutes observes That though the Jews had undergone the malice of manifold Enemies on all hands yet neither the Loss nor the Change nor the Corruption of their Law was ever by their worst Enemies objected against them And indeed how great soever their enmity was against their Religion yet they never denied but that Moses was the Author of it and that the Law they had was the Same He deliâ—cred at first Under the New Testament since the closure and completion of the Whole What a fâ—â—ious Persecution did the Bible esâ—ape in the time of Dioclesian Who after the grievous sufferings of the Christians in Mine fore Persecutions assaults them about the year 302 with the sorest and most cruel of all and with a full purpose to root Christianity utterly out of the world and destroy its very Name from the face of the Earth Euselius tells us that in the Nineteenth year of his Reign He publisht an Edict against the Christians and Christianity it self In which he so much Gloried that he caused a Pillar to be erected as his Memorial to all posterity with this Inscription Dioclesiano Casari Augusto superstitione Christi ubique deleta To Dioclesian the Emperour having abolished the superstition of Christ all the world over By that Edict he commands that the Christian-Churches should every where be demolished the Christians all Seized and Imprisoned Et quibuâ—cunque adhiâ—itis Machinis victimas Idolis immolare cogerentur That by all sorts of means fair and foul they should be brought to sacrifice unto his Idoâ—s And that the Scriptures should be every where sought for burnt and destroyed And whoever Retained them should be most sharply Tormented Dioclesian at this time had the command of the greatest part of the Habitable world For as one of the Roman Writers said Romanâ— spatium est Vrbis Orbis idem The Scriptures were then but in Written hand Men generally Quak'd with the fear of that Raging Tyrant Very many Apostatized and delivered up the Bible to his wrath and were thereupon branded with the name of Traditores of which and of the whole business we might perhaps have had a larger account had not The Life of Deoclesian written by Eusthenius his Secretary been since lost For As Baronius has rightly observed in his Annalls We have now no Writer who did at that time Historically set down the Actions of that Emperour Yet God by his Providence delivered this Book out of his hand Disappointed his fury and suffered him not to quench the Light of these Divine Laws The Christians at that time Tired out the Inventions of their Enemies in finding out ways to torment them and by their constant and patient suffering the utmost of humane misery even wearied out their Executioners One remarkable passage we have in Euseblus that happened upon this occasion A noble man in Nicomedia of eminent Quality hearing this Edict against the Christians and the Bible published at Nicemedâ—a After it was Read and openly fixed to a publick Pillar in the presence of Dioclesian himself Maximinius Galerius Constantius and other the Chiefest persons in the Empire for 't was usual with the Emperors to come themselves in Person with their chiefest Attendanâ—s to hear their own Edicts against the Christians proclaimed to see the Christians tormented and to make themselves sport with their miseries this Noble man had such a zeal for the Bible and the Christian Religion that before the Emperors face he took down that prophane and impious Edict and with a Holy indignation openly tore it to pieces and and thereby willingly exposed himself to the utmost suffering the fury and rage of the Emperour could any way make him the subject of Two things are usually urged in diminution of the â—â—ble and its Authority upon a quite contrary account We are told by some The Bible has been so far from being preserved intire in the whole or in its parts that first all that part of the Bible that was then extant when the people of Israel were carryed into Babylon periâ—â—ed in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and that Esdras wrote it himself all over again upon their return and that we have now so much of the Bible only from Him and as he Re-pâ—â—ned it In this Mr. Hobs in the 33 Chapter of his Leviathan where he has not failed to insinuate all such things as might gratifie men of Sceptical notions about the Bible is very positive and tells us The Books of the Old Testament are derived to us from no other time then that of Esdras and were retrived by him when they were lost And Secondly we are told that many particular Books and Writings penned by Divine inspiration and once part of the Bible have been since consumed by Time and are now wholly lost out of the World The first That so much of the Old Testament as was then extant which was the whole as we have it save some part of the Psalms the Prophecies of Ezeâ—iel Daniel Haggai Zachary and Masachai and the Books of Esther Ezra and Nehemiah was totally lost and all the Copies destroyed in the ruine of Jerusalem and the Temple is an assertion very weakly grounded And there are very sufficient Reasons to perswade us to believe the contrary First Weakly grounded for there is no other ground for it but that in an Apocryphal Book that goes under the Title of the fourth Book of Esdras a Book every where stuffed with Childish and fabulous Stoties There we find this absurd fiction that Esdras should speak unto God and tell him Thy Law is burnt and no man knoweth the things that thou hast done and therefore desired to be inspired to write it all over again and to wrire all that had been done in the World from the beginning And that after he had been forty days and nights with God in an apish foolish imitation of Moses and had taken a Potion God had prepared for him he dictated all the Bible over again to five men Now of how little credit this Relation being no where found but in this Book ought to be with any considering man will appear if we consider that this Book was not only constantly rejected as Apocryphal by the Jewish Church as a counterfeit under Esdras his name and none of his but has been so by all
we have now contained in our Bables all that was written by a Divine Inspiration and intended as a Rule to the Church and no more That is How can we now be safely assured about the Canon of the Scripture and be able upon good grounds to say what is Canonical and what is not 'T is too apparent a Truth that nothing by the power of its own worth and excellency has ever been able to scape contempt and reproach from the unruly wills and debauched minds of corrupt and unreasonable men The Bible has met with its share in this kind Some upon Fanatical Pretences have despised and rejected the Whole Others have mangled and severed it as themselves thought good receiving some part only as Divine and rejecting the rest as they pleased Of this Iraeneus Tertullian Epiphanius St. Austin and many of the Christian Writers have given us a large account The Manichees rejected the whole body of the Old Testament as coming from an Evil God The Ptolemaites as Epiphamus tells us rejected all the Books of Moses The Gnosticks with some other Hereticks rejected the whole Book of Psalms Cerdon and after him Marcion rejected all the Gospels but that of St. Luke the Acts of the Apostles and divers other parts of the New Testament as we find by Tertullian The Valentimans rejected all the Gospels but that of St. John as we see in Irenaeus Others rejected all that St. John wrote The Ebionites received no Gospel but that of St. Matthen and rejected in gross all the Epistles of St. Paul In a word There is not one Part of the Bible from the first to the last that has scap'd the reprobation of some bad Men. But all such attempts were soon blown away expired in the Birth bore about them their own shame and reproach made no considerable battery upon the Truth in any Age Nor did they reach further than the vitiated Minds and corrupt Breasts of such Profligate Hereticks as were the first Authors of them In answering to this Question How we come to be well assured about the Canon of the Bible and that those Books now received by the Church of England and other Protestant Churches as such are all Canonical and no other Two things only will occur that are of any seeming moment In the due consideration of which all will be said that is needful about this Matter First How we come to reject out of our Canon those Books commonly called Apocryphal which were written at least all but one of them during the times of the Old Testament And secondly Upon what grounds we now receive some particular parts of the New Testament which have sometimes layen under question If we mistake in the first we have less in our Bibles than we ought If in the latter we have much more than we should About the first concerning the several parts of the Old Testament there is amongst Christians themselves a present Disagreement But concerning the other the whole Christian World is at this day of the same opinion For the First That there is good Reason to reject those Books commonly called the Apocrypha that they were not written by any Divine Inspiration nor sent us from GOD as any part of those Supream Laws by which he intended to rule and judge the World and so ought not to be reckoned within the Canon will be made very evident to any reasonable Judge upon these Considerations following First After the time of Esdras and the erection of the second Temple 't is universally agreed by all the most Antient Jews and Christians that the Jews had no Prophet amongst them Nor did GOD raise up any Man with an Extraordinary Spirit from the time of Malachi who is agreed to be the last Prophet till John the Baptist Which was for the space of four hundred and odde years Now 't is sufficiently evident that these Apocryphal Books were all written after the time of Malachi and so can be of no extraordinary Mission And if any of them had been written before and had been extant in Ezra's time which they were not it had been an unanswerable Reason for their Rejection now Because they were not received then For 't is well known that none of these Books now in question were by Him incorporated with the rest of the Bible nor were within the Canon at that time setled That the Jews had no Prophets by whom all parts of the old-Old-Testament were written For the Church is built upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles And the whole of the Old-Testament is called Prophecy nor any Men of an Extraordinary Spirit amongst them after the Captivity both Jews and Christians generally agree Josephus is express in it in his first Book against Appion he tells us that from the time of Artaxerxes though certain Books had been written yet they deserved not the same Credit and Belief that the Sacred Scriptures did because there was no succession of Prophers amongst them Saint Austine in the 45th Chapter of his 18th Book De Civitate Dei sheweth at large that the Jews had no Prophecy after Ezra's time And the same Eusebius affirmeth in his Demonstrationes Evangelicae Post Zachartam Malachiam non fuâ—sse amplius apud Judaeos Prophetam Et a reditu ex Captivitate ad tempora Servatoris nullum babucrint Judaei sacrum Volumen The Jews had no Prophets after Zachary and Malachi nor any Sacred Writings after the Captivity till our Saviour's time And some of these very Books tell us as much themselves For in the first Book of the Maccabees Chap. 9. 't is there said That there was then great Tribulation in Israel such as had not been since the dayes that there had been no Prophet in Israel relating to Ezra's time And indeed it appears very plain from the Scripture it self that there were no Divine Writings published between the Prophecy of Malachi and the writing of the Gospels For the Evangelists take things up just where he left them and begin the Gospel from the end of Malachi's Prophecy For he ending his Prophecy at John the Baptist under the Type and Title of Elias and the Evangelists beginning the Gospel with Him for St. Mark expresly declares the ending of that Prophecy to be the beginning of the Gospel There is a visible combination from thence from that period of Prophesie of the Old and New Testament together Secondly All the Writers of the Old Testament were Prophets to the House of Israel and to the Church of the Jews and their Writings and Prophesies were directed chiefly to them And so they were all writ except some Passages in Daniel and Ezra that were written in the Chaldee Dialect to which the Jews had in their Captivity been much accustomed in their own Native Language the Language of Canaan which was the Hebrew But these Books were confessedly most of them first written in Greek and could be of no use at all to the Jews at Jerusalem and
in Palestine nor understood by any but the dispersed Hellenists And so were no way likely to be sent from the Holy Ghost to that Church who never owned any Scripture for Canonical but what was in Hebrew a Language peculiar to them And the Bibles they constantly used till our Saviours time in their Synagogues were all in Hebrew Thirdly There is in most of these Books some eminent discovery of their own Humane Extraction As in the second of Macc. 2.24 The Author of that Book whoever he were tells us that he had borrowed what he wrote out of Jason of Cyrene and contracted five Books of his into one Volumn And so what he there wrote he is so far from fathering it on the Holy Ghost or any Dictates of his that he plainly confesseth 't was none of his own but the bare Epitomy of another mans Writings and desires to be excused if he had not done it well And 't is most notoriously evident to every common Reader that many of these Books contain such ridiculous Stories and gross Absurdities that without high impiety and great contradiction to all those Natural Notions we have of God they cannot be imputed to the Holy Ghost as their Author Fourthly These Books were never received by the Church of the Jews into their Canon nor are to this day And so during the times of the Old Testament were never received by any Church for there was then no other which is most absurd to conceive of any parts of God's Written and Supream Laws As also that the Jews to whom in a most peculiar way the Oracles of God were committed and who had the custody of all God's Sacred Records and were as St. Austin calls them God's the Churches great Library-Keepers should so notoriously err as to reject for not to receive into their Canon is to reject so great a part of the Bible 'T is somewhat strange that those of the Roman Church with whom chiefly we contest in this Matter and who annex to the Church an infallible Judgement should imagine the Church of the Jews to fall into so great and gross a mistake in so fundamental a matter That the Jewish Church never heretofore received these Apocryphal Books into their Canon nor do to this day is a thing that with the least colour of Reason cannot be denyed That they do not to this day is known all the World over wheresoever the Jews are And their Bibles are to be seen That the Ancient Church of the Jews before the times of our Saviour had no other Books within their Canon than those we now have is evident from the testimony of Josephus in his first Book against Appion who there tâ—lls us what Books the Jews reckoned Canonical and sayes They are onely twenty two in number according to the number of Letters in their Alphabet and reckons those very Books we now receive as onely Canonical Other Books he sayes there were written after the Captivity but they were never numbred with the Sacred Records Origen St. Jerome and many other of the Christian Writers have largely proved the same Those of the Roman Church who have turn'd every Stone to ease themselves from the dint of this Argument have found no other countenance that ever these Books received from the Jews to make us suppose they received them into their Canon but that in some places some few of the Hellenist Jews that lived remote from Palestine had annexed some of these Books to their Septuagint Bibles But such Hellenists themselves had any esteem of them as Canonical Writings Nor can it any more be proved from thence that they had than it can That we in England receive them into our Canon because they are bound up with some of our Bibles And never were any of these Books annexed to the Hobrew-Bibles used at Jerusalem and in Palestine nor were any of them ever read or admitted into their Synagogues there In truth This matter in point of Fact is so notorious and evident that Bellarmine himself makes an ingenuous confession of it and sayes plainly Hos omnes Libros speaking of these Apocryphal Books ad unum rejici ab Hebraeis That every one of these Books were rected by the Church of the Jews Contr. 1. lib. 1. ch 10. And confirms the same out of St. Jerome And if so we have then not only the judgment of the Judaical Church in this case which is singly sufficient For 't were a ridiculous contradiction to make any Books part of the Old Testament now which were not so received then But we have also a more infallible determination For our Saviour and the Apostles fully and constantly approved the Old Testament as the Jews were then possessed of it 'T were absurd to suppose that our Saviour should with so much exactness reduce all to the Rule of the Scripture and yet tacitly approve and silently pass over so great a mistake about the Rule it self Our Saviour directs the Jews to search the Scriptures as they then had them as being perfect and compleat Appeals to their own Bibles upon all occasions in his own defence Expounded Moses the Psalms and the Prophets as those to whom he spake were acquainted with them and as they were then extant Nay he himself read and preached in their Synagogues out of the Scriptures as he there found them and as they were there publickly used And no man can soberly imagine that our Saviour would go about to instruct the People out of any false and imperfect Rule The Apostles likewise upon all occasions made use of the Old Testament as they found the Jews possessed of it Nor have we the least intimation that the Jews were either mistaken in the number of those Books they received or that the least alteration had been made in those Books since the times wherein they were first written And 't is as evident that the Old Tement as the Jews then had it and as our Saviour and the Apostles approved it descended down to the Christian Church and was constantly so received The Primitive Writers agree universally in it Cyprian Epiphanius Athanasius Nazianzen all bear witness to it Cyril Bishop of Jerusalem after he has reckoned up to his Catechumini the 22 Books of the Old Testament we now receive adds Hos lege viginti duos Cum Apocryphis nil habe negotii Catechis 4. Read these two and twenty Books But meddle not with the Apocrypha Origen quoted for it at large by Eusebius in his History reckons up the very same twenty two Books for the Canonical parts of the Old Testament And so does St. Jerome and expresly reckons the other Apocryphal The same we find in Russinus who sayes The Apocryphal Books they never antiently called Libros Canonicos but Ecclesiasticos And the first Council we read of that entred into a consideration of this Matter which was that of Laodicea about the year 364. in their 59 Canon declare the Canonical Books of the
Old Testament to be the very same and no other then those we now receive Nor were these Apocryphal Books ever otherwise reckoned either in the Jewish or Christian Church than as humane and fallible Writings till the late Assembly at Trent were pleased to declare them otherwise These things must needs seem sufficient to any reasonable man to clear up that doubt on the one hand Whether we have not less in our Bibles than we indeed ought to have Because that besides what the Roman Church hath of late done to Canonize these Apochryphal Writings no other addition to the Bible has been at any time attempted that merits the least consideration I proceed to the doubt on the other hand And that is How we may be reasonably secured that our Bibles contains in them no more then they should That is upon what ground we receive some Books in the New Testament The Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of St. James the second Epistle of St. Peter the Epistle of Jude the 2 and 3 Epistles of John and the Apocalyps Of all which there has formerly been some doubt made In the solution of which I shall endeavour these two things First To shew what were most probably the first and original grounds of such Doubts And secondly To shew that those doubts then ought to be of no prevalency with us now And that there is at this time no good reason to make the least doubt of any part of the New Testament as we are now in possession of it All the Doubts that have arisen about any parts of the New Testament were most probably these two wayes occasioned First 'T is obvious that the New Testament was writ in several parts at several times and not all composed together The Whole became not publick but by many steps and degrees Had several former and latter Editions That is some parts that were first writ were copyed out by those that had the Originals and con-joyn'd and so dispers'd And other parts still added as they were written and became publick Now 't is easie to conceive that some parts that were after added to such Bibles as first came out might be at first questioned and doubted of by such who had the former Editions and were not fully informed about the after Addition of other parts And so it has fallen out in the publication of most Systemes of Humane Laws that have come out gradually and by parts and not in a full and intire Body at once Secondly 'T is very probable that many Christians that lived in those first Times by reason of their distance from those places where some parts of the New Testament first became publick might be for a considerable time it may be till after the deaths of their Authors without any notice of them And upon that account some doubts about such parts might arise because they â—ad come to their knowledge no sooner especially if any such parts seemed to â—avour or countenance any particular Sect or Opinion as the Epistle to the Hebrews did that of the Novations and the Apoâ—alyps that of the Chiliasts And this is most likely to be the true reason why some of the Epistles and we know 't was about the Epistles that the doubts chiefly were were at any time questioned especially such as were more remotely and uncertainly directed to the scattered Jews as that of St. James that to the Hebrews and that of St. Peter which were no way likely to be so soon or so commonly known to the generality of Christians Nor could they be so easie to come by as those Epistles sent to Rome Corinth and Ephesus and those great and publick Cities from whence the fame of them would soon spread and Copies were upon much easier terms to be had because 't was certainly known where the Originals were Secondly There is no good Reason from any Question that was made heretofore to raise any Doubts now about any Parts of the New-Testament And that for these three Reasons First Because these Books in question were most generally received at first and doubted of only by some and those such who had least information about them And this is very evident Because we find them frequently quoted as Canonical Scripture by many of the most ancient Christian-Writers in those Ages next the Apostles Tertullian except the second Epistle of St. Peter hath in his Works quoted as Canonical Scripture every Book of the new-New-Testament we now receive And St. Ierome speaking in his Epistle ad Dardanâ—m of the Epistle to the Hebâ—ews and some other of those Books about which we now discourse sayes We receive them not from the Custom of this Time but from the Authority of the most Primitive Writers Secondly They contain nothing in them but what does plainly harmonize with the rest of the Bible and is generally witnessed unto by other Books about which no question hath been at any time made And of this there can be no doubt unless it be concerning the Revelation which yet contains a most Admirable though Mysterious Agreement with the Books of Moses the Prophecies of Ezekiel and Daniel and divers other parts of the Bible And to this Book besides that the suitableness of Events thereunto and the notorious fulfilling of many Prophetical passages in it has put its Divine Authority out of all question we have as great a Testimony from Antiquity as can in such a case well be expected Justin Martyr who lived very near the Apostle John himself in his Dialogue with Tryphon cites it as the Writing of St. Iohn and without the least question ascribes it to him Irenaeus who lived some small time after Justin and was the Scholar of Polycarp who was the Scholar of St. Iohn sayes positively 'T was written by St. Iohn the Apostle And that he was well assured thereof from some most probably Polycarp that had seen the Apostle Iohn himself and personally conversed with him Lib. 4. cap. 37. and Lib. 5. And â—ertullian in his 4th Book against Marcion sayes Though Marcion did reject the Apocalyps as none of St. John 's yet sayes he the succession of Bishops tracod to the beginning will establish Him as the certain and undoubted Author of it Thirdly God has in a providential way determined this matter For those that at first questioned those Books when the heat of primitive Persecutions were somewhat abated the Church had free intercourse and communication together and came to be better informed received them All doubts about them are now vanished Luthur and some with him in Germany who were the last that revived any doubts of that kind upon second and more deliberate thoughts recanted their Error All Christians are now at an Agreement about them the Supreamest Establishment that can be of Canonical-Authority even the Roman Church themselves receive the Apocalyps into their Canon although many passages in it seem very particularly directed against them Indeed the heavenly lustre of these Books is
broke forth like the Sun in his strength has over-spred the whole Horizon of the Christian Church And where ever the Gospel is owned these Books are received with that Veneration that becomes due to such Sacred Writings The Church of England Judges the doubts that have been at any time made about any parts of the New Testament not worthy of our Notice And therefore in the sixth Article it is thus expressed In the Name of the holy Scriptures we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church That is no considerable doubt no general doubt in the Whole Church Nor indeed any such doubt as ought to disturb either the Churches determination or any particular mans judgment about this matter For it cannot be shewed that any One intire Church or that any National or Provincial Council or indeed that any Considerable part of the Christian World in any Publick Confessions Catechisms or otherwise have rejected any of those Books we now reckon within the Canon The most Considerable Doubt that we find made about any one of them was about the Epistle to the Hebrews which for some time was doubted of in the Roman Church And yet Eusebius says onely It was doubted of a quibusdam in Ecclesia Romana by some in the Roman Church and 't is certain much of that doubt was whether St. Paul were the Authour of it or no But to conclude an Answer to this Question let these two things be Considered First under the Old Testament so soon as all the Parts of it were finished the Canon of That was exactly settled by men of an infallible Spirit in the times of Esdras and those last Prophets contemporary with him and so no further Doubt was or could reasonably be made about that Secondly under the New Testament it pleased God so to order it that he that closed up the whole Bible and wrote the Conclusion of it so far out-lived all the other Pen-men that he himself might very well see the Whole conjoyned and deliver it over to the Church intire as we now have it The Apostle St. John not onely survived Titus and that famous Destruction of the Temple and the Jews in his time but he lived through Domitian's time and Cocceius Nerva's time to the Reign of the Emperour Trajan which was somewhat above a Hundred years after our Saviours Birth and sixty and odd after his Crucifixion so Irenaeus tells us lib. 2. p. 192. And some other of the Apostles it should seem lived long for the same Author says that there were in his time Saniores qui non solum Johannem viderint sed alios Apostolos Elders that had not onely seen S. John but others of the Apostles That the Canon of the New Testament was established and setled by Apostolical Authority seems very probable S. Austin contra Faust Man lib. 11. cap. 5. and in his 19. Epist positively affirms it Distincta est says he à posteriorum libris excellentia Canonica authoritatis veteris Novi Testamenti quae Apostolorum confirmata temporibus Saint Jerome sayes Johannem omnium longissimè vixisse videre libros omnes confirmare pâ—sset si qui fictitij liberi ederentur eos à sâ—cris verè Canonicis distinguere That the Apostle John out-lived all the rest of the Apostles that he might perâ—se and confirm all the Parts of the New Testament and distinguish them from all counterfeit Writings if any such came abroad And he further adds That some Spurious Writings concerning the actions of S. Paul were brought to him and that he by his Apostolical Authirity condemned them Tertullian de Prescript says expresly The Canon of the Bible is founded upon Apostolical Authority And Eusebius gives this plain testimony to it Narrant veteres Johannem Asiaticarum Ecclesiarum rogatu Germanum Scripturae Canonem constituisse The antients tell us says he that St. John upon the request of the Asiatick Churches settled the true Canon of Scripture 'T is certain that S. John before his death made his abode much at Sardis and Ephesus and amongst those Asiatick Churches For after the death of Domitian he was restored from his Banishment by the Emperour Nerva and returned from Patmos into Asia and there governed the Churches until his death And 't is extreamly probable that upon their desire he then fully settled the Canon of the New Testament for that there was then occasion for the doing of it we sind by Enseâ—ius his History of those times And it is evident from S. John himself that the Church of Ephesus had been attempted by false Apostles in those days and whatever Doubts of that kind were then extant we cannot otherwise suppose but that they would be proposed to him and End in his Apostolical determination So that if we lay all these things together St. Johns living so long after all â—he Parts of the New Testament but the Revelation were Written And his surviving some very considerable time after the Writing of that for it is most probable that he received those Visions and wrote them in the end of the Reign of Domitian his closing the whole with that Book after which he declares as many think by pronouncing a Curse to him that should add to it or diminish from it that there was to be no further Revelation expected having therein given a full account of the State of the Church to the end of the world Considering the Doubts that were then extant about some Parts amongst such as had not a thorough Information about them and that False apostles did then appear considering of how great a Concern it was then and would be to all future Ages to have the Canon of the whole Bible settled by an Infallible judgment and considering the material Evidence we have from many Primative Writers That indeed it was so All these things considered there seemes very probable Ground to believe that the Apostle John before he left the world did fully Determine this matter and 't is most likely that as the Knowledge of what he had done came to be published abroad the Doubts that were then made dis-appeared And we that live in these latter Ages see that all the Questions and Doubts that have at any time been are perfectly vanished and the whole bopy of the New Testament hath now gained an Universal reception Thirdly How can we that have not the Originals of the Scriptures not the Outographa 's of those that Wrote them but onely the Copies of them and most but the Translations of those Copies rest assured we have Gods Mind as it was first delivered In Answering to this Question it must be acknowledged that the Original Records of every Part of the Bible did at first consist of Perishable matter and have undergone the common Fate of all othâ—r Writings 'T is evident it was not the pleasure of God that the Authority of the Scriptures
the Jews in the time of our Saviour and the Apostles nor before and 't is certain if there had been any Books then extant in truth written by him they would have been in great esteem and veneration in the Jewish Church though they had not been within their Canon which we are sure they were not and Philo or Josephus most diligent searchers of their Antiquities would have made some eminent mention of them in whose Works we find altum silentium about any such Books and therefore 't is not to be supposed they believed there were any such real Books then extant But 't is most probable that after the Apostle Jude had in his Epistle quoted a Prophecie of Enoch which Prophecie without doubt he came to the knowledge of either purely by Revelation which I rather believe or else by a Tradition the truth of which was ascertained to him by Revelation by which means came others also of the Sacred Writers in after-times to be ascertained of what they writ about divers things that relate to the History of Moses that were not to be found in his Books for in the Psalms we find mention of some things done in Moses his time that are not recorded in his Books St. Paul in the 9 to the Hebrews sayes that when Moses had spoken every precept according to the Law he took the blood of Calves and Goats with Water and Scarlet Wool and Hyssop and sprinkled bâ—th the Book and all the People saying this is the Blood of the Testament c. In which the Apostle has added several things that are not inserted by Moses in the selation of this passage in the 24 of Exodus So Stephens Speech set down in the 7 of the Acts tells us that Moses in killing the Egyptian supposed that his brethren would have understood how that God by his Hand would deliver them but they understood not By which we have a Reason given for Moses killing the Egyptian that he himself has no where set down and by which we come to understand that before Moses went into the Land of Midian God revealed to him that he was to be the deliverer of that people which Moses himself has not any where told us I say 't is probable that some Hereticks in the Church most likely the Gnosticks who much cryed up those Spurious Writings to promote their own corrupt Opinions and Interests took occasion from thence to frame certain counterfeit Books just as some others did under the names of Jaâ—nes and Jambres after St. Pauls mention of them as written by Enoch before the Flood which Books have sufficiently betrayed themselves for those that were published under his name were stuft as St. Austin sayes with such absurd and fabulous Stories of Angels and such ridiculous relations of Gyants whose Fathers were Angels and no men that they are to be justly rejected as pâ—lpably counterfeit and fictitious Of the same mind is Jerom Chrysostom and Epiphanius and when Celsus alledged some absurd Stories out of those writings in reproch to the Christians Origen in his fifth Book answers him by shewing what a mean esteem the Jews as well as the Christians then had of them For the second those Pillars of the Sons of Seth 't is beyond all compass of credit that any such Pillars should be set up with an intention to outlast the Deluge or that they should so do or that any Engravings upon them should be visible some thousands of years after especially upon one of Brick for Josephus tells us there were two at first erected one of Brick and another of Stone and that of Stone they made on purpose to last if the other should decay how he came to such an exact account of their minds the Reader may guess and yet he sayes 't was that of Brick that then remained upon which he does not absolutely say there was any thing written in Letters but that the Sons of Seth Engraved upon them such things as they had invented which might be by many other representations and other ways then by Letters for I doubt not but that a Symbolical representation of mens thoughts one to another was extream early in the World though they wanted Alphabetical Letters Nor does Josephus say that He saw it it himself or give any punctual account what it was that was engraven upon it or any certain Place where the Pillar was to be seen but only in general that it was then in the Countrey of Syria where he left men of leisure to enquire after it The truth is there are so very many improbable and unlikely if not impossible Circumstances do attend this vain Story that 't is plain Josephus though in the general a Historian of deserved credit took it upon bare report from others some late Authors think and perhâ—ps not amiss from the fabulous relation of Manetho who sayes he took his History from some Pillars set up before the Flood and was marvailously abused in that Countenance he seems to give to it nor ought it to seem strange that he should be so for we sind many of the best Historians have taken up things upon trust and fallen thereby into very great mistakes Suetonius and Tacitus are both eminent Historians amongst the Romans yet both guilty of strange mistakes Tacitus tells us in his History That the Jews worshipped an Asses Head with the highest veneration then which nothing could be more untruly and upon less ground affirmed and Suetonius so mistook that he thought Christ lived in the time of Claudius for he sayes In the time of Claudius Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes civitate expulit That Claudius expelled the Jews out of Rome who were continually making uproars being stirred up thereunto by Christ Then which there could not be an absurder mistake nor a greater falshood well uttered For the third The mention that Moses makes in the 21 of Numbers and the 14 of the book of the wars of the Lord as a Book then extant his words are wherefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord what he didin the red Sea and in the brooks of Arnon First divers probable senses are given of the place that render it no Objection in this case The Geneva Translation not much differing from some others renders it thus Wherefore it shall be spoken in the book of the Battles of the Lord c. If so then 't is Prophetical and may relate to Joshuah who is said to sight the Battles of the Lord and to the Relations in the books of Joshuah or Judges that were to be after Junius reads the words thus Idcirco dici solet in recensione bellorum Jehovae c. Wherefore it is wont to be said in the rehearsal of the Wars of the Lord c. And so understands it not of any particular book but that amongst the Wars that God disposed for the good of the Israelites there was in those times a famous mention in the
according to the Law of Moses which we cannot conceive after seventy years they could so exactly have done or would ever have attempted to have done it had not they had the Law with them while Esdras himself was yâ—tâ—n Babylon and when Esdras did come to Jerusalem we find in the 8th of Nehemiah the people were so far from wanting the Law or staying for any such Restoration or Re-penning of it by him as is pretended that they desired him only to read the Law openly to them which he immediately did as a thing they were then possessed of and which was notorious amongst them Fifthly 'T is no way probable that Esdras should so Re-pen the Bible because we find his own writings full of Caldee words as also the Prophecie of Daniel but all that part of the Bible written before the Captivity is in pure Hebrew and 't is no way conceiveable but that if he had Re-penn'd the whole he would have written it in the same way he wrote his own Books and according to the Idiome that was then in use amongst the Jews either wholly in Caldee or else with some mixture of Caldee and Hebrew together The whole of this Story does evidently appear to be a Romantick fable taken out of a Book sâ—ust with many vain and ridiculous follies and is contradicted by another Apecryphal Book of much better credit 〈◊〉 wee 'l depend upon such Evidence for in the second Book of the Maccabees we are there told that the Tabernacle and the Ark in the sides of which the Law we know was placed were sâ—cured by the Prophet Jeremie and hid in a Cave at Mount Nebo when Jerusalem and the Temple were burnt And if any such thing were though the Law be not particularly mentioned yet being always kept in the Ark â—â—s not to be doubted but Jeremie preserved it with the Ark and had an especial reference to the securing of it in what he then did This we affirm as a truth to which both Jews and Christians have assented that at the return of the people out of Babylon the care of Esdras about the Bible and that great Synagogue that was then according to Moses his first institution assembled in which were present Haggai Zacharie Malachy Nehemias and Zerubbabel was very eminent and great and to this day we derive singular advantages from it For first with great diligence they made an exact seperation between such Writings as were of Divine Inspiration dictated by the Holy Ghost and were to be a standing Rule to the Church in all Ages and all other Writings whatsoever whether written by true Prophets or false for even true Prophets and such as were most eminent might and without doubt many of them did write diverse things without any immediate assistance or direction from God and consequently which were nor of Divine Authority they collected all the sacred parts of the Old Testament together which during the Captivity lay dispersed in private hands no publick use being made of them Incorporated the whole into one intire Volumn an admirable work in the order we now have it which before was not possible to be for several Psalms several of the Prophecies and some other Books were written after the coming of the people into Babylon and it does no where appear that those parts written before were conjoyned in one intire Volumn more of them then the five Books of Moses the Original Copy whereof Moses himself delivered in a publick assembly to the Levites to be layed up in the sides of the Ark the peculiar Archive God had by his special command appointed for it the whole of the Old Testament so united they ranked under three Classes and divided into three parts which division was continued amongst the Jews till the times of our Saviour who in the 24th of St. Luke refers to it when he sayes All things ought to be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms Secondly Their care in securing the Original Text of the Scripture was eminently great and most highly is it to be applauded in adding points to the Hebrew Letters to preserve the Knowledge of the Tongue and facilitate the reading and Learning of it dividing the sacred Writings into Verses with many other things of that kind most probably first begun by them of which the Jewish Writers give us a large account The whole of their indeavours this way and of those amongst the Jews that succeeded them therein was called the Massora which God wonderfully blessed to preserve the purity of the Hebrew Text and to deliver the Old Testament safely and intirely over to us What a useful and most laborious enterprize this Massora was we may know by the description Buxtorffe gives of it in the second Chapter of his most excellent Commentarius Massorethicus Massora sayes he est Doctrina critica a priscis Hebraeorum sapientibus circa Textum Hebraeum Sacrae Scripturae ingeniosâ— inventa quâ— Versas Voces Literae ejus nâ—meratae omnisque ipsarum variet as notata suis locis cum singulorum versuum recitatione indicata est ut sic constans genuina ejus lectio conservetur ab omni mutatione aut corruptio e aeternum preservetur valide premuniatur The Massora is a critical Learning about the Hebrew Text of the Sacred Scripture ingeniosly invented by the Ancient wise men amongst the Jews in which the Verses words and Letters are all numbred and all their variations particularly noted and set down in their proper places with a recital of the particular Verses that so the constant and genuine reading of the Scripture may be preserved and for ever secured against all change or corruption And that Ezra and this great Synagogue were most probably the first Authors and Contrivers of the Massâ—ra however augmented by others in after Ages and not some learned Jews at Tiberias that long lived after ouâ— Saviour as some have supposed Buxtorffe in the Eleventh Chap. of the samebook hath largely and learnedly proved from the best and most Ancient Writers amongst the Jews and thus concludes upon the whole Haec communis est Hebraeorum sententia Massoram a viris Synagogae magnae prosectam esse This is the common opinion amongst the Jews that the Massora came from the men of the great Synagogue Thirdly That Ezra and that great Synagogue to render the sacred Text more intelligible and make the truth of some Historical Relations more evident did make some small additions and some verbal alterations in some places is greatly probable and it might easily be done but no Re-penning the Bible nor the least violation offered to the sacred Record nor to the credit of its Authority nor can the least Objection though many have indeavoured it be raised from hence to that purpose when so many Persons of an infallible Spirit were present in that Assembly and who were without doubt Divinely directed about what they did in that matter In
a Word that famous and venerable Senate in which the last of the Prophets were present all parts of the Old Testament being compleated and the whole Prophecy that God vouchsafed till the coming of the Messiah delivered applied themselves to the punctual Collection of the several parts together and securing the Original text against any corruption or alteration exactly setled the Canon of the Old Testament which the Jews kept punctually to till the times of our Saviour who fully approved the Scriptures as he then found the Jews in possession of them Secondly That any parts of the Bible or any Books dictated by the Holy Ghost are wholly Lost we utterly deny The affirmation of it is neither consisting with the notion of Divine providence in General nor can any particular proof be brought to make it good Those who insist upon this as Bellarmine and some of the Papists do thereby to gain an advantage to the Church when 't is put in ballance with the Bible And others with design by proving the Loss of any Part to invalidate the Authority of the Whole instance in the three thousand parables or proverbs of Solomon and a thousand and five songs spoken of 1 King 4.32 The Books of Nathan the Prophet and Gad the Seer mentioned in the second of Chronicles The Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and the visions of Iddo or Addo the Seer spoken of in the 2 Chron. 9. and some others And under the New Testament an Epistle of St. Paul written as they suppose to the Laodicaeans mentioned Colos 4.16 Although very many of these Writings mentioned in the Old Testament seem to refer to other parts of Scripture contained in the Bible In particular 't is probable that Nathan and Gad wrote some parts of the Books of Samâ—â— and the Kings so much at least as concern's the Actions of David of which they were exactly knowing if they wrote not the whole Second Book of Samuel and the first of the Kings which some upon probable grounds supposes yet Admit all these were other writings then are now contained in any part of the Bible it will no way follow they were ever any part of Canonical Scripture When the Scripture mention's Books written by these or any other Men and relates historically to the matter oâ— them as St Paul sometimes quoted Heathâ— Authors Will that Infer They are parts of the Bible By no means Nay the very Writers of the Bible themselves such as David Solâ—mon and others of the Prophets might and without all doubt some of them did Write many things in an ordinary way that were True without any Divine or Infallible direction and which were never incorporated with the Bible and so says St. Austin in his 18th Book De civ Dei says be Those Prophet whom it pleased the Holy Spirit to inspire wrote some things as Men And those works we have 〈◊〉 in our Canon nor had the Jews in theirs and other things as from the mouth of God and these works are really Distinct Some being held their own as Men and some the Lords as speaking by them And therefore He that will prove from hence that any parts of the Bible are Lost must first be well assured that These are no parts of the Scriptures we are now possessed of and Secondly that admitting they are not That they were written by an Infallible Spirit and ence within the Canon Of which Latter we are well assâ—red the least proof cannot be made For the Jews were most faithful Preservers of those Oracles of God committed unto their change Nor were they ever so much as once blamed by Christ or the Apostles for any Miscarriage that way As for an Epistle supposed to be written by St. Paul under the New Testament to the Laodicaeons which is since Lost The supposition is frivolous and groundless For the words in the Greck are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that from Laodicaea Which cannot be understood of an Epistle written by St. Paul to Laodicae but of one written from Laodicaea either to the Colossians themselves which they then had by them or else to St. Paul which he sent them and required them to read it as containing something expedient for them to know The mistaken opinion from this place of an Epistle from St. Paul to the Laodicâ—ans hath most probably arisen from the ill rendition in the Vulgar Latin where the words are rendered illa quae est Laodicentium But without any ground from the Original Catherinus confesseth that according to the opinion of Chrisostome and Oecumenius Non hic nominari Epistolam a Paulo scriptam ad Laodicenses sed ex co loco scriptam That here 's no mention of any Epistle written by St. Paul to the Laodicaeans but of some Epistle written from Laodicaea That there was anciently a Counterfeit Epistle that pretended to be written by St. Paul to the Laodicaeans which is since lost is most true But in those times wherein 't was extant it was universally Rejected as Spurious and known so to be St. Jerome speaks of it but says Abomnibus exploditur The second Councel of Nice in their sixth Canon say thus of it Inter Epistolas Pauli Apostoli quaedam fertur ad Laodicenses quam Patres nostri tanquam Alienam reprobaverunt Tertullian against Marcion and Theophilact both reject it with great contempt and say 't is Apostolico nomine planâ— indigna And Bellarmine himself though he had formerly affirmed there was such an Epistle which was certainly Lost Yet in the first Chapter of his Book which he calls his Recognition or After-view of his works Retracts it says he was mistaken and that there never was any such thing as such an Epistle written by St. Paul So that all the Insinuations of this kind that any parts of the Bible any Books written by a Divine inspiration have been at any time Lost out of the world appear to be very weakly and ill Grounded And in truth the foot steps of Divine providence have been eminently visible in Securing those Holy writings upon this threefold account From Destruction Addition and Alteration First No accidents of Time nor Designs of its worst Enemies have Totally obliterated the Whole or any Part. Secondly Though many have attempted to piece in and add to it false and counterfeit Fragments and some whole Gospels yet in defiance to all those Essays the Scriptures have remained intire and stood like a Rock Impenetrable No Spurious Writings have been able to incorporate with this holy Book Such who have gone about to forge Scripture have but made the Lustre of the Bible more Eminent and more evidently shewed us the difference of Gods reâ—ealing from Heaven and Mens counterfeiting upon Earth Mens writing by the strength of humane abilities and mens writing as they were moved thereunto by the Holy Ghost Thirdly From Alteration No man has been suffer'd notwithstanding all the attempts of Hereticks to that purpose to pollute or corrupt it All
of those who have themselves Universally proclaimed the Bible in all Ages to be the great and infallible Rule of the Christian Religion So that if Christian-tradition be credited the Authority of the Bible is thereby established And if it be dis-believed in thaâ— there can be then no good reason to receivâ— any other matter touching the Christian Religion upon the credit of that conveyance To retain therefore the name of a Christian and yet disown the Bible is to become a perfect Problem No such man can produce anâ— Laws or Rules of his Religion nor give anâ— account wherein they are contained or bâ— whom or by what Church with an exclusion of the Bible they have been at any timâ— Received Nor can any man rationally make a Partiaâ— rejection of the Bible and retain a Christian Profession from thence in a Limited sensâ— of his own For a man to say he receive the Bible as he receives other credible writings as a book generally True and written by men that meant honestly and well but believes it not written with an Infallible Spirit nor to carry a Divine Authority along with it nor submits to it as such is to say a thing extreamly incongruous to all good sense and to indulge himself in a perfect Absurdity For the Bible comes to us with a claim oâ— God's Authority attending it speaks to us in his Name is a Book that disowns all humane contrivement proposeth it self as written by Divine Inspiration and Immediate Direction from God admits of no Composition for its Reception In such a case there can be no Middle-way but either we must receive this Book and submit to it as such or else reject it with the justest contempt imaginable It is in nothing to be credited if it be not in Truth what it pretends to be For there cannot be a more vile and pernitious falshood imposed upon the world then to counterfeit a Divine Law and to pretend that to come from Heaven and to be sent us from God which is nothing but the product of Men. Whoever will admit these premisses that the Scriptures were not written in every part of them by the infallible direction of the Holy Ghost when they themselves tell us that they were so must needs descend to this conclusion that they then contain the most impudent falshood and were composed by the worst designers against mankind The Christian Religion and the Scriptures being so related and standing in so near a conjunction as they do The being of the one having so necessary a dependance upon the Truth and Authority of the other 'T will be easily granted to be the great concern of the Christian Church in all ages to assert their Divine Authority and to justify that Book to be written by men that were indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divinely inspired and to be sent us from God as that supreme Law by which he would inform Rule and Judge the World He that undertakes this Province and designs to himself such a service is obliged First To consider with whom he is like to encounter And to proportion his defence to those various assaults the Scripture are usually exposed to This being admitted which it ought to be that no man can with any good Reason close with the Christian Religion and at the same time Renounce the Bible That Maxime of St. Austin being undeniable that Contra Scripturas nemo Christianus There are but three sorts of men by whom the Scriptures can at any time be generally Attact and from whose principles their sacred Authority can receive an Universal Invasion First Such who wholly deny the being of God and consequently of all Religion for God and Religion are Relatives such who wallow in the mire of an Atheistical profession Secondly Such who admit the Being of God and a supreme and first cause but deny his providence and believe he is no way concer'd about the World nor troubles himself to exercise any Rule or Dominion at all over it Thirdly Such who admit the Being of God and the existence of Religion and providence but reject the Christian Religion as not True and embrace some other in opposition to it Of those first-born Monsters of Mankind that Anomalous off-spring who deny the Being of God whose principles contain in them the utmost dreggs of all humane Apostacy and are of all others the most wild and absurd for as Cicero sayes Deos esse ita perspicuum est ut is qui negat vix eum sanae mentis existimem The Being of the Gods is so evident that no man can be thought well in his wits that denies it A previous consideration is necessary to whatever is said upon this or any other Divine subject and therefore I have already contested with such and dispatcht all my concernes with them in order to this matter and the last converse I mean to have with that evil generation of whom it may most truely be said They are not only the avowed opposers of all Religion but indeed they are Hostes Humani generis The common enemies of all mankind Who by denying a Supreme Being above demolish the great support of all well-being here below Of this belief they were heretofore at Athens in those primitive times of Atheism and first dawnings of â—speculative Irreligion upon the World and therefore Cotta tells us in Cicero that when Protagoras began his Books with this Introduction to Atheism De Diis neque ut sint neque ut non sint habeo dicere Atheniensum jussu Urbe atque Agro est exterminatus Librique ejus in concione combusti And he adds Ex quo equidem existimo tardiores ad hanc sententiam profitendam multos esse factos quippe cum poenam ne dubitatio quidem effugere potuisset For those secundary Enemies to the Bible and together with that of all Religion such who admit the Being of God but deny all Providence and Divine Rule over the World such who out of shame disown the grand principle of Atheism but yet by this Method secure all the effects of it to themselves Of those a preliminary consideration on ought to be had A previous confutation of such principles being of absolute necessity to make way for the discourse in hand For it must needs be a vain and impracticable project to indeavour to prove any Book to be Divine and a Law given forth from God if there be no such Law any where in Being which we are sure there never can be if God no way concernes himself with what men do nor exercises any Dominion at all over them 'T is plain such principles do uno ictu dispatch all Religion out of the World put a perfect period to all Divinity and render it a thing very absurd to submit either in our belief or practice to any thing as Divine To this purpose Cicero concludes in his first Book De nat Deor. Sin autem Dii says he neque possunt nos juvare nec volunt
has and in its own Antiquity answering that antiquity we may justly expect to accompany Gods First Revelations the Bible I say upon this account has a singular evidence given in to its Credibility and its antiquity does strongly affirm its Divine Authority Secondly The Antiquity of the Bible does point us to its Divinity because 't is not reasonable to believe that the First Writen account the world had of Religion should be a Cheat that the First eminent Record of Religion should be a Lye and not only a Lye but the Worst of Lies and the most Pernicious and Destructive falshood for so it must needs be to impose a Law upon the world in Gods name without his Authority that ever was published amongst mankind 'T is not in the judgment of right Reason consisting with the Wisdom and Goodness of God to suffer the world to be Originally Cheated in point of Religion to suffer a publick open Counterfeit of his Name and Authority to the highest degree First to possess the world and take the Precedence of all truth to permit the Devil to publish a Systeme of Lies and erect a Monument of Falshood Before there was any written Record of Truth We must needs suppose Gods care of Men and the concern's of his own honour to engage him to the contrary and that God should First establish his own Truth to which mankind might still have a recourse and by which as a Standard all Delusions and False Pretensions might be Tried 'T were as one says well very absurd to think God should permit the Devil to set up a Chappel before he had built a Church If the Bible were originally composed by Impostors and be not a Divine Book 't will then undeniably follow that the most Primitive and Ancient account we have of Religion is connterfeit And that in the Earliest notices we have of God of the worlds Original Mans fall and the way of his Recovery for we have none so early as what the Bible gives us of any of these and of some of them no other the world is Deceived and Abused and that God suffer'd the Devil in the first place and before any thing was publiquely extant from him to contradict it in his name and with pretence of his Authority to abuse and deceive Mankind with a false and delusive account of all those things they are most concern'd to know and upon the right Knowledge of which their present and future happyness does unavoidably depend This very one consideration will prevail much upon every impartial judgment Who can believe the first Religion should be the worst when True Religion must needs be as old as the World And the Earliest notions of God the falsest when we must needs think it reasonable that God should reveal himself to the World from the beginning Or that the first book we sind writ should contain the Highest imposture in point of Religion and more dishonour God and abuse the World then any or all the Books written since 'T is a thing beyond all compass of credit That God should suffer false informations to be given in his own Name of himself and his own Revelations from the first beginning of the World for about 4043 years for about so long a time it was from that first intercourse between God and Man the Scripture gives us Historically an account of till the last Revelation of St. John And that this account should begin with the first book that the world had and be gradually carried on into such a complete Systeme as now we see it is in a Written way by several hands in several Ages for a thousand and six hundred years together for about so long a time it was from Moses his first Writing to St. Johns Closing the Bible Nor is it supposable that the vilest falshood for such is the Bible if it be not from God a Religion whereby if it be false God would be more dishonoured and men more deluded then by any that ever was yet extant should have this to say in its justisication That 't is of all others the most Ancient and has been longest lasting amongst Mankind The consideration therefore of this Book in the Time of its conveyance the Antiquity of it in respect of the matter it contains and the Antiquity of it self as a Book written long before all others and of so early a Date in the World does with great Evidence point us to its Divine Original and very strongly tends to perswade us that God himself was the Author of it Secondly The way and manner of this Books conveyance to us The Method of Gods thus Recording his pleasure has been such that we shall find we have all those reasonable inducements and in some respects more to credit it upon which we receive any Humane Authors and acquiesce in them as true And all such farther Evidence as we can well expect to insure us of the truth of a Book that pretends to come from God and be Divint And this will appear to be so if we consider first the Instruments God imploied in the writing of it and such humane Circumstances as attended their doing it And Secondly The Divine witness God himself has in the most eminent way given to this Book in its conveyance to ascertain us of the truth of it and of the sincerity of those that wrote it First If we consider the Pen-men of this Book those Amanuenses God made use of for the writing of it and such Circumstances as attended their doing it How unlikely a thing is it that they either did or could abuse the world in this matter if we reflect upon these several things First the unblemished Credit and Reputation of these Writers Secondly the several Qualifications and Qualities of them Thirdly their Interests as moral and reasonable men Fourthly their Number and that great distance of Time in which many of them wrote one from another For the first Nothing we know does more credit Ancient Authors then the good Report of those Ages wherein they lived transferred to posterity Not one of those Holy Pen-men God imploied in writing the Bible was that ever we find upon any good grounds tainted in Reputation or convicted of any sort of Impostor in their own or future ages but were men of acknowledged Integrity and Sanctity in those times wherein they lived and very many of them gave the highest Testimony to their integrity in becoming Martyrs in justification of what themselves writ For the Second the various Qualities and Conditions of these Writers seems much to secure us against so vile a design as this book must needs be composed with if it be not from God Some of them were Kings and men of the greatest quality before they writ and not very likely to be guilty of so much baseness and meanness to carry on such a work and also men of deepest Learning and Knowledge Others of them many of the Prophets and most of the
the Sun upon the Crucifixion of our Saviour which considering the Position of the Moon at that time it being the time of the Jews Passeover must needs be judged to be prodigiously supernatural was mentioned in many Heathen Writers which Eusebius sayes he himself had read Both Eusebius in his Chronology and Origen in his second Book against Celsus tell us That Phlegon Trallianus who lived in the time of Adrian in the thirteenth Book of his Chronicles wrote of this Eclipse and sayes That in the fourth year of the two hundred and tenth Olympiâ—d there was the greatest Eclipse of thâ—â—an that ever was beheld and withal a strange Earth-quake And that year was exactly the eighteenth year of Tiberius in which our Saviour suffered And 't is certain by what we find in Tertullians â—â—â—loâ—y and other of the Christian Writâ—rs in those first Ages that this and divers other Passages that relate to the Stoâ—â— of the Gospel were in those times Reâ—â—red amongst the Romans For they ofâ—en appeal to their own Records to â—â—ove the truth of this and many other particulars Justin Martyr in his Apology to the Emperor Antoninus which â—e wrote but fifty years after the death of St. John perswading the Emperor to the belief of our Saviours Miracles refers him to the Acts of Pontius Pilate then Registred at Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That our Saviour says he did these things you may learn from the Registers of the Acts done under Pontius Pilate Josephus who was born about five or six years after our Saviours suffering and survived the Reigns of both the Vâ—spatians relates much of the New Testament Story of John the Baptist of his Holy Life and also of his Death Tells us of Herod and gives a large and particular account of his strange and remarkable Death of Pilate of Festus Foelix Gamaliel and others Indeed neither Jews nor Heathens did ever in those times contradict or deny any matter of Fact that relates to the New Testament Story judging it certain beyond all denial Julian himself admits the Fact of Christ and his Miracles and plainly acknowledges the Books of the New Testament were written in those Times and by those very Men whose names they bear That we have no fuller and exacter an Account of Christ and the Affairs of Judea in his time in the Roman Story is not to be much wonder'd at if we consider the peaceable Posture that Country was then in News which best pleased the Romans from any of their Provinces and wherein they were mostly concern'd Tacitus observes that Judea was most quiet in the Reign of Tâ—berius as well it might All that our Saviour and his Followers did tending highly to Peace and Subjection Now We find that the Roman-Writers chiefly applyed themselves to write of some famous Wars the suppression of some eminent Mutinies or some such Accidents as in their Issue redounded much to the Roman-glory The peaceable condition of any Province usually shortned their Relation of it and therefore neither of the Jews not of the Christians in that Age have they vouchsafed to say much Nor did the Christians at any time such was their peaceable and submissive behaviour give Historians occasion to mention much more of them than their patient sufferings But in the after-times of Vâ—spatian Trajan Adrian when the Roman-Sword was drawn against the Jews and there were great Mutinies Rebellions and Wars amongst them the Roman-Historians have left us an ample Relation of all those Affairs Two things there are of great eminency in themselves and of most publick Nature contained in the Bible the Fact of which have had such signal justification as does greatly establish the Truth of the Whole and to which a very peculiar Remark is due The one is the History of the Flood in the Old Testament and and the re-peopling of the World after it by the Posterity of Noah The other is those Prophetical Predictions of the Destruction of Jerusalem of the ruine of the Temple and the Afflictions and Sufferings of the Jews uttered by our Saviour in the New For the first That there was such a Flood Nothing I have shewed has had a more universal Belief That the Earth according to the History of Moses was again re-peopled by the Posterity of Noah and that the Nations were divided in the Earth from his three Sons and their Issue as Moses tells us we have from the Records of all Nations and the consent of all History abundant cause to believe And that upon this three-fold account First We find that in those Eastern Parts where Noah and his Family are said first to land and settle themselves after the Deluge the Grandure of the World first began of which the Greatness and Splendor of the Assyrian-Empire is a sufficient Instance Those Eastern Countries arriving to much state and pomp and to much greatness in Dominion and Government long before either in Greece Italy or any of the Western Parts any such thing was attained to or known Which evidently shews that the Inhabitants of those Countries were the First-born and Heirs of the World who had the great Court and Metropolis amongst them and that other Nations were of the Younger House and Colonies of a Latter Edition Secondly The earliness of Learning of Art Sciences and Inventions amongst â—he Assyrians Chaldaeâ—ns and Egyptians before they so much as budded forth or appeated in other Conntries does argue That those parts were first inhabited That they were the eldest Possessors oâ— the World had been longest in it werâ— of greatest Experience and that otheâ— Nations People were gradually deriveâ— and planted from those Countries anâ— the Inhabitants of that part of the World Thirdly We find that those in honour of whom the Nations received their first Names were the Posterity of Noah that Moses tells us of From Japhet most probably the Eldest Son of Noaâ— called by Hesiod and others of the most anâ—ient Writers Japitos and his Posterito Japeâ—â—onides came the Gomerians or â—ymbrians from his Son Gomer the Magogims from Magog the Medes or Madians from Madus the Jones after called Graeâ—â—ns from Javan in Greek Jovan and so from the Posterity of the other two The Canaanites from Canaan the Sabaeâ—ns from Seba which the Grecians write Saba the Philistims from Palesthim the Thracians from Thyras the Sidonâ—ans from Sidon the Egyptians from the Posterity of Cham Egypt being called Mizraim from Mizraim one of his Sons Mizraim in Hebrew being the name of Egypt and antiently even to the time of Josephus the Egyptians he sayes were called Chuseans from Cush or Chus the eldest Son of Cham And so throughout all the chiefest parts of the Earth we find the several Nations by their antient denominations to be originally descended from that Posterity of Noab set down in the tenth of Genesis Sems Posterity appear to have been the Planters of Asia Chams of Africa and Japhets of most part of Europe with Asia the Less
till our Saviours coming and the writing of the New Testament when there was again a Flood-gate of Divine Power let open in Mighty and Miraculous Operations all the parts of the Old Testament that were at any time written and they were not all Written till the time of Ezra after whom and the erection of the second Temple God made no further Addition all the other parts I say of the Old Testament were principally to be judged of by what Moses at first established Working of Miracles after his time was not to be the great and onely Rule of Prophesie and Revelation God had declared and commanded the contrary Nor indeed has the Holy Ghost thought fit to record to us whatever might be done in that kind that any one Pen-Man of the Old Testament wrought any Miracles after Moses his time 'T is a truth that there was among the Jews a Succession of the Office of Prophets after Moses and certain Schools of them which first began and were continued in the Cities of the Levites who dwelt dispersed amongst all the other Tribes And of many that were probably trayn'd up in those Schools we read in Scripture as of God and Nathan and other Seers and Prophets That some of them wrote no part of the Bible nor that we read of were any way extraordinarily imploy'd but most likely were so stiled because they had their education there were bred up and devoted to that Office and Employment That God did often make use of those that were of that Prophetical Society in extraordinary Matters I doubt not But in dictating the Bible God was pleased arbitrarily to chuse out what Instruments of conveyance he pleased and confin'd not himself to any one sort of Men nor to any Prophetical Office to give us any assurance from thence in this case For he sometimes chose men out of the Court as he did Isaiah the Kings Nephew And sometimes from the Herd as he did Amoz the Shepherd who sayes himself He was neither a Prophet nor the Son of a Prophet And God in an extraordinary way by the Word and the Prophesie that he gave such to utter created them Prophets And the greatest evidence of such mens Prophetical Authority arose if no Miracles were wrought by them from the Word they uttered And if any were of which we cannot be certain the Holy Ghost being silent about it from a conjunction of both A Miracle wrought in confirmation of any Doctrine correspending to what God by Moses had at first established was the greatest assurance that the Judaical Church after Moses was capable of No false Prophet in those dayes ever arrived so far That is They never had the concurrence of a Personal and a Doctrinal Justification together If any such wrought a Miracle to gain them a personal credit yet their Doctrine was still faulty And being to lead men from God and to subvert those Laws of his by Moses so solemnly setled That was an intimation sufficient from God's own direction to discover and shame them But supposing the several Pen-Men of the Old Testament after Moses wrought no Miracles at all and that God made most of them Prophets by that very Employment which 't is certain he did and that they were not previously in any such Office so that nothing of that kind could give men any assurance Yet by these three wayes men might be then much secured in that case in the first Edition of every distinct part of the Old Testament First From the known personal Sanctity and Integrity of the Writers themselves God never made use of any ill men or such as could come under any reasonable suspition of Imposture to write any part of the Bible nor of any but such whom men in that Age wherein they lived had very good reason to credit This being a certain and revealed Truth that in writing all the parts of the Bible 't was Holy Men still that Spoke and Wrote Now there could not be a more superlative imposture and wickedness than to ascend the Throne of God to speak in his Name and pretend his Authority without his Order No Man not wholly forsaken of all fear of God and respect to men could be supposed to make such an attempt Nor could any Man of known Piety and Honesty be reasonably suspected of it Secondly and chiefly From the conformity of what was then writen to the Laws and Precepts of Moses setled upon such unquestionable evidence for whatever was superstructed upon that Foundation came under the same Justification So that if any Writings were published in God's Name that appeared to be as all the other parts of the Old Testament did but a further discovery and promise of the Messiah a renewal of those Threatnings and Promises in Moses to that People and a further promotion of those Holy Laws and that Religion and Worship by him established there was no absolute necessity of Miracles in such cases If any man will suppose there might be in those times Books piously written and grounded upon the Doctrine of Moses that came not from any Divine Inspiration in judging of which Men might be possibly deceived and mistaken I answer Either such Books pretended to a Divine Mission from God or they did not If they did not no man could be indangered by them If they did They must either be written by true Prophets or False No true Prophets would do it And 't is not reasonable to think any false prophets should because they could serve no Design by it Nor could the Devil or any ill Instruments any way promote their own Interests by perswading men to serve the true God in the right way Nor do we find that in Fact any such thing ever was Thirdly There appeared in most if not all the parts of a Bible a peculiar Majesty a savour of Divine Authority in a more than ordinary way A great and eminent difference as the Prophet Jeremiah sayes between the Chaff and the Wheat Nor is it fit to suppose but that whâ—â— came by an immediate Inspiration from God should carry some Impressions of his Wisdom Power and be some way differenced from the common Writings of weak and fallible men Besides from many other Circumstances attending the first Edition of the several parts of the Bible relating to the Matter written and the Authors that wrote might God give a further evidence to their Divine Authority of which we are now wholly ignorant And it would be perhaps somewhat of curiosity and of little use to enquire after And some of them are recorded to us in the Scripture it self As particularly the foretelling of future Events that accordingly came to pass Two wayes God himself had previously appointed by Moses for the discovery of all false pretentions to Revelation First If any Pretenders that way came to seduce men from the true God and that Divine Worship of his then established God commands They should be rejected And secondly If
and by which were we possessed of them they would much more easily have been reconciled and understood The Jews were very curious and exact in the preservation of things of that Nature and good Reason they had so to be for amongst the Heathens want of Posterity might be supplied by Adoption but the Jews were obliged to a strict succession in Alliance and Kindred The whole of this matter is most judiciously discoursed of by the learned Grotius in his Annotatious upon these two Evangelists to which the exact disquisition of all the particulars being too large a task for this undertaking I fear not to refer any impartial Reader for a sufficient Answer to all that can be reasonably objected against the Bible from hence there being nothing contained in either of these two Genealogies that of St. Matthew and that of St. Luke that in the least implies any direct contradiction nor is there any such difference between them or between them and any other part of the Bible one of which must be punctually made good or else this Objection is of no force as appears wholly uncapable of any Reconciliation But on the contrary 'T is evident the Evangelists do after an admirable manner consist and agree with themselves Although in order to many excellent ends and to clear us all Doubts about our Saviours descent they differently account Which upon the forementioned Grounds can seem hard to none to conceive Fourthly They tell us There is much contained in the Bible that seems of too Mean and Low a nature to come from such a wise and Excellent Being as God and by no means fit to be Ascribed to Him Such are many Stories and many Similitudes and divers Expressions we find there On the one hand they reproch this Book for containing things too High to be Credited And on the other hand they object against it as containing many things too Mean to be Regarded In the one they impeach Gods Power and imply some things are too Great for him to Effect And by the other cast a contempt upon the highest effects of his Condescention and Goodness for nothing can more Savour of it then such a familiar way of conversing with Men 'T is true that the Scriptures have by divers Similitudes Resemblances and Allegories made the whole World and all we converse with some way or other Hieroglyphical to us of Divinity Have expressed somewhat of Religion to us by all Parts of the Creation and by the most common imployments of Humane life Then which nothing could make Religion look with a more Familiar aspect upon us nor render the Mysteries of it more easy to be embraced by all capacities Nor is any thing more likely to preserve the memory of things Supernatural and Divine in the minds of men then when they are expressed to them by such things with which they are sure to have a constant converse while they stay in this World Whatsoever we find in the Bible of this Kind stands sufficiently discharged from all Reasonable exception because 't is visibly but adjusting the Notions of Religion to the impotency of many capacities And of the meanest expressions either in Similitudes Allegories Metaphors or otherwise that we find in the Scriptures These two things must be acknowledged by which they are enough secured against all just and rational Contempt First That they are such as in their own nature are proper and apt to informe in all those Cases in which they are made use of And Secondly They all appear to have a direct tendency to instruct men in the Noblest and Sublimest Truths And are evidently Conducing to the Highest and most Excellent Attainments that Mankind are Capable of These and such like Objections have often faced the Bible But have given very little stop to its Progress Indeed all occasions given though by its worst Enemies for the Discussion of it have turn'd greatly to its Advantage and still made it appear less capable of any Just and Solid Exception The Bible is a Book that will endure Discourse The Deeper we search into all parts of it still the surer we are to find a Divine bottome 'T is true that the manner of its composure is suitable to its nature and end Savours altogether of the wisdome of another world 'T is evidently design'd to subvert all corrupt Interests and debase mens proud opinions of their own knowledge 'T is writ after a sort that seems peculiar to God and in no such way as Mankind use to treat one with another And therefore 't is no wonder if Some men both Object against it and Reproch it Divers things there are which in the Reading of this Book we are rationally obliged to Consider and by the due consideration whereof the Grounds of most mens exceptions would be removed First the Scriptures appear to be Designed as a General Store-house of Instruction and Satisfaction to all sorts of Capacities and Conditions to the end of the world And therefore it can be no very easie task upon good Grounds to condemn any Part either as Useless or Improper Secondly Many passages in the Scripture relate to things past and long since transacted of the circumstances of which we are not fully informed And many passages were accomodated to things then well known which we in these After-ages are ignorant of Others relate much to things future and to come The Wisdome and Excellency of which will not so fully appear till Hereafter And so we see it was in the Old Testament The use and Reason of many things then could not be so fully discern'd till explain'd and interpreted by the Gospel The Book of Ruth might then happly have been judged by some as an Impertinent Addition to the rest of the Bible But since the writing of the New we see what an excellent use there was of it to make good our Saviours natural discent in the flesh according to the promise He that saw no more then the Old Testament might have thought that Historical discourse of Melchisedâ—c that we find in Moses to be very defective mentioning so considerable a Transaction of so Great a Man in those early times of the world without giving any further account of him But now under the New we are informed how Eminent a Projection of Divine Wisdome was wrapt up in the seeming Imperfection of that Story and that the Eternal Generation of our Saviour in his Divinity in a strange and unthought off way was Represented and Figured thereby Thirdly Many parts of the Bible relate to the Customes and Laws of particular Places and Countreys Without the knowledg of which No man can be a Competent Judge of them In the Books of Esther Ezra and Nehemiah many things relate to the Customes and Laws of the Persians In the Prophets divers things are not to be understood without a reference to the Histories of several Countries to which they Relate In the New Testament many passages refer to the Laws and Customes
sorts of Christians under the Gospel St. Jerom calls it a Book full of Idle dreams The Papists themselves though they have admitted many other Books that we reckon Apochryphal into their Canon yet have still rejected this and Bellarmine himself in his Book de Script Eccles speaks with great contempt of this whole Book And calls the Author of it whoever he were a writer of Romances Secondly There are many very good and sufficient Reasons to induce us to believe the contrary First There is no where in any part of the Bible the least mention not by Esdras himself though he gives us a large and particular account of what he himself did of any such thing And 't is not conceiveable but so eminent a thing as God inspiring one man to write over again so great a part of the Bible which so many had been inspired to write before would have been some where or other Recorded nor is it credible but that so great a Judgment upon the Jews as the total loss of their Law would have been distinctly mentioned when the Holy Ghost is so very particular in giving us an account of all the lossâ—s the Jews underweâ—â— at that time of all the ruines made by the Babylonians at Jerusalem and of all the spoils they carryed into Babylon from thence Secondly 'T is not to be doubted but that there were multitudes of Copies in the hands of the Religious Jews especially the Priests of whom there were many hundreds who had a constant use of it And that the People also dâ—d generally possess themselves of it after that eminent danger it had undergone and the Recovery of â—â—â—n the Eighteenth year of Jâ—siah And 't is not to be supposed that all the Copiâ—s could be destroyed Those that probably were in the hands of Jeremiah Gedalich and many others who stayed behind and accepted their liberty to continue still in Judea and those in the hands of Daniel Ezekiel and those that were carryed away with them in the first Captivity to Babylon long before the City and Temple were burnt and all those which were probably kept by many of those that were carried into Babylon after especially if we consider that we no where find that the Babylonians made it any part of their business in particular to destroy and extirpate their Law And when Antiochus did afterward with all his might indeavour it by Reason of the many Copies that were extant in good mens hands he was no way able to effect it Thirdly It appears the Jews had the Scriptures with them during the time of their Captivity in Babylon both from Daniels Prophecie who Prophesied there and also from other Historical Evidence First From his Prophecie for we find him in the 9 Chapter of his Prophecie quoting several times particularly the Writings of Moses And in the beginning of that Chapter he sayes He understood by Books the number of years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the Prophet that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem And those Books could be no other but the Prophecie of Jeremiah it self with other parts of the Scripture and the Records of the Kings of Babylon wherein were to be found the times that the Jews were brought thither which Daniel compared together and so found out the End of Jâ—remies seventy years and of the Captivity the difficulty in the doing of which arose from hence that there had been four distinct Captivities and four several Kings of Judah carryed into Babylon at four several times first Manasses then Jehojakim and with him amongst others Daniel himself Thirdly Jeconias and with him Ezekiel and Mordecai and lastly Zedekias when the City and Temple were destroyed And 't was not a thing very easie to know from which of these Captivities to reckon the seventy â—aâ—s Ezekiel seems to begin it eleven years before the City was destroyed when Jeâ—â—onias was carryed away thither for he sayes In the five and twentieth year of our being in Captivity in the bâ—ginning of the year in the tenth day of the month in the fourteenth year after that the City was smitten And the Prophet Jeremie in comforting those that were carryed away with Jecenias used these words Thus saith the Lord after seventy years be accomplished in Babel I will visit you and cause you to return to this place by which he seems to begin the seventy years from thence but in other places is very express that the seventy years were to be accounted from the destruction of the City and Temple And so it appears the Captivity mentioned by Ezekiel was not that by which the seventy â—ears were to be reckoned Nor was the Prophecie uttered by Jeremie to comfort those that were captivated with Jeconias to commence when uttered nor till the destruction of the City and the last Captivity of Zedekiah All which Daniel considered and by comparing these Prophecies together found the exact time from whence the seventy years were to be accounted Secondly From Historical Evidence for Josephus sayes the Reason why Cyrus set on foot the rebuilding of the Temple and restoring of the Jews to their Countrey was his reading the Prophecie of Isaiah which was written â—10 years before his time wherein the Prophet foretells in Gods name that Cyrus should be raised up for that very purpose upon reading of which during the Captivity he save Cyrus was ravished with admiration of God and surprized with an ardent zeal to bring about what was so long before written And t is highly probâ—ble that God made use of the sight of that Prophecie to engage Cyrus to what he did for otherwise 't was a thing in it self most absurdly impolitick and against all ordinary Rules of discretion to restore such a people and rebuild such a place that had been so famous and so terrible to all the Nations round about Especially when as Josephus sayes there went out of Babilon at their return of those two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin there captivated Four Milions six hundred twenty and eight thousand Persons that were above twelve years old besids four thousand and seventy Levites and of their Wives and Children together forty thousand seven hundred forty and two besides also some hundreds of the Tribe of Levi that were Porters Singers and other sacred Servitors Fourthly 'T is not Imaginable that Zerubbabel Joshuah Haggai and so many others of them would have so laboured as they did to return out of Babylon toâ—e-build their Temple and restore their Ancient Worship if the Law of God the great Rule and Foundatioâ— of it had been wholly lâ—st and extinguished Nay it appears evidently in the Book of â—zra that those Jews that firstâ—etâ—â—â—ed into Judaea before Esdras came out of Babylon brought the Law out of Babylon with them for in the sixth of Esdras 't is there said They set the Prâ—ests in their divisions and the Levites in their coâ—ses and setled the Worship oâ—the Temple
the greatest ruine to mankind deluding them with false informations about their chiefest concerns should be able to produce in their justification the most eminent Miracles and all the greatst Evidences that rationally can be expected to ascertain the World in the publication of the highest supernatural Truths In a word who can beleive a Book so circumstanced as we find the Bible to be should be composed by the worst Instruments and with the worst of designs No such thing can ever be credited while we suppose there is a God ruling above and men live in the exercise of Reason below 'T were most absurd to suppose that any Book falsely pretending to Gods Name and Authority designing his dishonour and mans destruction should be capable of such a proof as has been brought in defence of the Bible And yet so must the Tables be turn'd the whole proof must so be inverted of all that hath been said a contrary application must of necessity be made if this Book comes not from God and be not in truth what it self openly claims to be The Divine Authority of this Book we call the Bible being thus upon the forementioned grounds established I come in the last place to a Consideration of such Doubts and Objections as are usually made about it All the Material Difficulties that can be proposed will be reduceable to these four Questions I. First How could men come to be assured in those times wherein the several parts of the Bible were first writen that they were written by an Infallible Spirit and upon sure grounds distinguish them from all other Writings II. Secondly How come we certainly to know the true Compass and Extent of Holy Writ How can we know that we have now contained in our Bibles all that was writen by a Divine Inspiration and intended as a standing Rule to the Church and no more That is How can we be now safely assured about the Canon of the Scripture And be able upon good grounds to say What is Canonical and what is Not III. Thirdly How can we that have not the Originals of the Scripture not the Autographa's of those that wrote it but onely the Copies of them and most but the Translations of those Copies rest assured we have God's Mind as it was first delivered IV. Fourthly How can we believe this Book say some to be from God when we find contained in it divers Contradictions several strange and incredible Stories and other things greatly lyable to exception In answering the first Question This ought to be previously considered That there were Advantages peculiar to the belief of those who first received the Bible or any parts of it and lived in those Times wherein it was first delivered that we have not And we have likewise some Advantages and those very considerable to our belief which they had not They conversed with the Pen-Men themselves the Names of many of whom are to us wholly unknown the Holy Ghost not judging it necessary to record them foreseeing the Scriptures would descend to us upon other sufficient Evidence They were able to judge of their personal Integrity and the account they gave of their Divine Commission were Eye-witnesses of the Miracles saw the Original Writings And in the Apostles times many knew some of their Hands These we have not but we see the progress and success of this Book which they saw not We see this Book translated into all Languages whole Nations converted by it The Gospel spread all the World over and the fulfilling of many Predictions since which they could not then be Witnesses of With many other great Effects of it We see the Whole conjoyn'd and the excellent Harmony of it and the relation each part has to compleat the Design of the Whole Are in divers respects upon different terms of judging now upon the Whole from what men were in judging at first upon any particular parts But to come to a direct Answer to this Question There could be but two wayes to ascertain men in their reception of any part of the Bible when it first became publick First By some outward visible Justification of the Persons imployed in that Service to assure us that they were sent and commissionated from God Or secondly From the Matter and the Nature of such Writings themselves And herein a due consideration of those Times and Seasons in which the several parts of the Bible were written and the then present state of things and the order of writing it will much inform us Moses who layed the first and great Foundation of the whole Fabrick in the five Books that he wrote He had a justification Personal beyond all question His Commission and Authority to do what he did was sufficiently evident to all that conversed with him There was all that could be expected to assure those that then lived that God had imployed him For God admitted him openly to a personal converse with himself We read in the nineteenth of Exodus that the Lord said unto Moses Loe I come to thee in a thick Cloud that the People may bear when I speak with thee and believe thee for ever c. He impowered him upon many occasions to work the greatest Miracles that since the World had a being had ever been wrought and openly to shame and out-doe all his Opposers and all Pretenders that way And whensoever there was a doubt made about this Divine Authority or any contest with him upon that account as in the case of Korah and at other times God plainly and openly from Heaven in the sight of all the People decided the Matter to assure them and all Generations to come that Moses was no Impostor but acted by a Divine Commission in what he then did And indeed It being the first time that God revealed himself to the World in a written way and published those Laws which were to be a Standard to all that succeeded and the great Corner-stone of all that Revelation that he would at any time after make to Man-kind 't was but necessary it should be fixed and established upon certain and unquestionable grounds So that such who lived in Moses his time could have no good reason at all to doubt in the least of his sincerity for all was done that could be done to put that matter out of question And God visibly shewed himself as we find in the four and twentieth of Exodus and his own glory amongst them For 't is said They saw the Lord God of Israel and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a Saphire-stone and as it were the Body of Heaven in its clearness Nor could there be any doubt raised Whether the Laws and Precepts of Moses were rightly recorded and as he intended they should For before his Death he himself by God's special command in a publick Assembly delivered over his Five Books to the Levites to be layed up in the sides of the Ark. After Moses his time
themselves were very long Preserved as most pretious Jewels in the Church Tertullian sayes some of them were extant in his time and we are told by some Authors of Credit that s Johns Gospel Written with his own Hand was preserved by the Church of Ephesus till the time of Honorius the Emperour Now let any reasonable man judge what a vast number of Copies were likely to be taken before the Originals perished and how highly improbable if not morally Impossible it was to impose a publick and general abuse upon the world by a false Transcription of such Writings while the Originals themselves lasted it could not be done Nor can we conceive the Christian Church so intollerable sottish and so universally Negligent as to take up with false Transcripts while the Originals were to be had to compare them withal and correct them by And before the Originals themselves perished such a vast multitude of True Copies generally known from the Originals so to be must needs be extant and we are historically assured actually were so that the scriptures were for ever thereby secured against any attempts that could possibly be made that way secondly If we consider how much this Book upon its first publication filled the world with Discourse what various Disputes there arose relating to all Parts of it wherein an Appeal on all sides was still made to the Letter of the Text and the Book it self how throughly all Passages in it were Discussed and Examined both by Jews Christians and Heathens urged and made use of in the warmest controversies in the pursuit of which by men of different Perswasions the mis-reciting or corrupting a Text would soon have been openly published If we consider by how many Authors in those times it was quoted and that it was then the continual and general study of the Christian-parts of the world and the constant and daily Work and Imployment of many amongst them to Preach and instruct the People out of it all this Considered it is most absurd to imagine that the least considerable Alteration could ever be made in such a Book without some notorious and universal discovery Nor could it ever possibly happen unless we 'l suppose that all men in some One Age of all Opinions that were possessed of the Bible should at once agree together to deface their Grand Charter their Magna Charta by which they held all to corrupt that sacred Depositum on which they wholly relyed for their present and eternal welfare to no other end but their own utmost ruine and to abuse all succeeding Generations secondly If we consider the New Testament it self as we now find it First ' t is in the Bulk of it so composed as does much secure us especially in all material things against all danger this way Either it must have been Generally attempted or in some Particulars To imagine any General attempt should that way be made is riâ—iculous nor do we hear one word that there was ever a Thought to endeavour any such thing And to effect an Altetation about any One Particular point is a thing could not easily be done because no little alteration would do it No considerable Truths could be Inverted without many alterations made because they are all generally grounded upon very many Texts witnessed unto from several places and indeed all the Eminent Truths of the New Testament are so interwoven together and have such a Dependency each upon other that it would be found a very hard Task to Deface the beauty of any One without giving a considerable Wound to the Wholes Nor in truth do we find any one Part of the New Testament that looks like a Patch set upon the rest nor any one Doctrine that savours in the least of any such sophistication This Book does not appear to be partly from God and partly from Men but there is One Divine spirit breathed visibly through the Whole ' T is all of a Piece Nor could any wicked design to Corrupt any one Part of it have taken effect but in all probability the rest would some way or other have made an opon Discovery of it Thirdly The various Readings we meet with in several copies of the New Testament are in themselves if duely considered a great evidence that the Originals have not been corrupted for such various readings of any place cannot be reasonably thought to arise from any design to vitiate and falsify the Text because such various Readings do rather accidentally tend to discover anything of that nature and secure against any Total and General Alteration and amongst them all to contain and preserve the Integrity and native sense of the Text and enable a diligent Reader by a through search and Examination of them to find it out Nor do we ever suppose that any Book that has passed through many hands and been often Transcribed to be totally Cortrupted or Changed because in some places of it we find various Lections but are thereby much secured that such Books have not been Designedly Altered And with good reason do judge that such various Lections are barely the effects of casual mistakes and that the Original sense of the Authour is still preserved and may by a careful and diligent inspection be found out amongst them And indeed those we find of some Texts in the New Testament are of such a nature that they all evidently appear the effects of humane frailty and onely such variations as might considering how vast a number of Copies were at first taken escape the best scribes and the greatest diligence Nor is there the least appearance of any Design or Contrivance to Vitiate the Original Text or any thing to be found that in the least degree looks that way in all those Various Readings that we find amongst such Copies as have been most anciently most generally and most publickly used in the Church by which we are to take out Measure in this matter 'T is in this case of great Consideration That no Particular designs of any bad men have been gratified nor any corrupt Ends attained nor indeed any Distinct Ends at all of any sort by any such diversity of readings which sufficiently shews they came not originally from Contrivement nor were Intended as the Foundation of any particular Notions but are the bare and single effects of Accident That the New Testament therefore has been in any Part of it wholly changed and corrupted there appeareth neither Certain not Probable ground to believe Nor indeed is there any good ground to believe that these Sacred Records have suffered the least violation in this kind First no man can prove that the Scriptures were ever Corrupted nor tell us by whom or When or the manner How which yet ought to be done if men will Reasonably Object in this case For no such Presumption as this that renders God in his Providence so Regardless of his Word and his Church and so Reproches the Christian Profession that has been
in such a Succession Established upon the Authority of this Book ought ever to be admitted without very positive Proof Especially when we have such apparent Reasons to believe the contrary By Whom is it I ask that the Bible could be corrupted It must have been either by Jews Pagans or Hereticks 'T is plain the Jews have not done it for we find multitudes of Texts that give in a daily witness against them which doubtless had they attempted the Bible in such a way they would never have suffered so to remain upon Record against them No part of the Pagan World can be reasonably thought to have done it for the Scriptures contain such an eminent Revelation of the One true God and his Worship as puts an end to all Heathenish vanities and at once dispatches all False gods out of the world Nor have Hereticks done it for 't is this Sword of the Spirit the Written Word of God that upon all occasions mortally wounds them the Scriptures have slain their thousands and their ten thousands in this kind 'T is the purity of the Scriptures in asserting the Orthodox Truths of Religion that has in all Ages kept up the Christian Verity and still brought all sorts of Hereticks to an open shame It has been the Wresting or Perverting not the Corrupting of Scripture from whence all Heresies have chiefly arisen and the native and genuine Sense of the Bible has still proved their Ruine Nor is there upon the whole of this matter any tolerable Reason to Doubt but that as God was pleased by his special Providence to Secure the Old Testament which we are sure he did and preserve it intire till the time of our Saviour so by the same Providence he has secured the Old and the New since and delivered them over to the Church in these latter Ages without any considerable variation from what they were when they were first written And this ought to be duely considered as an eminent help towards a rational Satisfaction in this point That the very same Objections which some men now please themselves with against the New Testament the Old Testament was equally lyable to in the times of our Saviour and the Apostles For after Esdras's time the Old Testament came into no Infallible bands till the times of the Gospel was conveyed by fallible means through many Ages down to those times had the same possibilities of Alteration then that the New Testament has now Various Lections also in the Hebrew copies were then extant And yet for all this the Scriptures of the Old Testament were then pure and intire Nor does our Saviour or the Apostoles mention the least defect that was then in them Nor was there in those eminent times of Reformation the least Question or doubt ever raised upon any such account One grand Objection is usually made upon the whole of this matter and 't is thus framed All these Arguments brought either to prove the Bible in general or to answer such particolar doubts as arise about it are built say some upon no better foundation then Huâ—anâ— and in themselves fallible grounds And if so we still embrace our Religion but upon uncertain terms can never from chance arrive at any positive and absolute assurance nor come to such a Divine and Infallible faith as we ought to have in this case In answering to this Objection this must be acknowledged that although the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were at first Penned by the infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost yet the manner of their Conveyance to future Ages has been by Humane and in themselves fallible means The Grounds and Reasons of which disposal of God though we cannot pretend fully to reach yet we are thus far informed First the Scriptures could not have been by means in themselves absolutely infallible handed down to all Places and Ages without the visible continuance and constant exertion of such a supernatural and extraordinary Power as would have wholly inverted that course we find God most generally takes in his Rule and dispose of the World Secondly it would have prevented all that case and industry God intended to exercise his Church withall to their great advantage in the exact preservation of these sacred Records Thirdly there had been no room for a belief of not occasion for a dependance upon that Wisdom and Power God has expressed and wherein he has greatly honoured himself in an over-ruling disposal of ordinary means to such extraordinary Ends who has providentially secured this Book through all the several Channels of Humane conveyance This Objection is much urged First by those of the Roman Church on the one hand to convince us of the great uncertainty of our own profession and the stability of theirs And Secondly by men of Sceptical Principles on the other hand either to fright or perswade us or both out of all Religion by telling us There is no positive or absolute certainty in the grounds of any How serviceable this Objection though it has filled the World with great noise and clamour as it has been pressed both ways will prove to either of these designs and indeed with how great absurdity t is managed in order to both will be soon made to appear All belief of things Divine in an ordinary way I speak not of such Divine illumination as God may particularly vouchsafe to any â—ust of necessity be ultimately resolved into that we call Rational and Moral assurance for when we speak most properly of Divine faith we mean such a faith as is built upon a Divine Testimony not denominating it from the Object of it nor from the Effect of it which is less proper but from the Foundation and Ground of it Now Divine faith in that best and truest sense of it will be reduced into no more then a Moral a ssurance at last for if I say my faith is Divine because built upon a Divine Testimony 't is in some sense true But if I am asked by what means I came to know that Testimony to be Divine That question must needs bring me back to a Moral assurance as the ground of all my previous belief about that Divine Testimony it self that it really is so Whatsoever Revelation God makes of his mind to me I must needs without Divine assistance receive it upon Humane and in themselves fallible terms and so judge of it as I judg of all other things No man can receive my Revelation from God with a faith a Divine and infallible as the Revelation is in it self unless there be an equal inspiration in both cases and God make men as infallible in Judging of Revelation when proposed as he made the Instruments of it in the Act of its Conveyance The plain Question in this Case is how I come to receive all other things into my belief that are Objects of belief It must be confessed upon the grounds of Rational credibility and Moral assurance and therefore upon the