allusion as this is that saying of Moses to his Maker Exod. 32. 32. Yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin and if not blot me I pray thee out of thy book which thou hast written And then vers 33. And the Lord God said unto Moses whosoever hath sinned against me him will I blot out of my book Not that we must entertain so gross and so unworthy conceptions of God Almighty as if he entered down all humane or other Occurrences in a certain Journal without which if they did not escape his cognizance he would loose the memory of them as if he kept an Album Amicorum a Catalogue or List of his Friends and Favorites without which they would ship out of his mind but it is an allusion to the Genealogical Tables of the Jews in which such as dyed without Issue as being of no use in carrying on the series and account of time were used by those who transcribed the publick Genealogies for the common use or the private Pedigrees for the use of particular Families to be omitted and consequently in after Ages forgotten of which I have spoken more largely in that Disquisition which I have mentioned concerning the Brother's marrying the Brother's wife in the Levitical Law and this is plainly the meaning of that Passage Psal 109. 13. Let his Posterity be cut off and in the Generation following let their name be blotted out that is when the Genealogies come to be transcribed for the use of the next Generation let their names as barren and supersluous and dying without Issue be omitted Whereâ—ore the Precept of writing of the Law or the Commandments upon the Posts and Gates of their houses must be explained by vers 18. Ye shall lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul and this was that which they were to teach their Children vers 19. that is not the whole Law which those tender apprehensions could not receive or attend unto much less comprehend the entire Systeme and Model of so intricate a Dispensation but only the general Rules of Life and Practice in which it was but requisite they should be trained up from their infancy and childhood that the exercise and love of Vertue and Religion might be the more habitual to them in their age and for this reason they were used to instruct them particularly in the Decalogue as Children now a daies are used to be taught the Apostles Creed the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments which contain the general Heads of Devotion Articles of Belief and Rules of Practice The very reducing the general Rules of duty both with respect to God and Man under ten general Heads the putting them not less than twice by themselves into Tables of Stone by the Finger of God himself that is by a supernatural operation of the Divine Will notwithstanding there is nothing in the Commandments themselves which is not more largely insisted upon in the body of the Law and branched out into many particular cases is a sufficient argument that these ten Words or Precepts or Commandments were intended for the use of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or vulgar sort of men to give them a general scheme of their duty though for their satisfaction in particular cases whether of religious scruple or civil right they were to betake themselves to the Judges and Officers of their respective Tribes and from thence if they were not satisâ—y'd they were to appeal to Jerusalem in that manner which has been already declared Letters were so scarce in those early times among the Jews as well as among other Nations that to be able to write and reade especially to reade the Law after the traditionary way of which I shall speak more by and by was that which qualify'd men for the highest employments in the Jewish State and therefore it is observable that Shoter and Sopher and Shophet in Hebrew as they are names very like in sound so they are also in signification and were all of them frequently expressive of the highest power and authority among them Sophrim and Shophtim are joyned together as exegetical and declaratory one of another 2 Chron. 34. 13. and so are Shophtim and Shotrim Deut. 16. 18. In the first of which places the Seventy render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Scribes and Judges and in the latter they are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judges and Promulgers of Judicial Edicts and Letters as Andreas Masius in his learned and elaborate Notes upon Joshua would have it but by his favour I do not allow that interpretation but am rather of opinion that this word is synonymous with the former 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Introduction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Introductour or Instructour in any Skill or Knowledge and so Plutarch calls his little Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is of the instruction or information of Youth and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will be interpres enarrator Doctor Legis an Expositor or Teacher of the Law and consequently a Judge of those Controversies that were to be decided out of it or it is one that was used to bring out the Law among the People who were not allow'd the use of it or could not make use of it at home to reade and explain it and address himself to them in practical and popular exhortations as the People spake to Ezra the Scribe Neh. 8. v. 1. To bring the book of the Law of Moses and then v. 2. And Ezra the Priest brought the Law before the Congregation Neither were they onely by means of this skill of reading and interpreting the Law capacitated to be the prime Judges and Officers among the People but also by writing and keeping the Genealogies which was no question another Imployment of theirs they had opportunity of knowing all the People and of being better known to them of understanding their qualities and conditions and serving themselves accordingly of them and by being necessary to all conveyances and settlements of right between man and man which will always be done in writing where such a thing as writing is to be found they did by this means aggrandize and enrich themselves and had a mighty stroke with their respective Clients so that it is no wonder the Scribes are mentioned in the Gospel as men of so great authority and sway amongst the Jews this being a name for the reasons above given of the greatest dignity and power among them and so in the first of Macchabees the fiâ—th Chapter and forty second verse the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scribes of the people are manifestly the Leaders and the Chiefs among them and Acts 19. 35. he who in our Translation is called the Town clerk a man of principal credit and authority among the People of that place is in the original called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scribe and though I am ready to grant that this word does not always denote so
legally be eaten by any but the Priests and for the same reason the plucking a Sheep out of a pit the pulling of ears of Corn and healing of the blind on the Sabbath-day are allowed not to be a violation of the Sabbath though expresly contrary to the words of that Commandment wherein the observation of the Sabbath or a feriation from all manner of work or labour is enjoyned which how strictly it was observed not only by the superstition of the Jews but by the appointment of God himself in cases where there was no such absolute necessity we know by the punishment of him who was stoned by the whole congregation for gathering of sticks on the Sabbath day If therefore a divine Law may be dispensed with in cases of necessity at the prudence and discretion of men what can be more plain than that upon the same account a humane law may justly be enacted For this reason because a dispensation of any divine Law in cases not particularly excepted in the Law it self is every whit as much an humane institution as any positive humane Law and if there be the same reason of necessity in both cases that is for the welfare of a particular person and much more of a whole society they are both of them of equal obligation neither will it avail any thing in this case to distinguish betwixt humane institutions in sacred and in civil Matters for certainly the observation of the Sabbath belongs to the former of these and if humane laws may determine in what particular instances the Sabbath is violated and in what it is not that is in what manner the Sabbath shall be observed then it may as well determine nay and much more any other bare external circumstance of Worship whatsoever But above all things we can never too frequently reflect upon what hath been said as to the prohibition of reading the Law and Prophets to the Jews of old which being a thing drawing so great inconvenience after it and which could have no other good meaning than to preserve the peace and unity of the Jewish Church which I have shown plainly without this prohibition could never have been preserved this certainly extends in its consequence with much more conclusiveness to all those expedients of publique peace and safety whatever they be which have no such inconvenience attending which to be sure must be the case of all indifferent matters which would otherwise cease to be indifferent and by being manifestly hurtfull would lose their name But let not any man for all this think or suggest that in this I favour the cause of the Papists who deny the Populace the use of Bibles in the vulgar tongue for in the first place I only represent matter of fact without making any application in the second I say there is great disparity of reason betwixt the Papists and the Jews for had the Vowels been added to the Consonants in the Hebrew Bibles so as the sense might have been more plain and less subject either to errour or design which is the case of all our Bibles in the Modern Tongues there had not then been the same reason to keep them lock't up among the Priests that there was and it would have been as safe to permit every man the use of the Law and Prophets for his own private reading as it was after the seventy had compleated their Translation after which the knowledge of the Law was diffused in common among all the Jews Again If the Law had contained only matters of Morality and rules of Life which is the main business of the Gospel it could not have been so lyable to any dangerous corruption because it would be more difficult for any Doctrine to gain credit among men which contradicted the common sense and the common interest of Mankind but in a book of Rituals and Formalities of external worship as different readings must have produced different rites so those different rites would have produced so many different Parties and Factions among the Jews Fourthly It was absolutely necessary before the appearance of our Saviour in the world that the Scriptures of the Old Testament should be lay'd open to the knowledge both of Jew and Gentile to prepare them for the reception of the Messias that was to come and to render them the more inexcusable especially the former if at his appearance they did not give him that welcome and respectfull entertainment which was due to the greatness of his character and person Fifthly We are expresly commanded in several places of the N. T. to search the Scriptures we are told that all Scripture is written for our instruction and Timothy is commended by St. Paul for his knowledge of the Scripture from his youth upwards and since all these places in the New Testament where the Scripture or Scriptures are mentioned are to be understood of the Old this is sufficient to show how necessary it was sometime before our Saviour's appearance and at that time it self and ever since that the Scriptures of the Old Testament should be lay'd open and exposed to the view of Jew and Gentile because Moses and the Prophets did testifie of the Messias and it would have been impossible to understand how all the Prophecies and Types of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the person and by the sacrifice of the Messias without comparing the Life and History of that person and those types and prophecies together Sixthly Since we are commanded in the Scriptures of the New Testament to study and search into the Scriptures of the Old and that only for this reason because they bear their testimony to the Messias whose types and shadows are explained and unfolded in the Gospel this is sufficient to show the obligation we are under to search the Scriptures of the New Testament also because they can neither be sufficiently understood without one another and the reading of the Old is enjoyned us only for that reason that we may compare it with the New for our better understanding of both and especially the latter Seventhly Since the History of our Saviour's Birth and Life and Miracles and Sufferings are so faithfully and particularly set down in the Gospels as this was unquestionably intended for the benefit of all succeeding generations who would otherwise have lost that History or have received it corrupted and imbezled by foolish and ridiculous Fables so the greatest benefit which any man can receive from a Narrative of this nature is to be expected from the Original Narrative it self or from such a faithfull translation as keeps the closest to the literal and Grammatical sense of the Original besides that such Translations made by men of learning and integrity in all ages into the vulgar tongue for the use of the common people are a perpetual security against all the corruptions and impostures of superstitious ignorant or designing men Eighthly As there is matter of History in the books of the New Testament
reason and common sense and hath believed the grâ—ssest contradictions as Articles of Faith condescended to the most Contemptible and Apish Follies as parts of a Serious and Devout Worship is ultimately resolved into their unacquaintance with the Scriptures which as long as they were in common use among the people so long the Christian Faith continued as to the main free from that foul degeneracy and corruption to which it was afterwards for so many ages condemned and under which so great a part of the Christian World is to this day so fatally opprest but when once the Greek and Roman Tongues became from vernacular to be learned languages when neither the Fountains themselves nor their purest streams could be repaired to by the ordinary people and in too many instances not by the Priests themselves while Translations were either not thought of or not permitted this gave occasion for ignorance and superstition by insensible degrees to corrupt and adulterate Religion and for the craft and wickedness of designing Priests who gain by nothing more than by the credulity and superstition of ignorant and foolish men to introduce those opinions and practices into the world which it is hard to say whether they were better fitted to promote the outward pomp and splendour the secular interest and advantage of the Romish Church and Clergy or more expressy contrary to the positive and declared Revelations of Christ and his Apostles such as are the sacrifice of the Mass Prayers and Masses for the dead denying the Cup to the Laiety in the Holy Eucharist and the Celibate of the Clergy or forbidding Clergy-men to Marry of which the first and third were intended to create a respect and reverence for the person of the Priest the second to be a perpetual Tax and Subsidy upon the Laiety the last to secure the grandeur and external pomp of the Church and all of them to fill the peoples heads with such absurd and grosly superstitious opinions as are the most effectual means for the promoting and perpetuating to â—uture generations all these unwarrantable interests and designs Secondly As unacquaintance with the Scriptures which to the Romish Church are as a talent hid in a Napkin or a Candlestick put under a bushell was the true cause of that Universal Idolatry and Corruption which prevails among the deluded Votaries of that Communion so on the other side the true reason why the Reformed Churches have shaken off that yoke of absurdities and abominations why they have embraced a Religion more agreeable to nature and more suitable to revelation is to be referred to the Holy Evangelists and Apostles speaking to every one of us as they did to the multitude on the day of Pentecost in his own proper Idiom and Language which it is utterly impossible they should do but they must at the same time discover plainly to the world God's utter detestation of all such Idolatrous practices and of all those absurd and unwarrantable opinions upon which those forbidden practices are founded But thirdly to bring the matter a little more home to the Jews themselves if it be demanded why before the Captivity of Babylon they were so often guilty of Idolatry but never after it as it is plain they were not the true reason of this is that soon after the established worship was again setled upon its old foundations by Esdras and Nehemias the Translation of the seventy was made out of the Original Hebrew and from that time forward the Law was layed open both to the Jewish and the Gentile World And these three things as I have said which are matters of fact and arguments drawn from experience I take to be a plain and undeniable demonstration of the matter in question that the ancient Jews were not permitted the reading of the Law for themselves or in their respective families or persons This is the fourth reason a fifth no less demonstrative than that is shall be taken from the peoples calling to Esdras to bring out the Book of the Law and of their having lost not only the memory of those rites and usages with which their solemn Feasts were to be observed but of the very Feasts themselves of their having lost their language in so great a measure that Esdras was forced not only to produce the Law but to explain it to them as I conceive in the Chaldean or Assyrian tongue which was then more familiar to them than their native Hebrew All which it is utterly unconceivable how it should ever have come to pass had it been the custom of every private person to transcribe the Law for himself as the Rabbins and their adherents would make us believe and to reade it to his Children and Domestiques in his family I say it would have been impossible at this rate that in so small a period of time there being several who had seen the first Temple who likewise returned again from the Captivity and saw the foundations of the second lay'd so strange an ignorance and so utter a forgetfulness of the whole Law should over-spread the whole Nation of the Jews Insomuch that it was the opinion of Ireneus Eusebius and several other of the ancient Fathers that the Law of Moses in this Interval was utterly lost and that by a supernatural revelation it was renewed by Edras nay Tertullian in his book de habitu Muliebri is so positive as to affirm it for a certain and undoubted truth Hierosolymis Babiloniâ expugnatione deletis omne instrumentum Judaicae literaturae constat per Esdram esse restauratum It is certain that after Jerusalem was demolished by the King of Babylon all the Monuments of the Jewish Learning or Law which were now perfectly lost were restored by Edras Which opinion as being grounded upon no other foundation than that extreme ignorance of the people in the Law after the return from the captivity and their importuning Esdras to bring out the Book of the Law may without any unwarrantable disrespect to antiquity be rejected especially since I hope I may pretend to have given a better account of those matters because it hath nothing precarious in it which is the fault of this for it does not follow because Esdras was desired to bring out the book of the Law that therefore it was revealed to him by inspiration but he could not bring it out unless he had it in possession is certain which is all that I contend for Neither need we be so scrupulous of rejecting the testimony of the Fathers in this case if we consider that the divine inspiration of the seventy Interpreters and their exact jumping together notwithstanding every man made his Translation apart is asserted by every whit as strong nay a much stronger suffrage of antiquity than this of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or supernatural illumination of Esdras nay Justin Martyr tells us that he himself saw those very Cells in which this miracle of a Translation was wrought and yet nothing in
which is best preserved and most edifyingly delivered to the common people as nigh as may be in the very words which it may be supposed the divine Pen-men themselves had they been to interpret their own books into English or any other Modern language would have used so there are also matters of Faith and Practice The first of which as containing mysteries above humane comprehension ought to be delivered as exactly as is possible in the very words of the inspired Writers to doe otherwise being either to pretend to explain those things which cannot be explained or to make mysteries of our own instead of delivering those of God and Religion And then as to the rules of life and practice they can never appear in a more Authoritative or becoming garb than in that which God himself hath put them neither can the native simplicity and beauty of the Gospel that peaceable and gentle temper which it breathes from it self and is apt to inspire into all that converse with it be any way so advantageously and so profitably represented to the world as by every man's perusing the Gospels and Epistles for himself by reading the very Sermons of our Saviour himself and the advices of his immediate followers and Apostles in those very words or their equivalents in which they were delivered Ninthly Though it cannot be deny'd when we have so many and so sad experiences to convince us of the truth of it that the reading of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue is attended with many inconveniences from the perversness the design or the ignorance of men yet those inconveniences neither are nor can be so great as that they ought to stand in any degree of competition with the salvation of the souls of men which are of infinitely more price and value than any other consideration whatsoever Tenthly These inconveniences are not so great as those to which not only particular persons but Religion it self is exposed by the contrary extreme that is by keeping the Bible lockt up in an unknown language which is in it self and has been found by experience in the Romish Church to have been the cause of all those monstrous Idolatries and Superstitions all those absurd Fables and foolish Traditions with which that communion is at this day polluted and which instead of being so zealously practised and so eagerly pursued after by the Votaries of that way would by the light of Scripture if they were to take their measures from thence be sufficiently detected and proportionably abhorred which is not only manifest from the repugnancy of the Scripture it self to such abominable trumperies and wicked impositions upon the belief or practice of men but also from the separation of the reformed Churches from that of Rome which proceeds altogether upon Scriptural measures and cannot be justified upon any other pretence and still in all ages ever since the corruption of Christianity by the Romish artifices from its first simplicity into a fardle of absurdities and innovations those gainfull impieties have been proportionably detected as there was more or less of Evangelical light and truth shining forth in the world Eleventhly There never can any so great inconvenience happen by a promiscuous use of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongues which may not in a great measure if not altogether be remedy'd by the strict and impartial severity of wholesome Laws and where Laws do not govern the outward practices of men though they have nothing to doe with private opinions while they remain such and do not walk abroad there the government must of necessity be dissolved and all the banks of order and society must give place to a deluge of Enthusiasm and Fanatique madness Twelfthly There can no mischief or inconvenience follow upon a publique allowance of reading the scriptures in the vulgar tongues if there be but such restraints laid upon the practices and opinions of men as are of absolute necessity to the peace and security of every Commonwealth and if thus much may not be allowed if every man shall be permitted not onely to reade the Scriptures but to interpret them as he pleases and to practise in consequence of his interpretation so prodigious are the follies so strong the prejudices so rash and inconsiderate the zeal so wicked and detestable the designs of abundance of men that if this be the true English of Gospel-liberty if this be that liberty which Christ came to purchase for us and which he hath entailed upon every follower or disciple of his then his followers though agreeing in this That they all acknowledge him for their head and leader will yet be at as great strife and variance among themselves nay and perhaps at greater too than if they had been destitute of such a common guide who by such an ungovernable unbounded liberty of interpretation speaking no certain sense but accommodating himself in all things to the follies prejudices and designs of ignorant or wicked men will instead of being the Prince of Peace and the healer of all breaches and animosities among us prove the certain and infallible cause of infinite misery and distraction to the world FINIS The Second EXERCITATION Concerning the true Pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton or four lettered Name of God among the Jews As also concerning the Pythagorick Tetractys and other Philological matters that have a connexion with it A Ben Ezra in the Introduction to his Paraphrase upon the Book of Esther tells us the Samaritanes were used to worship Asima insinuating thereby that they were Idolaters though this indeed be but a Rabbinical Equivocation and is rather a confession in behalf of those whom he would pretend to accuse that they were Worshippers of the true and onely God that made Heaven and Earth and all that therein is For what is Asima it is either At h shema that is Hashem the name of God among the Jews or it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him whose name cannot be expressed in its true sound and pronunciation and so is the same with the shem hameporash or if it be not an Equivocation it is a downright Falsehood for it was not the men of Cuth as the Jews call the Samaritanes but those of Hamath that worshipped Ashima but the Cuthites Idol was Negal 2 Kings 17. 30. and though all the several Nations there mentioned verse 31. may in some sense be comprehended under the general name of Samaritanes as being all transplanted by Salmanasser into that Country which from Shomron the Metropolis was usually called Samaria yet it is manifest that it was but a very small part of them that worshipped this Idol Ashima and therefore Aben Ezra cannot free himself from the imputation either of an Equivocator or a false Accuser There is also a certain Hebrew Gentleman the Authour of a Book called Toledoth Jeshu or the Book of the Generations of Jesus who is so kind to our Saviour as to acknowledge that he was acquainted with the sed