same terms must I believe all things Divine and Supernatural unless God give me new faculties or some way extraordinarily assist me and make me somewhat more then I was Nor did any man that was not himself Divine and Infallible as the Apostles were and inspired infallibly to know that he was so ever receive any Revelation upon any higher terms then that we call Moral assurance and Humane credibility For first If I receive a Revelation upon Motives External and Foreign to it self such Motives are all granted to be in themselves of a Humane and fallible Nature If I receive it upon any Motives Internal any Testimony resulting from such Revelation it self to justifie its own Divinity to me yet I must of necessity without extraordinary inspiration judge of such Internal Testimony by Moral considerations and from Humane and Rational Argumentation with my self come at last to make a judgement about it Those that lived in the first times that saw the Miracles and heard the Doctrine delivered from the mouths of the Apostles themselves were yet without inspiration but upon Humane and fallible terms of judging and believing because those Mediums by which they did judge and believe were in their own Nature so for 't is not a thing in it self infallibly certain but that any man may be mistaken in the judgement he makes of a Miracle or in that faith whereby he embraces any Doctrine as Divine First This Objection as 't is urged by those of the Roman Church does not disturb us at all Indeed returns directly upon themselves nor does the remedy they provide any way cure that inconveniency which they suppose will otherwise accrue to Religion by it They tell us God has placed an unerring Judgement a faculty of making an infallible determination in the Church and from thence this Objection is Answered by that means we are perfectly at an end of all doubts about this matter for if the Church that is in it self Infallible tells us that this is the word of God and as it was at first delivered we come upon that account to a Divine and Infallible faith as built upon a Divine and Infallible Testimony and are infallibly assured about it But this kind of reasoning brings us but just where we were and is indeed in it self but a very mean sort of trifling for 't is to erect another infallibility to be assured of which there is ten times greater difficulty then in the former case The Scriptures we say are in themselves Divine and Infallible as coming from God The Question is about out way of coming to know this that they are so 'T is confessed by us it must be without inspiration by means in themselves Humane and Fallible and from thence results the strength of this Objection That supposing the Scriptures to be in themselves Divine yet we coming in a Humane way to the Knowledge that they are so and to solve all Objections against them our belief of them is still resolved into no more then that we call a Humane and Rational credibility And do we not come to the very same point in the other case The Church say they is Divinely inspired but how came I to know it To say by the Scriptures is in this case ridiculous If upon Providential and Probable Motives as themselves do acknowledge we are thereby pitched upon a fallible bottom still are we not upon the same Humane and Fallible means of judging 'T is not enough in this case to make the Pope or any else Infallible but before we can that way perfectly enervate this Objection we must make every man infallibly to know that they are so infallible Can any man more infallibly judge of the Churches infallibility then of the Bibles Are there not as many nay more questions that must necessarily be determined by Fallibly and Humanely judging in the one Case then in the other as first whether there actually be any such thing as an infallible Church extant or no Secondly if there be what Church it is that is so and Thirdly whether that Church be universally infallible or only in some things and under what sort of constitution it must be when it so infallibly acts so that admit the Churches infallibility in it self yet 't is utterly impossible that a man should believe any thing upon its infallible determination with any other then a Humane and Fallible Faith because 't is upon Humane and Fallible Motives upon which men primarily and previously come to an assurance of such infallibility And therefore whatsoever faith in the Roman Church is grounded upon the Churches infallible Judgement it must unavoidably be ultimately resolved into such Grounds as are in themselves of a Humane and fallible Nature So that the Roman infallibility as 't is in it self an absurd and fictitious pretension so were it admitted 't is to no purpose at all for that end for which 't is intended so far as 't is urged in this matter Secondly a rational Belief of the Bible and a rational Satisfaction about it founded in a Moral assurance is all we can have and all that in this case we ought to expect I demand of all such Objectors by what means they come to any Assurance in any Point of Religion To one of these three things they will be unavoidably forced Either to deny that there is any certainty at all in Religion and thereby to subvert all Religion To pretend to extraordinary Inspiration or else to acknowledge they come to it in a Moral way And indeed the founding our belief of Revelation upon Moral and Rational Assurance is so far from subverting the certainty of our Religion that the grand Fundamentals of all Religion must of necessity be originally established upon that Bottom and can be upon no other for we come to an Assurance of the Being of God and the future state of mens Souls upon no other Grounds then Moral and Rational conclusions from whence there can possibly result no more then a Moral Assurance Whoever attemps a Rational proof of the Being of God is obliged to disclaim all pretence to Infallibility in the way of his Proof because Infalibility is wholly relative to God himself The notion of it cannot exist without the admission of such a Being and therefore to talk of an Infalible way of proving his Being would be grosly absurd for 't were openly to beg the Question and take that for granted which we oblige our selves to prove So that whoever upon rational terms and the grounds of Moral Assurance believe the Bible to be sent us from God believes it upon the same Grounds upon which he must necessarily believe the first Principles of all Religion and believe it upon the highest terms God either requires or enables him without Inspiration to believe it upon such as ought sufficiently to fix him in his belief and upon such as if duely pursued will certainly produce all those excellent ends God intends by this Book This
the Whole And 't is as true that his Rule no way destroys the freedom of mans will Nor is the world subjected to any such thing as a Stoical Fate from any necessary connection of causes but all the actions of men proceed from the free choice and determinations of their own breasts Every mans own Will being the true cause of his own doings Thus much may serve to silence and shame all the ignorant doubts and profane denials of providence to assure men there is a God that Rule 's in the earth and to justifie the exercise of a supreme ' Dominion over the world Upon the truth of which the validity of all Divine Laws must necessarily depend Such who in the third place admit the being of God of Providence and Religion but reject the Christian-religion and consequently the Bible as not true and close with some other in opposition to it against those the whole of this discourse will chiefly tend If the Divine Authority of the Bible be sufficiently made good and the Scriptures proved in trueth to be what themselves tell us they are Laws sent us from God by which he will Rule and judge the world two things will result from it first All other Religions but the Christian will thereby appear to be false and fictitious Secondly Such who have embraced the Christian Profession will be abundantly confirmed in the verity thereof freed from all such doubts as may arise about it and be ascertained of the truth of those grounds upon which it is established In the prosecution of this matter when we deal with Antiscriptural men such as pay no homage at all to the Bible nor yield any obedience to its Authority two things are to be avoided and ought not to be insisted on in order to their confutation First 'T is not a reasonable step towards it to say the Scriptures are the Principle upon which our Religion is built and therefore ought to be granted to us Because in every particular Science some Principles must be granted as the Substratum without which it cannot be upheld and by a denial of which the being of it is subverted This unwary demand is the ready way to six every man in his own profession whatever it be and to prevent the most important Discourse of Religion amongst all such who have already embraced any Religion for there is no Religion without some prime Principles upon which 't is erected and by the grant of which it will be established And as we are sure 't will be equally expected so there is no better ground upon which it can be denyed Nor no less reason why we should admit the principles of other mens Religion then they grant ours And if so we shall soon come to a full point in all our debates about different Religions To such who have already closed with the Christian-profession this holds good And he that admits not the Scriptures as the first Principle and Rule of all discourse upon any internal point of the Christian-Religion is not to be disputed with Because in disowning that principle he destroys the being of the Religion he is contending about and subverts the whole by the manner of his disputing about a part But when we deal with men out of the Church and Enemies to it and the doubt is about the Scripture it self we cannot otherwise defend it then by admitting it a matter Debateable and indeavouring its justification upon principles common to us both and such rational grounds as carry in them the greatest aptness to convince such opponents 'T is not to be denied but that in all Rational enquiries after truth and all humane-debates there must be some common maxims and principles acknowledged on all sides without which there can be no due measures of any discourse nor any Standard by which a man can proceed either to satisfy himself or convince another and 't will be utterly impossible ever to come to a rational end of any debate whatever For If one thing be to be proved as it must be where things are in controversy by another and every thing may be still denied we must prove in infinitum He that opposeth needs nothing to help him but a bare Negative and he that is to prove will be lost in an endless circle Some principles therefore there are which govern all mens thoughts and discourses as things granted by them and are of absolute necessity to the rational conduct of the World And they are of two sorts First Such as are in themselves so obviously true to our Senses and Reason that they gain an Universal Assent and are approved by the common Vote of Mankind These are such things as no man can be supposed to deny if he would no more then he can deny himself to be Reasonable and do discover to us the truth of the rational faculty by the natural Emanation of which we fix upon many positions as undoubtedly true and beyond all question or dispute and from thence measure out the truth of all other things Therefore Aristotle says that in all acquisition of knowledg there is a proceeding from premisses known and agreed to conclusions that before were not known nor agreed These first principles are secured by the innate rectitude of the rational faculty These prove themselves by their consonancy to the rational Nature and cannot be otherwise proved because they are the ground and foundation of all other proof And of these 't is true what the Schools say A posteriori possunt manifestari non per aliquid prius probari Whatever knowledge we find attained to amongst Mankind 't is deduced from these first principles and is a Science subalternated to them 'T is from hence that all thoughts and debates are steered to some end and guided to some conclusion These principles are not to be confined to any enumeration being of equal extent with the rational capacity it self and are occasionally produced by our reason according to the various objects 't is conversant about Nor can any other Character be given of them but that they are such genuine Issues of Reason as become self-evident Maximes to the universal Reason Secondly There are acquired principles amongst mankind which are taken as granted truths and proceeded upon as such that are not of this first nature These secondary principles lye more remote from the first view of our reason and are discovered by a chain of Inductions and our assent to them proceeds from an Industrious exercise of reason by which we come at length to acknowledg their verity as agreeing to that idaa of truth we find seated in the rational Nature and corresponding to those primary dictates of Reason and equally true with them These things men accidentally make principles to themselves and laying them aside from debate as things granted and agreed to proceed to superstruct other notions and principles upon them such principles as these in the pursuit whereof mankind doth greatly differ and often mistake
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
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-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
should be terminated singly in them but be of a much farther Extension and of a perpetual Duration 'T is not to be doubted but that the Apographa's Copies truely taken from the Originals of any part of the Bible were of equal Authority with the Originals themselves 'T was not the Paper nor the Ink nor the Hand wherein they were writ nor any thing Circumstantial of that kind but the Matter it self as dictated by the Holy Ghost that gave Authority to them And wheresoever that Matter is truely contained there is also the same Authority present The great Question in these dayes will be Whether those Copies we have of the Scriptures in those Original Languages in which they were first Writ be True and whether they have not been since Defaced or Corrupted The Satisfaction that ought to be given to this Inquiry must arise these two wayes First by considering the Scriptures themselves in their present posture And Secondly by considering such Circumstances as attended their first Transcription and the various Copies that were then and have been since taken of them I begin with the Latter First the Old Testament we know was delivered over as it first became written to the Church of the Jews and committed by God himself to their Custody And 't was they alone that had the Care incumbent upon them punctually to Transcribe and safely to secure it That they performed this Trust with great Care and exactness and delivered the Old Testament over intire to the Christian Church we have good cause to believe and that both upon general and some more particular ground First upon General ground 'T is notorious that the Jews had the highest value imaginable of their Law and prized it above all else they possessed Both Josephus and Philo tell us that the Jews would rather have suffered a thousand Deaths then that the least thing should be once altered in the Divine Laws and Statutes of their Nation The miraculous power upon which the first Foundation of it was Established had imprinted in that People an indelible veneration of it Secondly it was the Municipal Law of their Countrey and that by which all matters of right were daily Adjudged and by which each mans Property amongst them was maintained and secured Thirdly their Law was not onely the Glory of their Nation and the Foundation of their Political and Ecclesiastical being but it was also the great Title they had to their Countrey The Scriptures contained in themselves the Deeds by which God himself conveyed to them the Land of Canaan and gave them the highest Right to possess it 'T is not hard from hence to conceive that the Jews would be careful of such a Book wherein their Bodies their Souls their Estates their Honour and indeed their All was so much concerned Secondly it appears more particularly and in fact that they were so For after that by Gods Providential disposal Ezra and that Famous Synagogue with him had exactly settled their Canon and delivered over the Scriptures pure and intire to the People at their return out of Babylon the indefatigable Care of the succeeding Mastoriâ—es from those very Times downward to preserve every Letter and Syllable of the sacred Text intire is notoriously known to all that converse with the Jewish Writers even to so great an exactness had they arrived that they knew how often every Letter was used in the Bible And indeed they took such a course to preserve the Original Text intire that it was morally Impossible that the least considerable Alteration or Change could at any time be made in it Eusebius speaks with great Wonder of the Industry and Care of the Jews in this matter Mirabile mihi videtur says he duobus annorum millibus inâ—o majore tempore jam ferè transacto non enim exquisitissimè annorum possum dicere numerum Nec verbum unum in Lege illius esse immutatum sed Centiès unusquisque Judaeorum moritur quam Lege Mosaicae derogavit It seems wonderful to me that for the space of two thousand years and upward for I cannot exactly reckon the number of years not so much as one word should be Changed in their Law but that every Jew would rather dye a hundred times over then derogate in the least from it And that this care of the Judaical Church was by Gods blessing effectual and successful for the securing of the Old Testament from all maime or Imperfection and the least considerable alteration from what it was when it was first Delivered There needs no other Evidence then that our Saviour and the Apostles fully approved it as the Jews were then in possession of it and never charged them with the least Guilt either of Corruption or Neglect in that kind And to suppose the Jews have Corrupted it since considering that it was near three hundred years before our Saviours time translated into Greek and that any after-corruption must needs have been manifestly Discovered from thence and confidering how much of it is quoted in the New is very absurd so thought st Jerome in his time siquis dixerit post adventum Christi predicationem Apostolorum Libros Hebraeos fuisse Falsatos risam tenere non potero ut salvator Apostoli ita Testimonia protuleriâ— sicut à Judaeis falsandâ—erant If any man think the Old Testament says he falsifyed after our saviours coming I can scarce forbear smiling to think that our saviour and the Apostles should quote the Old Testament so as the Jews should falsify it after their times And with the same Contempt speaks Origen and s Austin of such a vain and absurd supposition That we have also good reason to believe that the New Testament is safely and intirely and without any Considerable variation from what it was when it was first written descended down to us will likewise appear first from the Circumstances attending its first Transcription and the Manner and Circumstances of its Conveyance And secondly from its Present condition and posture For the first When the several Parts of the New Testament were first written so very many had imbraced the Doctrine thereof from the Preaching of Christ and the Apostles that it is not to be doubted but that multitudes of Copies were immediately taken and dispersed into all parts of Europe into Asia and Egypt and wheresoever the Christian Religion was by any received Nor can we suppose that men that suffered daily for a Religion the loss of their lives and estates would not be careful Exactly to know the Doctrine of it and to be safely possessed of that great Rule by which they were to be in all things Directed when ' t was so easily to be had Nay ' t is probable that the Apostles themselves might disperse several Transcripts of their own Writings amongst the Christians so innumerable Copies might be taken from many Originals But however Certain it is that the Autographa's of the Apostles the very Originals of the New Testament