Author and an Universal Historical Tradition assures us that such a Man was indeed the Author of it we are bound to believe it and cannot rationally disbelieve it without a demonstration to the contrary Thus we know the Books of Plato Aristotle and Cicero to have been written by those Authors and this is so clear and certain a truth Vt de istorum librorum Authoritatibus dubitare dementis sit utque ridendus sit non refellendus qui de iis questionem movet That none but a Madman will doubt of the Authors of those Books and he is to be laughed at and not confuted who moves a Question concerning them as holy August writes contra Fanstum Manich. lib. 32. cap. 21. And as he says That he knew the writeings of the New Testament to be the writings of the Apostles by the same means that the Manichees knew the writeings of Manes to be the writings of Manes so I say That by what means we here in England know the late Critical History of the Old Testament to be the writing of Pere Simon a Priest of the Oratory by the like means we know the Pentateuch to be the writing of Moses and we ought not to disbelieve it having the Universal Testimony of Jews Christians Mahumetans and many Heathens to ground our Faith upon unless it be first clearly demonstrated to us that it implies a contradiction that Moses should have written it which I know that neither Pere Simon nor any Man else can do And the reasonableness of what I have now said will yet further appear if it be considered that our Lord Christ himself gives Testimony unto the writings of Moses in general John 5. 46 47. Moses wrote of me But if ye beleive not his writeings how shall ye beleive my words and both he and his Apostles frequently appeal unto them and quote passages out of them This is the truth to be believed and this is actually believed by the Christian Church Yet it is no matter of Faith that there are no various Lections in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament nay it is a matter evident to Sense that there are various Lections it is no matter of Faith that through the length and injury of time and Negligence of Transcribers and Printers there are no mistakes at all in the Originals of Holy Scripture on the contrary we acknowledg that there may possibly be some mistakes even in the Pentateuch through the length and injury of time and the negligence of Transcribers and Printers but those mistakes we believe do not at all hinder the Holy Scriptures from being a perfect Rule of Faith and Life in all things necessary to the Glorifying of God and Saving of our Souls Nor lastly is it matter of Faith That Moses wrote every Word and Sentence Chapter and Verse of the Pentateuch with his own hand It is sufficient that we believe he wrote it himself or by other persons whose help he used in the writing of it and when it was written he revised it and approved it and in this he was assisted by the Holy Spirit inspiring guiding and directing him And if there be any thing in the Pentateuch besides the mistakes of Transcribers and Printers that was written after Moses's time it was added upon good Reasons by Joshua or Ezra and the great Assembly who were Men of a Prophetical Spirit and inspired by God in what they did of that nature Now in the Second place let us see what is the opinion of Pere Simon and wherein he agrees with or differs from the common Faith of the Church in this matter And First He agrees with us in these following particulars 1. That the whole Scripture of the Old Testament and consequently the Pentateuch was of Divine Inspiration and that God was the primary Author thereof this is demonstratively proved from his own express words in his Preface pag. 4. But besides that this Principle of a Divine of Paris That the whole Scripture is not equally Divine and Canonical is dangerous it is directly opposite to the Doctrine of the New Testament which acknowledges every thing throughout the whole Scripture for Prophetical and to have been inspired wherefore I thought I ought to lay down some Principles whereby we might ascribe every thing in the whole Scriptures to Prophets or Persons inspired by God even to the alterations themselves those only excepted which had happened through length of time or negligence of Transcribers And Book 1. Chap. 1. Pag. 3. I have divided this work into Three Books the First of which Treats at large of the Authors of the Bible which I have called Prophets with Josephus contra App. and most of the Fathers because they were in effect directed by the Spirit of God and that St. Peter calls the whole Scripture Prophecies During the Hebrew Common-wealth there were from time to time among them these sorts of Persons inspired by God were it to write Divine and Prophetick Books as the same Josephus has remarked or as Eusebius says to distinguish betwixt those that were truly Prophetick and others that were not And Pag. 4. They the publick Writers had the liberty in collecting the Acts which were in their Registeries to add diminish and change according as they thought fit and the Books as Eusebius says which were declared Sacred were reviewed by Persons inspired by God who Judged whether they were truly Prophetick or Divine And Pag. 21. I know it is expresly forbidden in Deuteronomy either to add or diminish any thing from the Word of God But we may Answer with the Author of the Book Intituled Cozri that this prohibition relates only to private Persons and not to those whom God had expresly commanded to interpret his Will God promised to the Prophets and to the Judges of the Sanhedrim who succeeded Moses the same Grace and the same Spirit of Prophecy as those had who lived in his time and therefore they have held the same Power not only of Interpreting the Law but also of making new Ordinances which were afterwards writ and placed in the Registeries of the Republick And Pag. 22. The Church has not the Right of making Books Canonical and Divine as the Prophets had in the Old Testament but only to declare them Canonical In fine Book 1. Chap. 1. Pag. 1. None can doubt but that the truths contained in the Holy Scripture are infallible and of Divine Authority since they proceed immediately from God who in this has only made use of the Ministery of Men to be his Interpreters So there is no Person either Jew or Christian who does not acknowledg that the Scripture being the pure Word of God is at the same time the first principle and foundation of Religion Here is clear and full proof from his own express words of his agreement with us in the first particular before mentioned Secondly He agrees with us in this That though Men having been the Depositories of these Sacred
for many This is my Body which is given or broken for you because his Blood was not shed nor his Body broken till the Day after and yet it is most certain that he did speak those words when he instituted the Holy Sacrament the Night before his Death But then you will ask why did our Lord speak so why did he say This is my Blood which is shed this is my Body which is broken when neither was the one shed nor the other broken I Answer He did so because it was an ordinary way of speaking amongst the Jews to express themselves in the Preterit or Present Tense when they were talking or writing of a thing that was shortly and certainly to come to pass and therefore the Vulgar Interpeter attending more to the sense than to the bare words of our Lord renders them Hic est sanguis meus qui pro multis effundetur hoc est corpus meum quod pro vobis tradetur this is my Blood which shall be shed and my Body which shall be given after the same manner may we understand the words of Moses as Israel did i. e. as Israel shall shortly and certainly do to the Land of his Possession besides there was this good reason why Moses should use the Preterit Tense because the thing he was writing of was partly past already Israel had already destroyed the Inhabitants of Two Kingdoms and taken actual possession of the Land and it was partly to be within a short time Israel was shortly to do so by all the other Inhabitants of the Land of his possession which God had given him Moses then having reason to write as he did Spinosa had no reason to cavil at the manner of his expression Fifteenthly He Objects Deut. 3. 14. and from these words Jair called them after his own name Bashan-havoth-jair unto this Day infers that this must have been written long after Moses Answer Some think that these words VNTO THIS DAY have been after Moses put in the Margin and in process of time have crept into the Text or else that Ezdras hath inserted them into the Text. But there is no necessity of Answering thus for First Moses wrote the Book of Deuteronomy some Months after Jair had taken the Countrey of Argob and called it after his own name Bashan-havoth-jair therefore Moses himself might very well say that the Countrey of Argob was called after the name of Jair unto this Day that is from the time of Jair his taking of it and calling it Bashan-havoth-jair unto the Day of Moses writing that part of the Book of Deuteronomy for there was nothing but truth in his so saying Secondly Moses wrote the Book of Deuteronomy not only for the present Generation but also for the Generations to come according to that of the Psalmist Psal 102. 18. This shall be written for the Generations to come and consequently knew that these words unto this Day would be further verified in after Ages Therefore he might purposely use these words unto this Day as intending thereby to signifie unto the Israelites in their several Generations that the Countrey of Argob was called after the name of Jair Bashan-havoth-jair from Jairs first taking of it unto their time there being then no falsity nor absurdity in the words unto this Day as here used Moses himself might very well be the Author of them nay they are so significant with respect to future Generations as I have shewed that Moses his Wisdom appears in choosing to express himself in such words as were actually true when he first spoke and wrote them and yet were to be further verified in all succeeding Generations so long as the Hebrew-Commonwealth stood so much for Answer unto Spinosa his Two Objections I have now gone through all that P. Simon hath written to prove that Moses could not be the Author of the Pentateuch I have examined all his Arguments and Answered every one of them there is not one good Argument amongst them all not one that can prove his position That Moses cannot be the Author of the Books attributed to him and verily many of them are I think such pitiful trifling things that a reasonable Man and Christian should be ashamed of them The reason why I meddle with no more of his Critical History than what concerns the Pentateuch is First Because this was defigned to accompany the precedent Discourse concerning the proofs of the Books of Moses and therefore I thought fit to deal with P. Simon only upon that point wherein he seemed to contradict what the Author of the excellent Discourse affirms and proves that so his Objections being all Answered that Discourse may remain firm and unshaken and in its full strength and that Infidels may not pretend that P. Simon has confuted it which is so far from being true that the vain succesless attempt of so great a Man as P. Simon is accounted to prove that Moses could not be the Author of the Pentateuch is an Argument that the thing is not practicable it cannot be done for if it could P. Simon is counted as able and to me seems to have been as willing to have done it as any other Man Secondly Because if the Divine Truth and Authority of Moses and his Law and of Christ and his Gospel be well secured our Christian Religion is secured in its main strength and fundamental grounds against Atheists and Infidels As for the rest of P. Simon 's Book I doubt not but some Men of greater Abilities for such a work than I will in due time thoroughly examine it and separate the Chaff from the Wheat allowing him his due praise where he hath done well and chastising him where he hath done evil you may guess by this that it will not be so difficult to do it as some may apprehend In the mean time if his vain Cavils at several expressions here and there in the Holy Scriptures should be a tentation unto any to think meanly of the Scriptures themselves I desire such if they can to read some part of Origens Philocalia Chap. 1. Pag. 4 5. in Spencers Edition at Cambridge 1658. and to consider that as Origen says Every one of the Works of God do not equally but some more and some less declare and shew forth the Glory of God in his Beeing and Providence after the same manner all the parts of God's written Word do not equally but some more clearly and some more obscurely evidence themselves to be of God And as there are some dark occurrences in Providence that tempt weak and sinful Men to doubt of God's Beeing and Providence just so there are some dark and difficult passages in Holy Scripture that tempt Men to doubt of the Divine Verity and Authority of of the Scriptures and yet as none but Fools Psal 14. 1. will disbelieve the Beeing and Providence of God because there are some things in his Nature and Providence which they cannot comprehend so no Wise Man will disbelieve the Holy Scriptures because there are here and there some passages in them which he cannot understand Lo they have rejected the word of the Lord and what Wisdom is in them says the Prophet Jeremiah Jer. 8. 9. Indeed there can be no true Wisdom in them who reject the Word of the Lord for his Word believed and practised is our Wisdom and our Understanding and makes us a wise and understanding People Deut. 4. 5 6 The Testimony of the Lord is sure making Wise the Simple Psal 19. 7. If ever then we would be truly Wise let us against all Tentations to the contrary esteem highly of and adhere stedfastly unto the Holy Scriptures of Truth for it is they that are able to make us wise unto Salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 3. 15. If what I have here written do contribute any thing towards the helping of Christian Readers to keep up in their Souls a due esteem of and reverend regard unto the Holy Scriptures and towards the strengthning of them against Tentations to unbelief I have obtained my end and desire them to let me have the help and benefit of their Prayers but let him have all the Praise who is the Father of Lights and the God of all Grace unto whom be Glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all Ages World without End Amen FINIS a Exod. 5. 1 2 3. 7. 1 2 3 4 5. 3. 14 15 16 17 18. 4. from 1 to 9. 6. from 1 to 8. Deut. 4. 9 to 24. b Exod. 20. 3 4 5 6 7 c. ibid. v. 20 22 23. 23. 13. Deut. 4. 5 6 7 8 9 10. 7. 1 2 3 4 5 6. 12. 29 30 31 32. 18. 9 10 11 12 13 14. Deut. 4. 32 to 41. Exod. 20. 24 latter part of the Verse Deut. 4. 7. c Exod. 20. 17. Lev. 19. 17 18. d Exod. 21. 13. Deut. 19. e Levit. 25. 23 c. f Exod. 21. 1 2 c. Deut. 15. 12 to 19. 24. 14 15. g Deut. 15. 6 to 12. Exod. 22 25 26 27. h Exod. 22. 21. Levit. 19. 33. 34. i Exod. 22. 22 23 24. k Exod. 20. 12. 22. 28. Deut. 17. 11. l Deut. 1. 16 17. 17. 16 17 18 19 20. 25. 1.
the rest Seventhly And these by overdoing would perswade us that every word in the Bible is as much Divine as the Decalogue or Lords Prayer and hath nothing in it of humane imperfection in stile or order but is all such as God himself would have written if he had made no use of Man Eighthly And some are so afraid of Popery and the name of Tradition and the Testimony of the Church that they disable their own Faith by rejecting the necessary use of Tradition and the Churches Testimony not being able justly to distinguish Ninthly And too many distinguish not Historical Evidence from the Churches pretended Authoritative determination Tenthly And some cannot tell what Historical Evidence is also Physical and what maketh it so as differing from Moral uncertain Testimony And if Teachers of the Foundation have all these gross defects and more is it any wonder if unstudied Lay-men are here puzled in the dark § 7. I am not now to write a Treatise to tell Men the true method of Preaching Faith I have done that elsewhere especially in The Reasons of Christian Religion The unreasonableness of Infidelity The Life of Faith and a small Book called The certainty of Christianity without Popery But I shall here give the unfurnished Reader a few necessary Distinctions and Conclusions § 8. Conclusion I. Divine Faith is a sort of knowledg with Trust to the credit of God revealing and therefore must have evidence 1. That it is the word of God that is proposed 2. And that God doth not lie or deceive us Conclus II. It is the matter signified which is the prime necessary object of our Faith and the words only as the vehicle or signs of the matter Conclus III. No one particular word in the Bible or the World is of absolute necessity to be known but another may serve that hath the same signification If any word were absolutely necessary to be known if it be English none could be saved but English-men if Greek or Hebrew none could be saved but Grecians or Hebricians c. Conclus IV. The Gospel is not those same words that Christ spake but a Translation of them It s supposed that he spake in the Language then used by the Jews which was a mixture of Chaldee and Syriack but the Gospel is written in Greek so that our Original thereof is but a Divine Translation of Christs words Conclus V. Christ promised and gave his Spirit to his Apostles and Evangelists to bring all things that he had taught them to their remembrance and to lead them into all truth and teach them what to say so far as to perform their Commission To Disciple the Nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things that he had Commanded them And thus far they were infallible Conclus VI. The words therefore of the several writers are so far Divine as to be the true and certain signifiers or expressions of so much of Christs Life and Doctrine as he saw needful for the use of Man to the end of the World to be made known Conclus VII But all the Gospel writers recite not the same matter just in the same words nor in the same Order nor in the same Stile And as all humane Language savoureth of humane imperfection and the faculties of Men are not all of one degree of strength and custome varyeth wise Mens Stile so the Apostles were but Men and the very Words Stile and Order of their writing had the effects of sinless humane imperfection and were not such as that God himself could not have done it better But it s all of God as suited to its proper use Conclus VIII The Gospel was God's word Preached by them before they wrote it Eight Years before St. Matthew wrote and about Sixty Seven or Sixty Eight Years before St. John wrote the Gospel And it is not to be imagined that in their Preaching they spake just all the same words which they wrote and no more Conclus IX All the Miracles that were then wrought were first to confirm the Gospel as Preached before the Books were written Conclus X. But God knowing that the Apostles must die and the Gospel must be infallibly delivered to the end of the World inspired them to write not only the Essentials but all that was necessary for the World to know in all Generations and leave it as the Sacred Record of his redeeming Work his Doctrine and his universal Law written infallibly by the Spirit of Jesus which he sent as his Agent for that work so that the same Miracles which confirmed their words are now equally a Seal of the Divine Authority of their writings Conclus XI All the words in the Gospel are not Essential to Christianity nor of equal necessity to be explicitely known the Doctrine of Baptism and the Lords Supper with the Decalogue and Lords Prayer contain all the Essentials of Christianity truly understood which Doctrine of Baptism the Church ever expounded in a few plain Articles called the Creed And they always took those Sacraments and that Creed with the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue expounded by Christ as the summaries of our Belief Desires and Practice to be the Gospel and Christian Religion The Ministry and Church Order instituted by the Spirit of Christ being an Integral part and these they diferenced from the Subsidiary and Ornamental parts of Scripture in point of Necessity and Evidence And they that believed these were saved whether it was before the rest was written or if they never heard or understood the rest Conclus XII And before Christ the Law of Moses must be greatly distinguished from the other Historical Books and Prophesies As the Law of this Land by which all men hold their Lands and Lives and must be governed greatly differ from daily verbal Mandates or written Commissions which the King may give to particular Persons so the Covenant of Grace and the Law of Moses much differ from the particular Messages of Prophets and the words of Priests about that Law or the deeds of men Universal and Common Laws are of Universal and Common Obligation and therefore all must be certain of their Authority But the Obedience and Salvation of the Land or World was not laid on e. g. the Prophets Message to Saul to Jeroboam to Hezekiah c. Therefore in these Cases the People are left sometimes to see whether Predictions come to pass and its harder for them to know who is a true Prophet the necessity being lesser Conclus XIII It is therefore greatly to be noted that 1. The Law of Nature needed no Miracles to Confirm it being legible in the Nature of Man and of all about him 2. The Law of Moses which that Nation was to be ruled by had so full evidence of Divine Authority that it was scarce possible for the Jews of that Age to doubt of it The ten Plagues of Egypt the opening of the
ea quae non comprehenduntur ita neque scripturae divinitati per eam totam diffusae quidquam detrahitur ex eo quòd ad singulas dictiones imbecillitas nostra non possit adesse arcano splendori doctrinae qui in tenui contemptâ locutione delitescit Orig. Philoc. cap. 1. pag. 5. Edit Cantabrig 1658. London Printed for Tho. Parkhurst 1682. The Second Part. WHat is contained in these following Sheets was first intended for a Preface unto the foregoing Discourse Translated out of French into English but when I had finished it I found it would be too long a Preface unto such a short Discourse and therefore upon Second thoughts I concluded it would be better to subjoin◠it thereunto by way of Appendix or Second Part. Who was the Author of the Discourse I do not certainly know but it is probable that Monsieur du Bois de la Cour who wrote the Discourse on Paschal his Thoughts or Meditations on Religion c. was likewise the Author of this Discourse for they are frequently bound together and were both Published the one in 1671 and the other in 1672 with the approbation of the same Doctors of the Sorbon excepting one whose name is not subscribed with the other Six unto the approbation of this Discourse But who ever be the Author he is a Man of Parts and has done worthily in this Discourse in which he hath shewed his high Veneration of the Holy Scriptures and hath irrefragably proved the truth of the most Signal and Miraculous matters of Fact contained in the Books of Moses and by that means he hath proved the Divine Original and Authority of all the Laws and Ordinances given by Moses unto the Israelites and Recorded in his Books So that the Translation of it cannot but be of good use unto English Readers for confirming them in the Faith and strengthening them against Tentations unto Infidelity in these Backsliding Times The Discourse is so well Penned by the Author that it needs no Recommendation from any it s own great Excellency and Usefulness will abundantly suffice to commend it unto any ingenious Man that shall be at the pains of spending half an Hour in Reading of it It would therefore have been altogether needless for me to have added unto it what follows here in this Second Part if there had not been lately Published in English a Book of P. Simon 's Intituled A Critical History of the Old Testament where Book 1. Chap. 5. Pag. 36. in the Contents of that Chapter he hath these very Words Moses cannot be the Author of the Books which are attributed to him I had no sooner Read this in the contents of the Chapter but I was desirous to know what Arguments he used to prove such an uncouth Assertion as had seldom been heard of from any before but such as Hobs in his Leviathan Pereyre in his Systema Praeadamiticum and Spinosa in his Tractatus Theologico-politicus all Atheists or Infidels And thereupon having Read and Examined all he says to prove his Assertion I thought it would be necessary together with the Precedent Discourse to Publish a few short Animadversions on what he has written in his Critical History against the Pentateuchs being written by Moses And that what I have to say may be the better understood and the more convincing and satisfactory unto the Reader I shall proceed in this Method First I shall shew what is the Truth to be believed and what is the Belief of the Christian Church Secondly What is the opinion of P. Simon and wherein he agrees with or differs from the common Faith of the Church in this matter Thirdly Answer his Arguments whereby he endeavors to prove his Opinion That Moses could not be the Author of the Books which are attributed to him Now for the First The Truth to be believed is 1. That the whole Scripture of the Old Testament and consequently the Pentateuch or first Five Books of the Bible were written by Divine Inspiration and that God is the primary Author thereof this is proved from Luke 16. 29 31. They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them c. And Luke 24. 25 27 44 45 46. And from 2 Tim. 3. 16. where it is expresly said That all Scripture or the whole Scripture is given by Inspiration of God And 2 Pet. 1. 20 21. where it is expresly affirmed that the first thing to be known concerning the Scriptures is this That no Prophecy of the Scripture is of any private Interpretation that is of any Man 's own Inventing for the Prophecy came not in old time by the will of Man but Holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost The same Truth is clearly proved from Psalm 147. 19. compared with Rom. 3. 2. 9. 4. 2. That this being first known and believed and so the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures secured it matters not very much whether we ever certainly know the names of all the Holy Men whom God used as his Instruments in writing the several Books of Sacred Scripture for there are some Books of Scripture that bear the names of no Man as Author of them under God and yet they are as much of Divine Authority as those Books that have the name of some Prophet or Apostle expressed in their Title and the names which Books of Scripture bear do not always import that the Man whose name the Book bears was the Writer of the Book but that the Book was written of and concerning him and his Acts. Thus the Book of Joshua is so called because it was written of and concerning Joshua though it is probable it was not written by him but by some other Holy Man of God after his Death see for this Bishop Richardsons Observations on the Old Testament pag. 45. the like may be said of some other Books of Holy Scripture That then which concerns us most is to know whether God be the Author of the several Books in the Canon of Scripture and if we be once sure of this we need not trouble our selves much about the knowing of the names of the several Men by whom it pleased the Lord God to consign them to Writing Gregory the Great in his Preface to his Exposition on Job has this Remarkable saying Si Magni cujusdam viri susceptis Epistolis c. If having received the Letters of some great Man we should read the Words and enquire by what Pen they had been written truly it would be ridiculous if we should endeavor not to know the Author of the Letters nor to understand the sense but to find out by what Pen the several words of them had been written since then we know the thing and that the Holy Spirit is the Author of it what else do we in enquiring after the Writer but in reading the Letters stand asking by what Pen they were written Yet 3. when a Book of Holy Scripture bears the name of its