impenitent sinners what in the Covenant of his Grace to them that fly for refuge to the hope that is set before them even that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory would give unto us the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of him that the eyes of our understanding being enlightned we may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards them that believe according to the working of the might of his power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places that our hearts may be comforted being knit together in love and unto all riches of the FULL ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge and by whom alone we may obtain any saving acquaintance with them who also is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true This is the Port-Haven of Protestants whatever real darkness may be about them or whatever mists may be cast on them by the sleights of men that lye in wait to deceive That they need know no more of God that they may love him fear him believe in him and come to the enjoyment of him than what he hath clearly and expresly in Christ revealed of himself by his Word Whether the storms of this Gentleman's indignation be able to drive them or the more pleasant gales of his Eloquence to entise them from this Harbour time will shew In the mean while that indeed they ought not so to do nor will do so with any but such as are resolved to steer their course by some secret distempers of their own a few strictures on the most material passages of this Chapter will discover It is scarce worth while to remark his mistake in the foundation of his discourse of the Obscurity of God as he is pleased to state the matter from that of the Prophet asserting that God is a God who hides himself or as he renders it an hidden God His own Prophet will tell him that it is not concerning the Essence of God but the Dispensation of his Love and Favour towards his People that those words were used by the Prophet of old and so are unwillingly pressed to serve in the design he hath in hand Neither are we more concerned in the ensuing Discourse of the Soul 's cleaving to God by Affection upon the Metaphysicall representation of His excellencies and perfections unto it it being purely Platonical and no way suited to the revelation made of God in the Gospel which acquaints us not with any such amiableness in God as to endear the souls of sinners unto him causing them to reach out the wings of their love after him but only as he is in Christ Jesus reconciling the world to himself a consideration that hath no place nor any can obtain in this flourish of words And the reason is because they are sinners and therefore without the Revelation of an Attonement can have no other apprehension of the infinitely Holy and Righteous God but as of a devouring Fire with whom no sinner can inhabite Nor yet in the aggravation of the obscurity of God from the restless endeavours of mankind in the disquisition of him who as he sayes shew their love in seeking him having at their birth an equal right to his favour which they could no wise demerit before they were born being directly contrary to the Doctrine of his own Church in the head of Original Sin That which first draws up towards the design he is in persuit of is his Determination That the issuing of mens perplexities in the investigation of this hidden God must be by some Prophet or Teacher sent from God unto men but the uncertainty of coming into any better condition thereby is so exaggerated by a contempt of those wayes and means that such Prophets have fixed on to evidence their coming forth from God by Miracles Visions Prophesies ashew of Sanctity with a concourse of Threats and Promises as that means also is cashiered from yielding us any relief Neither is there any thing intimated or offered to exempt the true Prophets of God nor the Lord Christ himself from being shuffled into the same bag with false pretenders in the close that were brought forth to play their game in this pageant Yea the difficulty put upon this help of the loss we are at in the knowledge of God by Prophets and Prophesies seems especially to respect those of the Scripture so to manifest the necessity of a further evidence to be given unto them then any they carry about them or bring with them that they may be useful to this end and purpose And this intention is manifest a little after where the Scripture is expresly reckoned among those things which all men boast of none can come to certainty or assurance by Thus are poor unstable souls ventured to the Borders of Atheism under a pretence of leading them to the Church Was this the method of Christ or his Apostles in drawing men to the Faith of the Gospel this the way of the holy men of old that laboured in the Conversion of Souls from Gentilism and Heresie Were ever such bold assaults against the immoveable Principles of Christianity made by any before Religion came to be a matter of carnal Interest Is there no way to exalt the Pope but by questioning the Authority of Christ and Truth of the Scripture Truly I am sorry that wise and considering men should observe such an irreverence of God and his Word to prevail in the spirits of men as to entertain thoughts of perswading them to desert their Religion by such presumptious Insinuations of the uncertainty of all Divine Revelation But all this may be made good on the consideration of the changes of men after their profession of this or that Religion namely That notwithstanding their former pretensions yet indeed they knew nothing at all seeing that from God and the Truth no man doth willingly depart which if it be universally true I dare say there is not one word true in the Scripture How often doth God complain in the Old-Testament that his people forsook Him for that which was not God and how many do the Apostles shew us in the New to have forsaken the Truth It is true that under the notion of God the cheifest Good and of Truth the proper object and rest of the understanding none can willingly and by choyce depart but that the mindes of men might be so corrupted and perverted by their own lusts and temptations of Satan as willingly and by choyce to forsake the one or the other to embrace that which in their stead presents it self unto them is no less
it alone and traditions they had good store whose original they pleaded from Moses himself directing them in that interpretation Christ and his Apostles whom they looked upon as poor ignorant contemptible persons came and preacht a doctrine which that Church determined utterly contrary to the Scripture and their Traditions what shall now be answered to their Authority which was unquestionably all that ever was or shall be entrusted with any Church on the earth Our Author tells us that this great argument of the Jews could not be any way warded or put by but by recourse unto the Churches infallibility pag. 146. Which sit verbo venia is so ridiculous a pretence as I wonder how any block in his way could cause him to stumble upon it What Church I pray the Church of Christians When that argument was first used by the Jews against Christ himself it was not yet founded and if an absolute infallibility be supposed in the Church without respect to her adherence to the rule of infallibility I dare boldly pronounce that argument indissoluble and that all Christian Religion must be therein discarded If the Jewish-Church which had at that day as great Church-power and prerogative as any Church hath or can have were infallible in her Judgment that she made of Christ and his Doctrin there remains nothing but that we renounce both him and it and turn either Jews or Pagans as we were of old Here then by our Authors confession lies a plain Judgment and Definition of the only Church of God in the world against Christ and his Doctrine and it is certainly incumbent on us to see how it may be waâ—ed And this I suppose we cannot better be instructed in then by considering what was answered unto it by Christ himself his Apostles and those that succeeded them in the profession of the faith of the Gospel 1 For Christ himself its certain he pleaded his miracles the Works which he wrought and the Doctrine that he revealed but withall as to the Jews with whom he had to do he pleads the Scriptures Moses and the Prophets and offers himself and his Doctrine to be tryed to stand or fall by their verdict Joh. 5.39 46. Mat. 22.42 Luk. 24.27 I say besides the testimony of his Works and Doctrine to their authority of the Church he opposeth that of the Scripture which he knew the other ought to give place unto And it is most vainly pretended by our Author in the behalf of the Jews that the Messias or great Prophet to come was not in the Scripture specified by such Characteristicall Properties as made it evident that Jesus was the Messiah all the descriptions given of the one and they innumerable undeniably centring in the other The same course steered the Apostle Peter Act. 2. 3. And expresly in his second Epistle chap. 2. v. 17 18 19. And Paul Act. 13.16 17 c. And of Apollos who openly disputed with the Jews upon this Argument it is said that he mightily convinced the Jews publickly shewing by the Scripture that Jesus is the Christ Act. 18.28 And Paul perswaded the Jews concerning Jesus at Rome both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets from morning until evening Act. 28.23 Concerning which labour and disputation the censure of our Author p. 149. is very remarkable There can be no hope saith he of satisfying a Querent or convincing an Opponent in any point of Christianity unless he will submit to the splendor of Christs Authority in his own Person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the Reason why some of the Jews in Rome when St. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the Prophets believed in him and some did not Both the coherence of the words and design of the Preface and his whole scope manifest his meaning to be That no more believed on him or that some disbelieved notwithstanding all the pains he took with them And what was the reason of this failure Why St. Paul fixed on an unsuitable means of perswading them namely Moses and the Prophets when he should have made use of the Authority of the Church Vain and bold man that dares oppose his prejudices to the Spirit and Wisdom of Christ in that great and holy Apostle and that in a way and work wherein he had the express pattern and example of his Master If this be the Spirit that rules in the Roman-Synagogue that so puffes up men in their fleshly minds as to make them think themselves wiser then Christ and his Apostles I doubt not but men will every day find cause to rejoyce that it is cast out of them and be watchful that it return to possess them no more But this is that which galls the man The difficulty which he proposeth as insoluble by any wayes but an acquiescing in the Authority of the present Church he finds assoyled in Scripture on other Principles This makes him fall soul on St. Paul whom he finds most frequent in answering it from Scripture not considering that at the same time he accuseth St. Peter of the like folly though he pretend for him a greater reverence However this may be said in defence of St. Paul that by his Arguments about Christ and the Gospel from Moses and the Prophets many thousands of Jews all the World over were converted to the Faith when it 's hard to meet with an instance of one in an age that will any way take notice of the Authority of the Roman-Church But to return this was the constant way used by the Apostles of answering that great difficulty pleaded by our Author from the Authority of the Hebrew-Church They called the Jews to the Scripture the plain Texts and Contexts of Moses and the Prophets opposing them to all their Churches real or pretended Authority and all her Interpretations pretended to be received by Tradition from of old so fixing this for a perpetual standing Rule to all Generations that the Doctrine of the Church is to be examined by the Scripture and where it is found contradictory of it her authority is of no value at all it being annexed unto her attendance on that Rule But it may be replyed That the Church in the dayes of the Apostles was not yet setled nor made firm enough to bear the weight that now may be laid upon it as our Author affirms pag. 149. So that now the great Resolve of all doubts must be immediately upon the Authority of the present Church after that was once well cleared the fathers of old pleaded that only in this case and removed the Objections of the Jews by that alone I am perswaded though our Author be a great admirer of the present Church he is not such a stranger to Antiquity as to believe any such thing Is the Authority of the Church pleaded by Justine Martyr in that famous dispute with Trypho the Jew wherein these very Objections instanced by our
But we have other things yet pleaded as the Example of the Hebrew Church who neither in the time of Moses nor after translated the Scripture into the Syriack yea the book was privately kept in the Ark or Tabernacle not touched or looked on by the people but brought forth at times to the Priest who might upon the Sabbath day read some part of it to the people and put them in mind of their Laws Religion and Duty I confess in this passage I am compelled to suspect more of ignorance then fraud notwithstanding the flourishing made in the distribution of the old Testament into the Law Prophets and Hâ—giography For first as to the Translation of the Scripture by the Jews into the Syriack Tongue to what purpose doth he suppose should this be done it could possibly be for no other than that for which his Masters keep the Bible in Latine I suppose he knows that at least until the Captivity when most of the Scripture was written the Hebrew and not the Syriack was the vulgar language of that people It 's true indeed that some of the noble and chief men that had the transaction of affairs with Neigbhour-Nations had learned the Syriack language toward the end of their Monarchy but the body of the people were all ignorant of it as is expresly declared 2 Kings 18.26 To what end then should they translate the Scripture into that Language which they knew not out of that which alone they were accustomed to from their infancy wherein it was written Had they done so indeed it would have been a good argument for the Romanists to have kept it in Latine which their people understand almost as well as the Jews did Syriack I thought it would never have been questioned but that the Judaical Church had enjoyed the Scripture of the Old Testament in their own vulgar language and that without the help of a Translation But we must not be confident of any thing for the future For the present this I know that not only the whole Scripture that was given the Church for its use before the Captivity was written in the Tongue that they all spake and understood but that the Lord sufficiently manifests that what he speaks unto any he would have it delivered unto them in their own Language and therefore appointing the Jews what they should say unto the Chaldean Idolaters he expresseth his mind in the Caldee Tongue Jerem. 10.11 Where alone in the Scripture there is any use made of a Dialect distinct from that in vulgar use and that because the words were to be spoken unto them to whom that Dialect was vulgar And when after the Captivity the people had learned the Caldee Language some parts of some books then written are therein expressed to shew that it is not this or that Language which on its own account is to confine the compass of Holy Writ but that that or those are to be used which the people who are concerned in it do understand But what Language soever it was in it was kept privately in the Arâ— or Tabernacle not touched not looked upon by the people but brought forth at times to the Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what Book was kept in the Ark the Law Prophets and Hagiography who told you so A Copy of the Law indeed or Pentateuch was by God's command put in the side of the Ark Deut. 31.26 That the Prophets or Hagiography were ever placed there is a great mistake of our Author but not so great as that that follows that the Book placed in the side of the Ark was brought forth for the Priest to read in on the Sabbath days when as all men know the Ark was placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Tabernacle and Temple which only the High Priest entred and that once a a year and that without liberty of bringing any thing out which was in it for any use whatever And his mistake is grossest of all in imagining that they had no other copies of the Law or Scripture but what was so laid up in the side of the Ark. The whole people being commanded to study in it continually and the King in special to writeout a Copy of it with his own hand Deut. 17.18 out of an Authentick Copy yea they were to take sentences out of it to write them on their fringes and posts of their doors and houses and on their gates all to bind them to a constant use of them So that this Instance on very many accounts was unhappily stumbled on by our Author who as it seems knows very little of these things He was then evidently in haste or wanted better provision when on this vain surmise he proceeds to the encomiums of his Catholick Mother's indulgence to her children in leaving of the Scripture in the hands of all that understand Greek and Latin how little a portion of her family and to a declamation against the preaching and disputing of men about it with a commendation of that reverential ignorance which will arise in men from whom the means of their better instruction is kept at a distance Another Discourse we have annexed to prove That the Bible cannot be well translated and that it loseth much of its grace and sweetness arising from a peculiarity of Spirit in its writers by any Translation whatever I do for my part acknowledg that no Translation is able in all things universally to exhibit that fulness of sense and secret vertue to intimate the Truth it expresseth to the mind of a believer wâ—â— is in many passages of Scripture in its Original Languages but how this will further the Romanists pretensions who have enthroned a TranslatioÌ„ for the use of their whole Church and that none of the best neither but in many things corrupt and barbarous I know not Those who look on the Tongues wherein the Scripture was Originally written as their Fountains if at any time they find the streams not so clear or not to give so sweet a rellish as they expected are at liberty if able to repair to the fountains themselves But those who reject the Fountains and betake themselves to one only stream for ought I know must abide by their own inconveniencies without complaining To say the Bible cannot be well translated and yet to make use principally at least of a Translation with an undervaluing of the Originals argues no great consistency of Judgement or a prevalency of Interest That which our Author in this matter sets off with a handsome flourish of words and some very unhandsome similitudes considering what he treats of he sums up p. 283. in these words I would by all say thus much The Bible Translated out of its own Sacred phrase into a prophane and Common one loseth both its propriety and amplitude of meaning and is likewise devested of its peculiar Majesty Holiness and Spirit which is reason enough if no other why it should be kept inviolate in its own style and
speech So doth our Author advance his Wisdom and Judgment above the Wisdom and Judgment of all Churches and Nations that ever embraced the Faith of Christ for a 1000 years all which notwithstanding what there is of truth in any of his insinuations judged it their duty to translate the Scripture into their Mother Tongues very many of which Translations are extant even to this day Besides he concludes with us in general ambiguors terms as all along in other things his practice hath been What means he by the Bible's own Sacred phrase opposed to a prophane and common one Would not any man think that he intended the Originals wherein it was written but I dare say if any one will ask him privately he will give them another account and let them know that it is a Translation which he adorns with those Titles so that upon the matter he tells us that seeing the Bible cannot be without all the inconveniences mentioned it 's good for us to lay aside the Originals and make use only of a Translation or at least preferre a Translation before them What shall we do with those men that speak such Swords and Daggers and are well neither full nor fasting that like the Scripture neither with a Translation nor without it Moreover I fear he knows not well what he means by its own Sacred phrase and a prophane common one Is it the Syllables and words of this or that language that he intends How comes one to be Sacred another prophane and common The languages wherein the Scriptures were originally written have been put to as bad uses as any under Heaven nor is any Language prophane or common so as that the Worship of God performed in it should not be accepted with him That there is a frequent loss of Propriety and amplitude of meaning in Translations we grant That the Scriptures by Translations if good true and significant according to the capacity and expressiveness of the Languages whereinto they are translated are divested of the Majesty Holiness and Spirit is most untrue The Majesty Holiness and Spirit of the Scriptures lyes not in words and Syllables but in the Truths themselves expressed in them and whilest these are incorruptedly declared in any language the Majesty of the Word is continued It is much that men preferring a Translation before the Originals should be otherwise minded especially that Translation being in some parts but the Translation of a Translation and that the most corrupt in those parts which I know extant And this with many fine words prety Allusions and Similitudes is the sum of what is pleaded by our Author to perswade men to forgo the greatest priviledg which from Heaven they are made partakers of the most necessary radical duty that in their whole lives is incumbent on them It is certain that the giving out of the holy Scripture from God is an effect of infinite love and mercy I suppose it no less certain that the end for which he gave it was that men by it might be instructed in the knowledge of his will and their obedience that they owe unto him that so at length they may come to the enjoyment of him This it self declares to be its end I think also that to know God his mind and Will to yield him the obedience that he requires is the bounden duty of every man as well as to enjoy him is their blessedness And can they take it kindly of those who would shut up this gift of God from them whether they will or no or be well pleased with them that go about to perswade them that it is best for them to have it kept by others for them without their once looking into it If I know them aright this Gentleman will not find his Countrey-men willing to part with their Bibles on such easie tearms From the Scripture concerning which he affirmeth That it lawfully may and in reason ought and in practise ever hath been segregated in a language not common to vulgar ears all which things are most unduly affirmed and because we must speak plainly falsly he proceeds to the worship of the Church and pleads that that also ought to be performed in such a language It were a long and tedious business to follow him in his guilding over this practise of his Church we may make short work with him As he will not pretend that this practise hath the least countenance from Scripture so if he can instance in any Church in the world that for 500 years at least after it set out in the use of a Worship the Language whereof the people did not understand I will cease this contest What he affirms of the Hebrew Church keeping her Rites in a language differing from the Vulgar whether he intend before or after the Captivity is so untrue as that I suppose no ingenious man would affirm it were he not utterly ignorant of all Judaical Antiquity which I had cause to suspect before that our Author is From the dayes of Moses to the captivity of Babylon there was no Language in vulgar use among the people but only that wherein the Scripture was written and their whole Worship celebrated After the captivity though insensibly they admitted corruptions in their language yet they all generally understood the Hebrew unless it were the Hellenists for whose sakes they translated the Scripture into Greek and for the use of the residue of their people who began to take in a mixture of the Syro-Chaldean Language with their own the Targum were found out Besides to the very utmost period of that Church the solemn Worship performed in the Temple as to all the interest of words in it was understood by the whole people attending on God therein And in that language did the Bible lye open in their Synagogues as is evident from the offer made by them to our Saviour of their Books to read in at his first entrance into one at Capernaum These flourishes then of our Orator being not likely to have the least effect upon any who mind the Apostololical advice of taking heed lest they be beguiled with inticing words we shall not need much to insist upon them This custom of performing the Worship of God in the Congregation in a Tong unknown to the Assembly renders he tells us that great act more majestick and venerable but why he declares not A blind veneration of what men understand not because they understand it not is neither any duty of the Gospel nor any part of its Worship St. Paul tells us he would pray with the Spirit and pray with Understanding also of this Majestick shew and blind Veneration of our Author Scripture Reason Experience of the Saints of God Custom of the Antient Churches know nothing Neither is it possible to preserve in men a perpetual veneration of they know not what nor if it could be preserved is it a thing that any way belongs to Christian Religion Nor can any