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VI.

ART. which the difference is fo vaft, that it is as little poffible" to imagine how the one fhould continue pure, as how the other thould come to be corrupted. There was never a book of which we have that reason to be affured that it is genuine, that we have here. There happened to be conftant difputes among Chriftians from the second century downward, concerning fome of the most important parts of this doctrine; and by both fides thefe books were appealed to: and though there might be fome variations in readings and tranflations, yet no question was made concerning the Canon, or the authenticalness of the books themselves; unless it were by the Manichees, who came indeed to be called Chriftians, by a very enlarged way of fpeaking; fince it is juftly ftrange how men who faid that the author of the univerfe, and of the Mofaical difpenfation, was an evil God; and who held that there were two fupreme Gods, a good and an evil one; how fuch men, I fay, could be called Chriftians.

The authority of those books is not derived from any judgment that the Church made concerning them; but from this, that it was known that they were writ, either by men who were themselves the Apoftles of Christ, or by thofe who were their affiftants and companions, at whofe order, or under whofe direction and approbation, it was known that they were written and published. These books were received and known for fuch, in the very apoftolical age itself; fo that many of the apoftolical men, fuch as Ignatius and Polycarp, lived long enough to fee the Canon generally received and fettled. The fuffering and depreffed ftate of the firft Chriftians was also fuch, that as there is no reafon to fufpect them of impofture, fo it is not at all credible that an imposture of this kind could have paffed upon all the Chriftian Churches. A man in a corner might have forged the Sibylline oracles, or fome other pieces which were not to be generally ufed; and they might have appeared foon after, and credit might have been given too easily to a book or writing of that kind: but it cannot be imagined, that in an age in which the belief of this doctrine brought men under great troubles, and in which miracles and other extraordinary gifts were long continued in the Church, that, I fay, either falfe books could have been fo early obtruded on the Church as true, or that true books could have been fo vitiated as to lose their original purity, while they were fo univerfally read and ufed; and that fo foon; or that the writers of that very age and of the next should have been fo generally and fo grofsly imposed

upon

upon, as to have cited fpurious writings for true. Thefe ART. are things that could not be believed in the hiftories or VI. records of any nation: though the value that the Chriftians fet upon these books, and the conftant use they made of them, reading a parcel of them every Lord's day, make this much lefs fuppofable in the Chriftian religion, than it could be in any other fort of hiftory or record whatsoever. The early spreading of the Chriftian religion to fo many remote countries and provinces, the many copies of thefe books that lay in countries fo remote, the many translations of them that were quickly made, do all concur to make the impoffibility of any fuch impofture the more fenfible. Thus the Canon of the New Teftament is fixed upon clear and fure grounds.

From thence, without any further proof, we may be convinced of the Canon of the Old Teftament. Chrift does frequently cite Mofes and the Prophets; he appeals to them; and though he charged the Jews of that time, chiefly their teachers and rulers, with many diforders and faults, yet he never once fo much as infinuated that they had corrupted their law, or other facred books; which, if true, had been the greatest of all thofe abuses that they had put upon the people. Our Saviour cited their books according to the tranflation that was then in credit and common use amongst them. When one asked him which was the great commandment, he anfwered, How readeft tbou? And he proved the chief things relating to himfelf, his Death and Refurrection, from the prophecies that had gone before; which ought to have been fulfilled in him: he alfo cites the Old Teftament, by a threefold divifion of the Law of Mofes, the Prophets, and the Pfalms; according Luke xxiv. to the three orders of books into which the Jews had 44. divided it. The Pfalms, which was the firft among the holy writings, being fet for that whole volume, St. Paul fays, that to the Jews were committed the oracles of God: he Rom. iii, 2. reckons that among the chief of their privileges, but he never blames them for being unfaithful in this truft; and it is certain that the Jews have not corrupted the chief of thofe paffages that are urged against them to prove Jefus to have been the Chrift. So that the Old Teftament, at leaft the tranflation of the LXX Interpreters, which was in common use and in high esteem among the Jews in our Saviour's time, was, as to the main, faithful and uncorrupted. This might be further urged from what St. Paul fays concerning thofe Scriptures which Timothy had learned of a child; these could be no other than the books of the Old Teftament. Thus if the writings of

the

VI.

ART. the New Teftament are acknowledged to be of divine authority, the full teftimony, that they give to the books of the Old Teftament, does fufficiently prove their authority and genuineness likewise. But to carry this matter yet further:

Mofes wrought fuch miracles both in Egypt, in paffing through the Red Sea, and in the wilderness, that if these are acknowledged to be true, there can be no queftion made of his being fent of God, and authorised by him to deliver his will to the Jewith nation. The relation given of thofe miracles represents them to be fuch in themselves, and to have been acted fo publicly, that it cannot be pretended they were tricks, or that fome bold afferters gained a credit to them by affirming them. They were fo publicly tranfacted, that the relations given of them are either downright fables, or they were clear and uncontested characters of a prophet authorised of God. Nor is the relation of them made with any of those arts that are almoft neceffary to impoftors. The Jewith nation is all along reprefented as froward and difobedient, apt to murmur and rebel. The laws it contains, as to the political part, are calculated to advance both justice and compaffion, to awaken industry, and yet to reprefs avarice. Liberty and authority are duly tempered; the moral part is pure, and fuitable to human nature, though with fome imperfections and tolerances which were connived at, but yet regulated and for the religious part, idolatry, magic, and all human facrifices were put away by it. When we confider what remains are left us of the idolatry of the Egyptians, and what was afterward among the Greeks and Romans, who were polite and well conftituted as to their civil laws and rules, and may be efteemed the most refined pieces of heathenifm, we do find a fimplicity and purity, a majefty and gravity, a modefty with a decency, in the Jewish rituals, to which the others can in no fort be compared.

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In the books of Mofes, no defign for himself appears; his pofterity were but in the crowd, Levites without any character of diftinction; and he spares neither himself nor his brother, when there was occafion to mention their faults, no more than he does the reft of his countrymen. It is to be further confidered, that the laws and policy appointed by Mofes fettled many rules and rites that must have perpetuated the remembrance of them. The land was to be divided by lot, and every fhare was to defcend in an inheritance; the frequent affemblies at Jerufalem on the three great feftivals, the fabbaths, the new moons,

the

VI.

the fabbatical year, and the great jubilee, the law of the ART. double tythe, the facrifices of fo many different kinds, the diftinctions of meats, the prohibition of eating blood, together with many other particulars, were all founded upon it. Now let it be a little confidered, whether the foundation of all this, I mean the five books of Mofes, could be a forgery or not. If the Pentateuch was delivered by Mofes himself to the Jews, and received by them as the rule both of their religion and policy, then it is not poffible to conceive, but that the recital of all that is contained from the book of Exodus to the end of Deuteronomy, was known by them to be true; and this establishes the credit of the whole. But if this is not admitted, then let it be confidered in what time it can poffibly be fuppofed that this impofture could have appeared. There is a continued series of books of their hiftory, that goes down to the Babylonifh captivity; fo if there was an impofture of this fort let on foot in that time, all that history muft have been made upon it, and an account muft have been given of the discovery of those books; otherwise the impofture must have been too weak to have gained credit. Whereas, on the contrary, the whole thread of their hif tory reprefents these books to have been always amongst thein.

The discovery made in the reign of Jolias cannot be fuppofed to be of this fort; fince how much diforder foever the long and wicked reign of Manaffes might have brought them under, and what havoc foever might have been made of the writings that were held facred among them, yet it was impoffible that a feries of forged laws and hiftories could have been put upon them; of which there was ftill a continued memory preferved among them; and that they could be brought to believe that a book and a law full of fo much hiftory, and of fo many various and unufual rites founded upon it, had been held facred among them for many ages; if it was but a new invention. Therefore this is an extravagant conceit: fo that the book, that was then found in the Temple, was either 2 Chron. the original of the Law written by Mofes's own hand; xxxiv. 14. for fo the words may be rendered; or it may be underftood of fome of the laft chapters of Deuteronomy, which Ch. xxvi. feem by the tenor of them to have been at first a book by 16, to the themselves, though afterwards joined to the reft of Deu-end of Deut, teronomy; and in the collection that Jofias was making, thefe might be wanting at firft; and in thefe there are Deut. fuch fevere threatenings, that it was no wonder if a heart xxviii. from fo end.

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ART. fo tender as Jofias's was very much affected at the reading them.

VI.

Upon the whole matter there is no period in the whole hiftory of the Jews, to which any fufpicion of fuch an impofture can be faftened before the Babylonifh captivity: fo it must be laid either upon the times of the captivity, or foon after their return out of it. Now, not to obferve that men in fuch circumftances are feldom capable of things of that nature, can it be imagined that a feries of books, that run through many ages, could have been framed fo particularly, and yet fo exactly, that nothing in any concurrent history could ever be brought to difprove any part of it? That fuch a thing could pafs in fo fhort a time upon a whole nation, while fo many men remembered, or might well remember, what they had been before the captivity, if they had not all known that it was true, is a moft inconceivable thing. These books were fo far from being difputed, though we fee their neighbours the Samaritans were inclined enough to conteft every thing with them, that all acquiefced in them, and in that fecond beginning of their being a state, as it is opened in the books of Efdras and Nehemiah, and in Daniel, and the three prophets of the second Temple, all the other books were received among them without difpute: and their law was in fuch high efteem, that about two hundred years after that, the king of Egypt did with much intreaty, and at a vaft charge, procure a tranflation of it to be made in Greek.

The Jewish nation, as they live much within themfelves, where it is fafe for them to profefs their religion, fo they have had the divine authority of their books fo deeply infufed in them from age to age, that now above fixteen hundred years, though it is not poffible for them to practise the main parts of their religion, and though they fuffer much for profeffing it, yet they do ftill adhere to it, and practise as much of it as they can by the law itfelf, which ties the chief performances of that religion to one determinate place. This is a firmnefs which has never yet appeared in any other religion befides the Jewish and the Chriftian: for all the feveral fhapes of Heathenifm have often changed, and they all went off as foon as the government that fupported them fell, and that another came in its place. Whereas thefe have fubfifted long, not only without the fupport of the civil power, but under many fevere perfecutions: which is at leaft a good moral argument to prove, that these religions had another foundation,

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