use of it, and a greater progress in the explication of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, had they consulted it, without absolutely submitting to its authority; had they considered it as an assistant, not as an infallible guide.

To what a length an opinion lightly taken up, and embraced with a full assent without due examination, may be carried, we may see in another example of much the same kind. The learned of the Church of Rome, who have taken the liberty of giving translations of Scripture in the modern languages, have for the most part subjected and devoted themselves to a prejudice equally groundless and absurd. The Council of Trent declared the Latin translation of the Scriptures called the Vulgate, which had been for many ages in use in their church, to be authentic; a very ambiguous term, which ought to have been more precisely defined than the fathers of this Council chose to define it. Upon this ground many contended, that the Vulgate version was dictated by the Holy Spirit; at least was providentially guarded against all error; was consequently of divine authority, and more to be regarded than even the original Hebrew and Greek texts. And in effect, the decree of the Council, however limited and moderated by the explanation of some of their more judicious divines, has given to the Vulgate such a high degree of authority, that, in this instance at least, the translation has taken place of the original: for the translators, instead of the Hebrew and Greek texts, profess to translate the Vulgate. Indeed when they find the Vulgate very notoriously deficient in expressing the sense, they do the original Scriptures the honour of consulting them, and take the liberty, by following them, of departing from their authentic guide: but in general the Vulgate is their original text; and they give us a translation of a translation; by which second transfusion of the holy Scriptures into another tongue, still more of the original sense must be lost, and more of the genuine spirit must evaporate.

The other prejudice, which has stood in the way, and obstructed our progress in the true understanding of the Old Testament, a prejudice even more unreasonable than the former, is the notion that has prevailed, of the great care and skill of the Jews in preserving the text, and transmitting it down to the present times pure, and entirely free from all mistakes, as it came from the hands of the authors. In opposition to which opinion it has been often observed, that such a perfect degree of integrity no human skill or care could warrant: it must imply no less than a constant miraculous superintendence of divine Providence, to guide the hand of the copyist, and to guard him from error, in respect to every transcript that has been made through so long a succession of ages. And it is universally acknowledged, that Almighty God has not thought such a miraculous interposition necessary in regard to the Scriptures of the New Testament, at least of equal authority and importance with those of the Old we plainly see, that he has not exempted them from the common lot of other books: the copies of these, as well as of other ancient writings, differing in some degree from one another, so that no one of them has just pretension to be a perfect and entire copy, truly and precisely representing in every word and letter the originals, as they came from the hands of the several authors. All writings transmitted to us, like these, from early times, the original copies of which have long ago perished, have suffered in their passage to us by the mistakes of many transcribers, through whose hands we have received them: errors continually accumulating in proportion to the number of transcripts, and the stream generally becoming more impure, the more distant it is from the source. Now the Hebrew writings of the Old Testament being for much the greatest part the most ancient of any; instead of finding them absolutely perfect, we may reasonably expect to find, that they have suffered

any

in this respect more than others of less antiquity generally have done.

But beside this common source of errors, there is a circumstance very unfavourable in this respect to these writings in particular, which makes them peculiarly liable to mistakes in transcribing; that is, the great similitude which some letters bear to others in the Hebrew alphabet: such as 2 to 2, 7 to, to п, a to 1; 1, 1, and ¡, to one another; more perhaps than are to be found in any other alphabet whatsoever; and in so great a degree of likeness, that they are hardly distinguishable even in some printed copies; and not only these letters, but others likewise, beside these, are not easily distinguished from one another in many manuscripts. This must have been a perpetual cause of frequent mistakes; of which, in regard to the two first pairs of letters above noted, there are many undeniable examples; insomuch that a change of one of the similar letters for the other, when it remarkably clears up the sense, may be fairly allowed to criticism, even without any other authority than that of the context to support it.

But to these natural sources of error, as we may call them, the Jewish copyists have added others, by some absurd practices which they have adopted in transcribing: such as their consulting more the fair appearance of their сору than the correctness of it; by wilfully leaving mistakes uncorrected, lest by erasing they should diminish the beauty and the value of the transcript (for instance, when they had written a word, or part of a word, wrongly, and immediately saw their mistake, they left the mistake uncorrected, and wrote the word anew after it); their scrupulous regard to the evenness and fulness of their lines; which induced them to cut off from the ends of lines a letter or letters, for which there was not sufficient room (for they never divided a word so that the parts of it should belong to two lines); and to add

to the ends of lines letters wholly insignificant, by way of expletives to fill up a vacant space: their custom of writing part of a word at the end of a line, where there was not room for the whole, and then giving the whole word at the beginning of the next line. These, and some other like practices, manifestly tended to multiply mistakes: they were so many traps and snares laid in the way of future transcribers, and must have given occasion to frequent errors.

These circumstances considered, it would be the most astonishing of all miracles, if, notwithstanding the acknowledged fallibility of transcribers, and their proneness to error, from the nature of the subject itself on which they were employed, the Hebrew writings of the Old Testament had come down to us through their hands absolutely pure, and free from all mistakes what

soever.

If it be asked, what then is the real condition of the present Hebrew text? and of what sort, and in what number, are the mistakes which we must acknowledge to be found in it? it is answered, that the condition of the Hebrew text is such as, from the nature of the thing, the antiquity of the writings themselves, the want of due care, or critical skill (in which latter at least the Jews have been exceedingly deficient), might in all reason have been expected; that the mistakes are frequent, and of various kinds; of letters, words, and sentences, by variation, omission, transposition; such as often injure the beauty and elegance, embarrass the construction, alter or obscure the sense, and sometimes render it quite unintelligible. If it be objected, that a concession, so large as this is, tends to invalidate the authority of Scripture; that it gives up in effect the certainty and authenticity of the doctrines contained in it, and exposes our religion naked and defenceless to the assaults of its enemies: this, I think, is a vain and groundless apprehension. Casual errors may blemish parts, but do not

destroy, or much alter, the whole. If the Iliad or the Eneid had come down to us with more errors in all the copies, than are to be found in the worst manuscript now extant of either; without doubt many particular passages would have lost much of their beauty; in, many the the sense would have been greatly injured; in some rendered wholly unintelligible: but the plan of the poem in the whole and in its parts, the fable, the mythology, the machinery, the characters, the great constituent parts, would still have been visible and apparent, without having suffered any essential diminution of their greatness. Of all the precious remains of antiquity perhaps Aristotle's Treatise on Poetry is come down to us as much injured by time as any: as it has been greatly mutilated in the whole, some considerable members of it being lost; so the parts remaining have suffered in proportion, and many passages are rendered very obscure, probably by the imperfections and frequent mistakes of the copies now extant. Yet, notwithstanding these disadvantages, this treatise, so much injured by time, and so mutilated, still continues to be the great code of criticism; the fundamental principles of which are plainly deducible from it; we still have recourse to it for the rules and laws of epic and dramatic poetry, and the imperfection of the copy does not at all impeach the authority of the legislator. Important and fundamental doctrines do not wholly depend on single passages; an universal harmony runs through the holy Scriptures; the parts mutually support each other, and supply one another's deficiencies and obscurities. Superficial damages and partial defects may greatly diminish the beauty of the edifice, without injuring its strength, and bringing on utter ruin and destruction.*

* "Librariorum discordiam ostendunt varia exemplaria, in quibus idem locus aliter atque legitur. Sed ea discordia offendere nos non debet, primum quia autorum non est, sed librariorum, quorum culpam præstare autores nec possunt nec debent. Deinde, quia plerumque ejusmodi discordia unius auti alterius verbi est, in quo nihil læditur sententia;