of Canaan, ver. 13. and ver. 30. he goes up to make an atonement for the people, i. e. as to the cutting them off in the wilderness; and therefore he desires, rather than the people should de destroyed, that God would strike him out of the roll, that he might die in the wilderness rather than the people. And God gives that answer to this purpose, ver. 33. Whoever hath sinned against me, will I blot out of my book: the sense of which is the same with those words of the Psalmist, He sware in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest, Psalm xcv. II. And according to this interpretation, which is most natural and easy, all your long discourse, against praying to be damned, comes to just nothing; there being no pretence for it, either in the text or context. 2. The story of Ruth doth not please you, as savouring, in your opinion, of a great deal of immodesty: but you would have a better opinion of it, if you consider that the reason of her carriage towards Boaz, in such a manner, was upon Naomi's telling her, that he was one to whom the right of redemption did belong, and by consequence, by their law, was to marry her. Ruth ii. 20. And this Ruth pleaded to Boaz, Ruth iii. 9. By which it appears that she verily believed that he was legally her husband; and Boaz, we see, speaks of her as one that was a virtuous woman, and known to be such in the whole city, ver 11. And he confesses he was her near kinsman; only, he saith, there was one nearer, ver. 12. By which it seems, if there had not, Boaz had made no scruple of the matter : and the Jews say, in such marriages very little ceremony was required, if the next of kin did not renounce his right, because the law had determined the marriage before hand. If you had but considered this one thing, you would have spared the many observations you make on this story. 3. You object against 2 Sam. xii. 8. as too much countenancing either incest or adultery; because it is said, that God gave to David his master's wives into his bosom. But, 1. It is very strange to bring this place as a countenance to adultery, which was purposely designed to upbraid David with the sin of adultery; and you will find it no easy matter, by the constitution of the Mosaical law, to prove polygamy to be adultery. 2. The Jews give a fair interpretation of this place; for they say, that the wife of a king could never marry after her husband's decease, as the Gemara on the title Sanhedrim expressly saith; although some among them follow the opinion of Selden. Uxor Ebra. 1. i. c. 10. Schick. de Jure Reg. c. 16. Theor. 19. Maim. More Ne c. 46. R. Jehuda, that she might marry the succeeding king: but that is built chiefly on this place; of which the rest give a better account, viz. that doth not imply Saul's wives, but the maids of honour, or attendants on the court of Saul, which all fell into David's power, and out of whom he might choose wives without danger of incest; and even some of those who assert it lawful for one king to marry his predecessor's wife, yet say in this case of David, that the word only implies that they were of Saul's family; as Merab and Michal were, but not Saul's wives. So that all the difficulty here arises only from the interpretation of an unusual word, in which we have much more reason to trust the Jews than other writers. 4. You are much offended at Hosea's marrying an adulteress. But all the formidable difficulties of that place will presently vanish, if you allow the Prophetical Schemes, wherein those things are said to be done; which are intended only to represent in a more lively manner the things signified by them. And so you may see the Chaldee Paraphrase fully explains this place of Hosea, and Maimonides purposely discourseth on the voch. 1. ii. Prophetic Parables, and brings this as one of the instances of them; and with him the rest of the Jewish interpreters agree. But you object against such a way of teaching, as tending to the encouragement of vice; which it is very far from, being designed to represent the odiousness of it: for the whole scope of the prophet is to let the people understand that their idolatry was as hateful to God as the sin of adultery, and that the consequences of it would be their misery and ruin. And yet that God expressed as much tenderness to them, as a man that was very fond of a woman would do, in being unwilling to put her away, although he knew she were false to his bed: the former is intended in the first chapter, and the latter in the third. And what is there tending to immorality in all this? May not God make use of one vice, whose evil is more notorious, to represent another by, whose evil they are more hardly convinced of? May not he set forth a degenerate people by the sons of an adulteress? and by the names given to them express his detestation of their wickedness? especially when the parabolical terms are so clearly explained, as they are in the second chapter. But you will say, these things are related as plain matters of fact; with the several circumstances belonging to 6. them. It is true, they are so; but so parables use to be; so was Nathan's to David; so is that of the rich man and Lazarus, in the New Testament: so is Jeremy's going to Euphrates to hide his girdle, (for it is not very likely the Jer. xiii. 4, prophet should be sent eighteen or twenty days' journey 5. into an enemy's country for no other end;) so is Ezekiel's lying on one side for 390 days, and shaving his head Ezek. iv. 5, and beard, contrary to the law, as Maimonides observes; and his digging in the walls of the Temple at Jerusalem, Ezek. v. 1. while he was in Babylon; and many other things of a like Ezek. viii. nature, which are set forth with as punctual a narration of 8. circumstances as this of Hosea; and yet they were only figurative expressions. We, that are accustomed to another way of learning, think these things strange; but this was a very common way in the elder times, and it is to this day much used in the Eastern countries, to represent duties to some, under the parables of things as really done by others: as may be seen in Lockman and Perzoes; besides what Clemens Alexandrinus and others have said, concerning the antiquity and common use of this parabolical way of teaching. I now come to your objections against the New Testament; but I find them so few, and those so slight and inconsiderable as to the end for which you produce them, that I may easily pass them over. To that about the continuance of miracles, I have already answered; and I find not one word in the places mentioned by you, which implies the necessity of the continuance of them in all ages of the Christian Church. That place, Mark x. 29, 30. speaks of no more but such a recompence in this life as is consistent with persecution, and therefore must chiefly lie in inward contentment; which all wise men have valued above external accommodations: although withal, by the account St. Paul gives of himself and his brethren, God did abundantly provide for them one way or other. As having nothing, and yet enjoy-2 Cor. vi. ing all things; which amounts to a hundred fold in this 10. life. But certainly you are the first man, who have objected the obscurity of the book of Revelations against the authority of the Scriptures; which is just as if one should object the quadrature of the circle against mathematical certainty. If we grant that there are some things in that mystical book we do not yet well understand, what then? Must neither that book, nor any other of the Bible, be of Divine revelation? I will not pursue the un reasonableness of this way of arguing so far as I might; but I leave yourself to consider of it, and of all that I have written, in order to your satisfaction. If you think fit to return an answer, I pray do it clearly and shortly, and with that freedom from passion which becomes so weighty a matter. And I beseech God to give you a right understanding in all things. I am, June 11, 1675 SIR, Your faithful Servant. THE END. Ammianus Marcellinus i. 40, 286. ii. 184, 194. Anaxagoras and Anaximenes ii. 234. Anaximander ii. 234. Andreas Morales ii. 285. Anthologia Gr. ii. 42. Apollodorus ii. 145. Apollonius i. 19. Apuleius ii. 263. Aquinas (Thom.) ii. 56. Arabica Scripturarum Versio i. 136. Arias, vid. Montanus Aristobulus Judæus i. 45. Aristophanes i. 54. ii. 134. Aristoteles Metaphys. i. 111, 354. ii. 8, 234, 237, 238, 240, 253, 256, |