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foundation, and a deeper root than any other religion ART. could ever pretend to. Yet, after all, it is not to be denied, but that in the collection that was made of the books of the Old Teftament after the captivity, by Ezra and others, or after that burning of many of the books of their law under Antiochus Epiphanes, mentioned in the book of Maccabees, that fome diforder might happen; Maccab. that there might be fuch regard had to fome copies, as i. 56. not to alter fome manifeft faults that were in them, but that, instead of that, they might have marked on the margin that which was the true reading: and a fuperftitious conceit might have afterwards crept in, and continued in afterages, of a mystery in that matter, upon their first letting thefe faults continue in the text with the marginal annotation of the correction of them. There might be alfo other marginal annotations of the modern names of places fet against the ancient ones, to guide the reader's judgment; and afterwards the modern name might have been writ inftead of the ancient one. Thefe are things that might naturally enough happen; and will ferve to refolve many objections against the texts of the Old Teftament. All the numbers of perfons as well as of years might alfo have been writ in numerical letters, though afterwards they came all to be fet down in words at large and while they were in letters, as fome might have been worn out, and loft in ancient copies, fo others were, by the refemblance of fome letters, very like to be mistaken: nor could men's memories ferve them fo well to correct miftakes in numbers as in other matters. This may fhew a way to reconcile many feeming differences between the accounts that are variously flated in fome of the books of the Bible, and between the Hebrew and the Septuagint. In these matters our Church has made no decifion; and fo divines are left to a juft freedom in them.

In general we may fafely rely upon the care and providence of God, and the induftry of men, who are naturally apt to preferve things of that kind entire, which are highly valued among them. And therefore we conclude, that the books of the Old Teftament are preferved pure down to us, as to all thofe things for which they were written; that is, in every thing that is either an object of faith, or a rule of life; and as to leffer matters, which vifibly have no relation to either of thefe, there is no reafon. to think that every copier was fo divinely guided that no fmall error might furprife him. In fact, we know that there are many various readings, which might have arifen from the hafte and carelefinefs of copiers, from their

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gueffing

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ART. gueffing wrong that which appeared doubtful or imperfect in the сору, and from a fuperftitious adhering to fome apparent faults, when they found them in copies of a venerable antiquity. But when all those various readings are compared together, it appears that as they are inconfiderable, fo they do not concern our faith, nor our morals; the setting which right was the main end of revelation. The most important diverfity relates to chronology: but the account of time, especially in the first ages, is of no confequence to our believing right, or to our living well: and therefore if fome errors or mistakes fhould appear to be among those different readings, these give no just cause to doubt of the whole. And indeed, confidering the many ages through which thofe books have paffed, we have much more reafon to wonder, that they are brought down to us fo entire, and so manifeftly genuine in all their main and important parts, than that we fhould fee fome prints of the frailty of those who copied and preserved them.

It remains only upon this head to confider what infpiration and an inspired book is, and how far that matter is to be carried. When we talk with one another, a noife is made in the air that ftrikes with fuch vibrations on the ears of others, that by the motion thereby made on the brain of another, we do convey our thoughts to another perfon: fo that the impreffion made on the brain is that which communicates our thoughts to another. By this we can easily apprehend how God may make fuch impreffions on men's brains, as may convey to them such things as he intends to make known to them.

This is the general notion of inspiration; in which the manner and degree of the impreffion may make it at the leaft as certain that the motion comes from God, as a man may be certain that fuch a thing was told him by fuch a perfon, and not by any other. Now there may be different degrees both of the objects that are revealed, and of the manner of the revelation. To fome it may be given in charge to deliver rules and laws to men and because that ought to be expreffed in plain words without pomp or ornament, therefore upon fuch occafions the imagination is not to be much agitated; but the impreffion must be made so naked, that the understanding may clearly apprehend it; and by confequence that it may be plainly expreffed. In others, the defign may be only to employ them in order to the awakening men to obferve a law already received and owned; that must be done with fuch pompous vifions of judgments coming upon the violation

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of those laws, as may very much alarm thofe to whom ART. they are fent: both the reprefentations and the expreffons must be fitted to excite men, to terrify, and fo to reform them. Now because the imagination, whether when we are tranfported in our thoughts being awake, or in dreams, is capable of having thofe fcenes acted upon it, and of being fo excited by them, as to utter them with pompous figures, and in a due rapidity; this is another way of infpiration that is ftrictly called prophecy in the Old Teftament. A great deal of the ftyle ufed in this muft relate to the particulars of the time to which it belongs: many allufions, hints, and forms of speech must be ufed, that are lively and proverbial; which cannot be underftood, unless we had all thofe concurrent helps which are loft even in the next age, if not preferved in books, and fo they must be quite loft after many ages are past, when no other memorials are left of the time in which they were tranfacted. This muft needs make the far greater part of all the prophetic writings to be very dark to us; not to infift upon the peculiar genius of the language in which the Prophets wrote, and on the common cuftoms of those climates and nations to this day, that are very different from our own.

Á third degree of infpiration might be, when there were no discoveries of future events to be made: but good and holy men were to be inwardly excited by God, to compofe fuch poems, hymns, and difcourfes, as fhould be of great ufe both to give men clearer and fuller apprehenfions of divine things, and alfo infenfibly to charm them with a pleasant and exalted way of treating them. And if the providence of God fhould fo order them in the management of their compofures, that it may afterwards appear that predictions were intermixed with them; yet they are not to be called Prophets, unless God had revealed to them the myftical intent of fuch predictions: fo that though the Spirit of God prophefied in them, yet they themselves not understanding it, are not to be accounted Prophets. Of this laft fort are the books of the Pfalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclefiaftes, &c.

According to the different order of these inspirations was the Old Teftament divided into three volumes. The infpiration of the New Teftament is all to be reduced to the first fort, except the Revelation, which is purely and ftrictly prophetical. The other parts of the New Testament are writ after a fofter and clearer illumination, and in a ftyle fuitable to it. Now because enthusiasts and impoftors may falfely pretend to divine commiffions and inspirations,

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ART. fpirations, it is neceffary (both for the undeceiving of thofe who may be misled by a hot and ungoverned imagination, and for giving fuch an authority to men truly infpired, as may diftinguifh them from falfe pretenders) that the man thus infpired fhould have fome evident fign or other, either fome miraculous action that is vifibly beyond the powers of nature, or fome particular difcovery of fomewhat that is to come, which must be fo expreffed, that the accomplishment of it may fhew it to be beyond the conjectures of the moft fagacious by one or both of thofe a man muft prove, and the world must be convinced, that he is fent and directed by God. And if fuch men deliver their meffage in writing, we must receive fuch writings as facred and infpired.

In thefe writings fome parts are hiftorical, fome doctrinal, and fome elenchtical or argumentative. As to the hiftorical part, it is certain that whatfoever is delivered to us, as a matter truly tranfacted, must be indeed so: but it is not neceffary, when difcourfes are reported, that the individual words fhould be fet down juft as they were faid; it is enough if the effect of them is reported nor is it neceffary that the order of time fhould be ftrictly obferved, or that all the conjunctions in fuch relations fhould be understood feverely according to their grammatical meaning. It is vifible that all the facred writers write in a diverfity of ftyle, according to their different tempers, and to the various impreffions that were made upon them. In that the infpiration left them to the ufe of their faculties, and to their previous cuftoms and habits: the defign of revelation, as to this part of its fubject, is only to give fuch representations of matters of fact, as may both work upon and guide our belief; but the order of time, and the ftrict words having no influence that way, the writers might difpofe them, and exprefs them variously, and yet all be exactly true. For the conjunctive particles do rather import that one paffage comes to be related after another, than that it was really transacted after it.

As to the doctrinal parts, that is, the rules of life, which thefe books fet before us, or the propofitions that are offered to us in them, we muft entirely acquiefce in thefe, as in the voice of God, who fpeaks to us by the means of a perfon, whom he, by his authorifing him in fo wonderful a manner, obliges us to hear and believe. But when these writers come to explain or argue, they ufe many figures that were well known in that age: but because the fignification of a figure is to be taken from common ufe, and not to be carried to the utmost extent

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that the words themselves will bear, we must therefore ART. enquire, as much as we can, into the manner and phrafeology of the time in which fuch perfons lived, which with relation to the New Teftament will lead us far: and by this we ought to govern the extent and importance of these figures.

As to their arguings, we are further to confider, that fometimes they argue upon certain grounds, and at other times they go upon principles, acknowledged and received by thofe with whom they dealt. It ought never to be made the only way of proving a thing, to found it upon the conceffions of thofe with whom we deal; yet when a thing is once truly proved, it is a juft and ufual way of confirming it, or at leaft of filencing those who oppose it, to fhew that it follows naturally from thofe opinions and principles that are received among them. Since therefore the Jews had, at the time of the writing of the New Teftament, a peculiar way of expounding many prophecies and paffages in the Old Teftament, it was a very proper way to convince them, to allege many places according to their key and methods of expofition. Therefore when divine writers argue upon any point, we are always bound to believe the conclufions that their reafonings end in, as parts of divine revelation: but we are not bound to be able to make out, or even to affent to, all the premises made ufe of by them in their whole extent; unless it appears plainly that they affirm the premifes as exprefsly as they do the conclufions proved by

them.

And thus far I have laid down fuch a scheme concerning infpiration and infpired writings, as will afford, to fuch as apprehend it aright, a folution to moft of these difficulties with which we are urged on the account of fome paffages in the facred writings. The laying down a fcheme that afferts an immediate infpiration which goes to the ftyle, and to every tittle, and that denies any error to have crept into any of the copies, as it feems on the one hand to raife the honour of the Scriptures very highly, fo it lies open on the other hand to great difficulties, which feem infuperable in that hypothefis; whereas a middle way, as it fettles the divine infpiration of these writings, and their being continued down genuine and unvitiated to us, as to all that, for which we can only fuppofe that infpiration was given; fo it helps us more eafily out of all difficulties, by yielding that which ferves to answer them, without weakening the authority of the whole.

I come in the laft place to examine the negative confequence

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