OF THE

INTEGRITY AND PURITY

OF

THE HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT

OF

THE SCRIPTURE.

CHAP. I.

The occasion of this discourse. The danger of supposing corruptions in the originals of the Scripture. The great usefulness of the Biblia Polyglotta. The grounds of the ensuing animadversions. The assertions proposed to be vindicated laid down. Their weight and importance. Sundry principles in the Prolegomena prejudicial to the truth contended for, laid down. Those principles formerly asserted by others. Reasons of the opposition made to them.

WHEN this whole little precedent treatise was finished, and ready to be given out unto the stationer, there came to my hands the prolegomena and appendix to the Biblia Polyglotta lately published. Upon the first sight of that volume, I was somewhat startled with that bulky collection of various readings, which the appendix tenders to the view of every one that doth but cast an eye upon it. Within a while after I found that others also, men of learning and judgment, had apprehensions of that work, not unlike those which my own thoughts had suggested unto me. Afterward,

considering what I had written, about the providence of God in the preservation of the original copies of the Scripture in the foregoing discourse, fearing lest from that great appearance of variations in the original copies, and those of all the translations published with so great care and diligence, there might some unconquerable objections against the truth of what I had asserted, be educed; I judged it necessary to stop the progress of those thoughts, until I could get time to look through the appendix, and the various lections in that

great volume exhibited unto us, with the grounds and reasons of them in the prolegomena. Having now discharged that task, and (as things were stated) duty, I shall crave leave to deliver my thoughts to some things contained in them, which possibly men of perverse minds may wrest to the prejudice of my former assertions, to the prejudice of the certainty of divine truth, as continued unto us through the providence of God in the originals of the Scripture.

What use hath been made, and is as yet made, in the world, of this supposition, that corruptions have befallen the originals of the Scripture, which those various lections at first view seem to intimate; I need not declare. It is, in brief, the foundation of Mahometism (Alcor. Azoar. 5.), the chiefest and principal prop of Popery, the only pretence of fanatical antiscripturists, and the root of much hidden atheism in the world. At present there is sent unto me by a very learned person, upon our discourse on this subject, a treatise in English, with the Latin title of Fides Divina,' wherein its nameless author, on this very foundation, labours to evert and utterly render useless the whole Scripture. How far such as he may be strengthened in their infidelity by the consideration of these things, time will manifest.

Had there not been then a necessity incumbent on me, either utterly to desist from pursuing any thoughts of publishing the foregoing treatise, or else of giving an account of some things contained in the prolegomena and appendix, I should for many reasons have abstained from this employment. But the truth is, not only what I had written in the first chapter about the providence of God in the preservation of the Scripture, but also the main of the arguments afterward insisted on by me, concerning the self-evidencing power and light of the Scripture, receiving in my apprehension a great weakening by the things I shall now speak unto, if owned and received as they are proposed unto us, I could not excuse myself from running the hazard of giving my thoughts upon them.

The wise man tells us, that he considered 'all travail, and every right work, and that for this a man is envied of his neighbour,' which, saith he, is 'vanity and vexation of spirit;'

a Whitak. Cham. Rivet. de S. S. Molin. nov. Pap. Mestrezat. Cont. Jesuit. Regourd. Vid. Card. Perron. respon. ad Reg. mag. Bullen. 1. 5. c. 6.

b

Eccles. iv. 4. It cannot be denied, but that this often falls out through the corruption of the hearts of men, that when works, right works, are with most sore travail brought forth in the world, their authors are repaid with envy for their labour, which mixes all the issues of the best endeavours of men, with vanity and vexation of spirit. Jerome of old and Erasmus of late, are the usual instances in this kind. That I have any of that guilt in a peculiar manner upon me, in reference to this work of publishing the Biblia Polyglotta, which I much esteem, or the authors and contrivers of it, whom I know not, I can, with due consideration, and do, utterly deny. The searcher of all hearts, knows I lie not. And what should possibly infect me with that leaven? I neither profess any deep skill in the learning used in that work, nor am ever like to be engaged in any thing that should be set up in competition with it; nor did ever know that there was such a person in the world, as the chief author of this edition of the Bibles, but by it. I shall then never fail on all just occasions, to commend the usefulness of this work, and the learning, diligence, and pains of the worthy persons that have brought it forth; nor would be wanting. to their full praise in this place, but that an entrance into this discourse with their due commendations, might be liable to misrepresentations. But whereas we have not only the Bible published, but also private opinions of men, and collections of various readings (really or pretendedly so we shall see afterward), tending some of them, as I apprehend, to the disadvantage of the great and important truth that I have been pleading for, tendered unto us; I hope it will not T be grievous to any, nor matter of offence, if using the same liberty, that they, or any of them, whose hands have been most eminent in this work, have done, I do with (I hope) Christian candour and moderation of spirit, briefly discover my thoughts upon some things proposed by them.

The renownedly learned prefacer to the Arabic translation in this edition of it, tells us, that the work of translating the Pentateuch into that language, was performed by a Jew, who took care to give countenance to his own private opi

b Since my writing of this some of the chief overseers of the work, persons of singular worth, are known to me.

nions, and so render them authentic by bringing them into the text of his translation.

It is not of any such attempt, that I have any cause to complain, or shall so do in reference to these prolegomena and appendix; only I could have wished (with submission to better judgments be it spoken), that in the publishing of the Bible, the sacred text, with the translations, and such naked historical accounts of their originals and preservation, as were necessary to have laid them fair and open to the judgment of the reader, had not been clogged with disputes and pleas for particular private opinions, imposed thereby with too much advantage on the minds of men, by their constant neighbourhood unto canonical truth.

But my present considerations being not to be extended beyond the concernment of the truth which in the foregoing discourse I have pleaded for, I shall first propose a brief abstract thereof, as to that part of it, which seems to be especially concerned, and then lay down what to me appears in its prejudice in the volumes now under debate; not doubting but a fuller account of the whole, will by some or other be speedily tendered unto the learned and impartial readers of them. The sum of what I am pleading for, as to the particular head to be vindicated, is, that as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, were immediately, and entirely given out by God himself, his mind being in them represented unto us, without the least interveniency of such mediums and ways as were capable of giving change or alteration to the least iota or syllable; so by his good and merciful providential dispensation, in his love to his word and church, his whole word as first given out by him, is preserved unto us entire in the original languages; where, shining in its own beauty and lustre (as also in all translations, so far as they faithfully represent the originals), it manifests and evidences unto the consciences of men, without other foreign help or assistance, its divine original and authority.

Now the several assertions or propositions contained in this position, are to me such important truths, that I shall not be blamed in the least by my own spirit, nor I hope by any others, in contending for them, judging them funda