It is clear then, in my judgment, that the things were not inspired; nor by consequence the words; which are less considerable than the things. It is not certain terms that are the rule of our faith; but a certain sense. And it is little matter what words we make use of, provided we go not astray from the doctrine which God has revealed. Those who read the originals, are in no better way of being saved, than those that can read only the translations. For there is no translation so false, but that taken in gross, it expresses clearly enough that which is necessary to salvation. Otherwise it would be necessary that all Christians had learned Hebrew and Greek, which is altogether impossible; and we should exclude from salvation, almost all those who have made profession of the Christian religion in our western parts, from the time of the apostles, to the age we live in.

That Providence also which has preserved us these holy books, to lead us in the way to salvation, so many ages after the death of those that writ them, has preserved inviolably nothing but the sense. It has suffered men to put in synonymous

words one for another; and not hindered the slipping in of a great many various readings, little considerable as to the sense, but remarkable as to the words and order. There is in St. Matthew, for example, more than a thousand divers readings in less than eleven hundred verses; but whereof there is not perhaps fifty, that can make any change in the sense; and that change too is but in things of little importance to piety. If God had thought it necessary, for the good of his church, to inspire into the sacred historians the terms which they ought to use, he would undoubtedly have taken more care to preserve them. It is plain therefore that he designed principally to preserve the sense.

Thus, then, neither the words nor the things, have been inspired into those who have given us the Sacred History; although in the main that history is very true in the principal facts. It may be, that in certain circumstances, little considerable, there may be some fault; as appears sufficiently by the contradictory passages. It is true, that some have strained themselves to reconcile those passages, as I have already observed; but it is after so

violent and constrained a fashion; and there are such divers opinions about these reconciliations; that if we examine the thing never so little, without prejudice, we shall find that the learned trouble themselves to no purpose; and that they would do much better to confess ingenuously, that there are some contradictions in things of small importance.

Nay further, I know some, that believe we ought not to receive all the Jewish histories, without distinction, for true histories. They contend, that we ought to except the book of Esther. And it is true, that if Assuerus, of whom the book of Esther speaks, be Ochus that reigned after Artaxerxes Mnemon, this book must have been written at a time when there was no prophet in Israel. But although Mr. Cappel maintains that Achasueros is the same with

xos, his conjecture is not unquestionable. They pretend also, that this history has all the characters of a history made at pleasure. I shall not examine that at present. But however it be, it is no heresy to reject a book of the Jewish canon; as neither is it to reject one of our own. At least, the Protestants have not called a Lutheran an

Heretic, for having said that the epistle of St. James is an* epistle of straw; no more than they have many of the learned, for not receiving the second epistle* of St. Peter, which a famous critic stilest, a fiction of some ancient Christian misemploying his leisure time. The Jewish Sanhedrim may easily have received into their canon books that had no Divine authority.

III. To come now to the doctrines which are in the Holy Scriptures, and not there attributed to a particular revelation; I will begin with examining those which are in the writings of the apostles, after which I will pass to those of the old Testament.

It is commonly believed, that the apostles, as well as the prophets, were inspired both as to words and things. Yet with this difference, that the prophets were not always inspired, but only when God gave them order to speak to the people in his name. Whereas the apostles were always inspired, without being ravished into exstacies, as the prophets were before their

* Straminea Epistola.

† Commentum veteris Christiani otio suo abuten tis. Jos. Scaliger.

prophesying. This opinion is founded upon the promise that Christ made his aposties to send them the Holy Spirit, which he performed on the day of Pentecost. The words of Christ are, John xvi. 13. When he, the Spirit of Truth, shall come, he will guide you into all truth. He says also elsewhere to his apostles; When they bring you into the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say, for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say, Luke xii. 11. These are two the most formal passages that can be quoted in this matter. It is requisite that we examine them with some attention, to see if they prove that which they are produced for; viz. That the apostles were 'honoured with a continual presence of 'the Holy Ghost, who dictated to them all 'that they said in matter of religion; insomuch that all their words ought to be considered as oracles.'

To begin with the latter; I observe first, that he does not promise a perpetual inspiration, but only upon certain occasions; viz. when the apostles should be brought