fiderably more ancient; which would bring us again to a succession of confpiring impoftors. Fourthly, This last remark may perhaps afford a new argument for the genuineness of the book of Daniel, if any were wanting. But indeed the Septuagint translation shews both this, and all the other books of the Old Testament, to have been confidered as ancient books, foon after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, at least. Fifthly, There is a fimplicity of style, and an unaffected manner of writing, in all the books of the Old Testament; which is a very strong evidence of their genuineness, even exclusively of the suitableness of the circumstance to the times of the supposed authors. Sixthly, The style of the New Testament is also simple and unaffected, and perfectly suited to the time, places, and perfons. Let. it be observed farther, that the use of words and phrases is such, also the ideas, and method of reasoning, as that the books of the New Teftament could be written by none but persons originally Jews; which would bring the inquiry into a little narrower compass, if there was any occafion for this. One may also observe, that the narrations and precepts of both Old and New Testament are delivered without hesitation; the writers teach as having authority; which circumstance is peculiar to those who have both a clear knowledge of what they deliver, and a perfect integrity of heart. PROP. VIII. THE VERY GREAT NUMBER OF PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF TIME, PLACE, PERSONS, &C. MENTIONED IN THE SCRIPTURES, ARE ARGUMENTS BOTH OF THEIR GENUINENESS AND TRUTH. THAT the reader may understand what I mean by these particular circumstances, I will recite some of the principal heads, under which they may be classed. There are, then, mentioned, in the book of Genefis, the rivers of Paradife, the generations of the antediluvian patriarchs, the deluge with its circumstances, the place where the ark rested, the building of the tower of Babel, the confufion of tongues; the difperfion of mankind, or the divifion of the earth amongst the pofterity of Shem, Ham, and Japhet; the generations of the poftdiluvian patriarchs, with the gradual shortening of human life after the flood; the sojournings of Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, with many particulars of the ftate of Canaan, and the neighbouring countries, in their times; the deftruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; the state of the land of Fdom, both before and after Esau's time; and the descent of Jacob into Egypt, with the state of Egypt before Mofes's time. In the book of Exodus are the plagues of Egypt, the inftitution of the paffover, the passage through the Red Sea, with the destruction.. of Pharaoh and his host there, the miracle of manna, the victory over the Amalekites, the folemn delivery of the law from mount Sinai, many particular laws both moral and ceremonial, the worship of the golden calf, and a very minute description of the tabernacle, priests garments, ark, &c. VOL. V. In Leviticus we have a collection of ceremonial laws, with all their particularities, and an account of the deaths of Nadab and Abihu. The book of Numbers contains the first and second numberings of the several tribes, with their genealogies, the peculiar offices of the three several families of the Levites, many ceremonial laws, the journeyings and encampments of the people in the wilderness during forty years; with the relation of some remarkable events which happened in this period, as the searching of the land, the rebellion of Korah, the victories over Arad, Sihon, and Og, with the division of the kingdoms of the two last among the Gadites, Reubenites, and Manaffites, the history of Balak and Balaam, and the victory over the Midianites, all defcribed with the several particularities of time, place, and perfons. The book of Deuteronomy contains a recapitulation of many things contained in the three laft books, with a second delivery of the law, chiefly the moral one, by Mofes upon the borders of Canaan, just before his death, with an account of this. In the book of Joshua, we have the passage over Jordan, the conquest of the land of Canaan in detail, and the division of it among the tribes, including a minute geographical description. The book of Judges recites a great variety of public transactions, with the private origin of fome. In all, the names of times, places, and persons, both among the Ifraelites, and the neighbouring nations, are noted with particularity and fimplicity. In the book of Ruth is a very particular account of the genealogy of David, with feveral incidental circumstances. The books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, contain the transactions of the kings before the captivity, and governors afterwards, all delivered in the fame circumstantial manner. And here the particular account of the regulations sacred and civil eftablished by David, and of the building of the temple by Solomon, the genealogies given in the beginning of the first book of Chronicles, and the lifts of the perfons who returned, fealed, &c. after the captivity, in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, deserve especial notice, in the light in which we are now confidering things. The book of Efther contains a like account of a very remarkable event, with the inftitution of a festival in memory of it. The book of Pfalms mentions many historical facts in an incidental way; and this, with the books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclefiaftes, and Canticles, allude to the manners and cuftoms of ancient times in various ways. In the Prophecies there are some hiftorical relations; and in other parts the indirect mention of facts, times, places, and perfons, is interwoven with the predictions in the most copious and circumftantial manner. If we come to the New Testament, the fame observations prefent themselves at first view. We have the names of friends and enemies, Jews, Greeks, and Romans, obfcure and illuftrious, the times, places, and circumstances of facts, specified directly, and alluded to indirectly, indirectly, with various references to the customs and manners of those times. Now here I observe, first, that in fact we do not ever find, that forged or false accounts of things superabound thus in particularities. There is always some truth where there are confiderable particularities related, and they always feem to bear some proportion to one another. Thus there is a great want of the particulars of time, place, and perfons, in Manetho's account of the Egyptian dynasties, Ctefias's of the Affyrian kings, and those which the technical chronologers have given of the ancient kingdoms of Greece; and, agreeably thereto, these accounts have much fiction and falfhood, with some truth: whereas Thucydides's hiftory of the Peloponnefian war, and Cæfar's of the war in Gaul, in both which the particulars of time, place, and perfons, are mentioned, are univerfally efteemed true to a great degree of exactness. Secondly, a forger, or a relater of falshoods, would be careful not to mention so great a number of particulars, fince this would be to put into his readers hands criterions whereby to detect him. Thus we may fee one reason of the fact mentioned in the last paragraph, and which in confirming that fact confirms the proposition here to be proved. Thirdly, a forger, or a relater of falfhoods, could scarce furnish out such lifts of particulars. It is easy to conceive how faithful records kept from time to time by persons concerned in the transactions should contain such lifts; nay, it is natural to expect them in this cafe, from that local memory which takes strong possession of the fancy in those who have been present at transactions; but it would be a work of the highest invention, and greatest stretch of genius, to raise from nothing fuch numberless particularities, as are almost every where to be met with in the scriptures. The account given of memory, imagination, and invention, in the foregoing part of these observations, fets this matter in a strong light. There is a circumstance relating to the Gospels, which deserves particular notice in this place. St. Matthew and John were apostles; and therefore, fince they accompanied Chrift, must have this local memory of his journeyings and miracles. St. Mark was a Jew of Judea, and a friend of St. Peter's; and therefore may either have had this local memory himself, or have written chiefly from St. Peter, who had. But St. Luke, being a proselyte of Antioch, not converted perhaps till feveral years after Chrift's refurrection, and receiving his accounts from different eye-witnesses, as he fays himself, could have no regard to that order of time, which a local memory would fuggeft. Let us fee how the Gospels answer to these positions. St. Matthew's then appears to be in exact order of time, and to be a regulator to St. Mark's and St. Luke's, shewing St. Mark's to be nearly so, but St. Luke's to have little or no regard to the order of time in his account of Chrift's ministry. St. John's Gospel is, like St Matthew's, in order of time; but as he wrote after all the rest, and with a view only of recording some remarkable particulars, such as Chrift's actions C2 1 2 tions before he left Judea to go to preach in Galilee, his disputes with the Jews of Jerufalem, and his discourses to the apostles at his last supper, there was less opportunity for his local memory to shew itself. However, his recording what passed before Christ's going into Galilee, might be in part from this cause, as St. Matthew's omiffion of it was probably from his want of this local memory. For it appears, that St. Matthew resided in Galilee, and that he was not converted till some time after Chrift's coming thither to preach. Now this suitableness of the four Gofpels to their reputed authors, in a circumstance of so fubtle and recluse a nature, is quite inconsistent with the supposition of fiction or forgery. This remark is chiefly taken from Sir Ifaac Newton's chapter concerning the times of the birth and paffion of Chrift, in his comment on Daniel. Fourthly, if we could suppose the persons who forged the books of the Old and New Testaments, to have furnished their readers with the great variety of particulars above mentioned, notwithstanding the two reasons here alledged against it, we cannot however conceive, but that the perfons of those times when the books were published, muft, by the help of these criterions, have detected and exposed the forgeries or falshoods. For these criterions are so attested by allowed facts, as at this time, and in this remote corner of the world, to establish the truth and genuineness of the scriptures, as may appear even from this chapter, and much more from the writings of commentators, facred critics, and such other learned men as have given the historical evidences for revealed religion in detail; and by parity of reason, they would fuffice even now to detect the fraud, were there any: whence we may conclude, à fortiori, that they must have enabled the persons who were upon the spot, when the books were published, to do this; and the importance of many of these particulars, confidered under Prop. VI. would furnish them with abundant motives for this purpose. And upon the whole, I infer, that the very great number of particulars of time, place, persons, &c. mentioned. in the fcriptures, is a proof of their genuineness and truth, even previoufly to the confideration of the agreement of these particulars with history, natural and civil, and with one another, of which I now proceed to treat. PROP. IX. THE AGREEMENT OF THE SCRIPTURES WITH HISTORY, NATURAL AND CIVIL, IS A PROOF OF THEIR GENUINENESS AND TRUTH. THUS the history of the fall agrees in an eminent manner both with the obvious facts of labour, forrow, pain, and death, with what we fee and feel every day, and with all our philosophical inquiries into the frame of the human mind, the nature of social life, and the origin of evil, as may appear from these papers amongst other writings of the fame kind. The feveral powers of the little world within a man's own breast are at variance with one another, as well as those of the great world; we are utterly unable to give a complete plete folution of the origin of the evils which flow from these difcords, and from the jarring of the elements of the natural world; and yet there are comfortable hopes, that all evil will be overpowered and annihilated at last, and that it has an entire fubferviency to good really and ultimately, i. e. though the " ferpent bruise our heel," yet we shall" bruise its head." It cannot be denied, indeed, but that both the history of the creation, and that of the fall, are attended with great difficulties. But then they are not of fuch a kind as intimate them to be a fiction contrived by Moses. It is probable that he set down the traditional account, such as he received it from his ancestors; and that this account contains the literal truth in short, though so concealed in certain particulars through its shortness, and fome figurative expreffions made use of, that we cannot yet, perhaps never shall, interpret it fatisfactorily. However, Mr. Whiston's conjectures concerning the + fix days creation, seem to deserve the attention of future inquiries; and there is great plausibility in supposing with him, that the first chapter of Genefis contains a narrative of the succession of visible appearances. One may suppose also, that there is a typical and prophetic sense to be discovered hereafter, relative perhaps to the fix millenniums, which are to precede a seventh fabbatical one; and that the words are more accommodated to this sense than to the literal one, in some places, which I think holds in many of the prophecies that have double senses. However, there is no appearance of any motive to a fraud, either in the history of the creation or fall, nor any mark of one. And the same shortness and obscurity which prevents our being able to explain, seems also to preclude objections. If we suppose these histories to have been delivered by traditional explanations that accompanied hieroglyphical delineations, this would perhaps account for fome of the difficulties, and help us to conceive how the hiftories may be exact, and even decypherable hereafter. The appellations of the tree of life, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and of the ferpent, seem to favour this supposition. At the utmost, one can make no objections against these histories, but what are confiftent with the first and lowest of the suppositions above mentioned concerning divine inspiration. Natural history bears a strong testimony to Mofes's account of the deluge, and shews that it must have been univerfal, or nearly so, however difficult it may be to us, either to find fources for fo great a body of waters, or methods of removing them. That a comet had fome share in this event, seems highly probable from what Dr. Halley and Mr. Whiston have observed of this matter: I guess also partly from the supposition, that some part of the tail of a comet was then attracted by the earth, and deposited there, partly from the great shortening of human life after the flood, and partly from the fermenting and inebriating after the flood, that a great change was made at the time of the flood in the constitution of natural bodies, and particularly in that of water. And it seems not improbable to me, that an enlargement of the respective spheres of attraction and repulfion, C3 |