222 CAUSES, WAYS, AND MEANS, ETC. [BOOK VI., PxlKT II.
a 'prodigy of industry and learning, although they have made some useful discoveries, yet have never been able to give such evidence unto their computations as that others would acquiesce in them, but by all their endeavours have administered occasion of new strife and contention about things, it may be, of no great importance to be known or determined. And, in genera], men have run into two ex- tremes in these things; for some pretend to frame an exact compu- tation and consent of times from the Scripture alone, without any regard unto the records, monuments, histories, and signatures of times in the world. Wherever these appear in opposition or contra- diction unto the chain and links of time which they have framed to themselves (as they suppose from the Scripture), they reject them as matters of no consideration; and it were well if they could do this unto satisfaction. But how evidently they have failed herein,— as, for instance, in the computation of Daniel's weeks, wherein they will allow but four hundred and ninety years from the first of Gyrus unto the death of our Saviour, contrary to the common consent of mankind about thiugs that fell out, and their continuance between those seasons, taking up five hundred and sixty-two years, — is mani- fest unto all. The Scripture, indeed, is to be made the only sacred standard and measure of things, in its proper sense and understand- ing, nor is any thing to be esteemed of which riseth up in contra- diction thereunto; but as a due consideration of foreign testimonies and monuments doth ofttimes give great light unto what is more generally or obscurely expressed in the Scripture, so where the Scripture in these things, with such allowances as it everywhere de- clares itself to admit of, may be interpreted in a fair compliance with uncontrolled foreign testimonies, that interpretation is to be em- braced. The question is not, therefore, whether we shall regulate the computation of times by the Scripture, or by the histories and marks of time in the world ; but whether, when the sense of the Scripture is obscure in those things, and its determination only general, so as to be equally capable of various senses, that is not to be preferred which agrees with the undoubted 'monuments of times in the nations of the world, all other things being alike? For instance, the angel Gabriel acquaints Daniel that from the going forth of the command- ment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem unto Messiah the prince and his cutting off, should be seventy tveeks (to speak only of the whole number in general), — that is, four hundred and ninety years. Now, there were sundry commandments given or decrees made by the kings of Persia, who are intended, to this purpose. Of these two were the most famous, the one granted by Cyrus in the first year of his empire, Ezra i. 1-4 ; the other by Artaxerxes in the seventh year of his reign, chap. vii. 11-26. Between the first of these and the
CHAP. VIII.] MEANS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE MIND OF GOD. 223
death of Christ there must be allowed five hundred and sixty-two years, unless you will offer violence unto all monuments, records, and circumstances of times in the world. It is, therefore, safer to inter- pret the general words of the angel of the latter decree or com- mandment, whose circumstances also make it more probable to be intended, wherein the space of time mentioned falls in exactly with other approved histories and records. Neither would I disallow an- other computation, which, contending for the first decree of Cyrus to be the beginning of the time mentioned, and allowing the whole space from thence to be really five hundred and sixty-two years, affirms that the Scripture excludes the consideration of the years supernumerary to the four hundred and ninety, because of the in- terruptions which at several seasons were put upon the people in the accomplishment of the things foretold for so many years, which some suppose to be signified by the distribution of the whole number of seventy weeks into seven, sixty-two, and one, each of which fractions hath its proper work belonging unto it; for this computation offers no violence either to sacred or unquestionable human authority.
But, on the other extreme, some there are who, observing the difficulties in these accounts, as expressed in the Scripture from the beginning, having framed another series of things to themselves openly diverse from that exhibited therein, and raked together from other authors some things giving countenance unto their conjectures, do profanely make bold to break in upon the original text, accusing it of imperfection or corruption, which they will rectify by their fine inventions and by the aid of a translation known to be mistaken in a thousand places, and in some justly suspected of wilful depravation. But this presumptuous confidence is nothing but an emanation from that food of atheism which is breaking in on the world in these de- clining a^es of it.
3. The third aid or assistance of this kind is a skill in the ways and methods of reasoning, which are supposed to be common unto the Scriptures with other writings; and this, as it is an art, or an artificial faculty, like those other means before mentioned, is capable of a right improvement or of being abused. An ability to judge of the sense of propositions, how one thing depends on another, how it is deduced from it, follows upon it, or is proved by it ; what is the design of him that writes or speaks in any discourse or reasoning; how it is proposed, confirmed, illustrated, — is necessary unto any rational consideration to be exercised about whatever is so proposed unto us. And when the minds of men are confirmed in a good habit of judgment by the rides of the art of reasoning about the ordinary ways and methods of it, it is of great advantage in the investigation of the sense of any writer, even of the Scripture itself; and those