Now, together with the knoAvledge of the tongues, the use of that knowledge in critical observations did also increase. The excellent use of this study and employment, with the fruits of it in the explanation of sundry difficulties, with many other advantages, cannot be easily expressed. But as the best things are apt to be most abused, so in particular it hath fallen out with this kind of learn- ing and study. Protestants here also have chiefly managed the business. Beza, Camerarius, Scaliger, Casaubon, Drusius, Gomarus, Ussher, Grotius, Heinsius, ' Fuller, Dieu, Mede, Cameron, Glassius, Cappellus, A mama, with innumerable others, have excelled in this kind. But the mind of man being exceedingly vain- glorious, curious, uncertain, after a door to reputation and renown by this kind of learning was opened in the world, it quickly spread itself over all bounds and limits of sobriety The manifold inconveniences, if not mischiefs, that have en- sued on the boldness and curiosity of some in criticising the Scripture, I shall not now insist upon; and of what it might yet grow unto I have often heard the great Ussher expressing his fear. Of the success of Grotius in this way we have
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290 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
a solid account weekly in the lectures of oui' learned professor ; which I hope he will in due time benefit the public withal. But it is only one or two things that my present design calls upon me to remark.
Among other ways that sundry men have fixed on to exercise their critical abilities, one hath been the collecting of various lections both in the Old Testa- ment and New. The first and most honest course fixed on to this purpose was that of consulting various copies, and comparing them among themselves; wherein yet there were sundry miscarriages, as I shall show in the second treatise. This was the work of Erasmus, Stephen, Beza, Arias Montanus, and some others. Some that came after them, finding this province possessed, and no other world of the like nature remaining for them to conquer, fixed upon another way, sub- stituting to the service of their design as pernicious a principle as ever, I think, was fixed on by any learned man since the foundation of the church of Christ, excepting only those of Rome. Now this principle is, that, upon many grounds (which some of them are long in recounting), there are sundry corruptions crept into the originals, which, by their critical fiiculty, with the use of sundry engines, those especially of the old translations, are to be discovered and removed. And this also receives countenance from those Prolegomena to the Biblia Polyglotta, as will afterward be shown and discussed. Now, this principle being once fixed, and a liberty of criticising on the Scripture, yea, a necessity of it, thence evinced, it is inconceivable what springs of corrections and amendments rise up under their hands. Let me not be thought tedious if I recount some of them to you: —
1. It is known that there is a double consonancy in the Hebrew consonants among themselves, — of some in figure that are unlike in sound, of some in sound that are unlike in figure. Of the first sort are a and 3, i and 3, ■> and i, 1 and t, T and ■], n and -i, n and d, "a and tj, n and h, n and n, s and s; of the latter are 3 and p, s and y, o and v, i and 3, :: and 1. Now, this is one principle of our new critics, that the scribes of the Bible were sometimes mistaken by the like- ness of the letters in respect of figure, sometimes by their likeness in respect of sound, and so, remembering the words they wrote, oftentunes put one for another; so that whether they used their eyes or their memories, they failed on one hand or another : though the Jews deny any copy amongst them to be written but exactly by pattern, or that it is lawftd for a man to write one word in a copy but by pattern, though he could remember the words of the whole Bible. Now, whereas the signification of evei'y word is regulated by its radix, it often falls out that, in the formation and inflection of words, by reason of letters that are de- fective, there remains but one letter of the radix in them, at least that is pro- nounced. How frequent this is in this tongue, those who have very little skill in it may guess by only taking a view of Frobenius' Bible, wherein the radical letters are printed in a distinct character from all the prefixes and affixes in their varia- tions. Now, if a man hath a mind to criticise and mend the Bible, it is but taking his word or words that he will fix upon, and try what they will make by the commutation of the letters that are alike in figure and sound. Let him try what 3 will do in the place of a, or the contrary, — which as they are ra- dical or as they are prefixed will sufficiently alter the sense; and so of all the rest mentioned. If by this means any new sense that is tolerable and pleaseth the critic doth emerge, it is but saying the scribe was mistaken in the likeness of the letters or in the affinity of the sound, and then it is no matter though all the copies in the world agree to the contrary, without the least variation. It is evi- dent that this course hath stood Cappellus and Grotius in very good stead; and Simeon de Muis tells vis a pretty story of himself to this purpose (Assertio Verit. Heb.) Yea, this is the most eminent spring of the criticisms on the Old Testament that these times afford. A thousand instances might be given to this purpose.