(2.) The whole credit of our reading and interpretation of the Scripture, as far as regulated by the present punctuation, depends solely on the faithfulness and skill of those Jews whose invention this work is asserted to be.
2. The 3"'n|^ ■•")?, of which sort are above eight hundred in the Hebrew Bibles, are various lections, partly gathered by some Judai- cal E-abbins out of ancient copies, partly their critical amendments.^
And, therefore, —
After these various lections, as they are esteemed, are presented unto us in their own proper order, wherein they stand in the great Bibles (not surely to increase the bulk of diverse readings, or to pre- sent a face of new variety to a less attentive observer, but) to evi- dence that they are such various lections as above described, they are given us over a second time, in the method whereinto they are cast by Cappellus, the great patriarch of these mysteries.*
3. That there are such alterations befallen the original as, in many places, may be rectified by the translations that have been made of old.'
• Prolcg. 7, sect. 17. « Ibid. 3, sect. 8, et seq. 3 ibjd. 8, sect, 23, etc.
« Append, p. 5. « Proleg. 7, sect. ] 2.
S52 INTEGRITY AND PUEITY OF THE HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT.
And therefore, —
Various lections may be observed and gathered out of tliose trans- lations, by considering how they read in their copies, and wherein they differed from those which we now enjoy.^
4. It is also declared, that where any gross faults or corruptions are befallen the originals, men may by their faculty of critical con- jecturing, amend them, and restore the native lections that were lost; though in general, without the authority of copies, this may not be allowed.^
And therefore, —
A collection of various readings out of Grotius, consisting for the most part in such conjectures, is in the Appendix presented unto us.
5. The voluminous hulk of various lections, as nakedly exhibited, seems sufficient to beget scruples and doubts in the minds of rnen about the truth of what hath been hitherto by many pretended con- cerning the preservation of the Scripture through the care and pro- vidence of God.
It is known to all men acquainted with things of this nature that in all these there is no new opinion coined or maintained by the learned prefacer to these Bibles ; the severals mentioned have been asserted and maintained by sundry learned men. Had the opinion about them been kept in the ordinary sphere of men's private con- ceptions, in their own private writings, running the hazard of men's judgments on their own strength and reputation, I should not from ray former discourse have esteemed myself concerned in them. Every one of us must give an account of himself unto God. It will be well for us if we are found holding the foundation. If we build hay and stubble upon it, though our work perish, we shall be saved. Let every man in these things be fully persuaded in his own mind ; it shall be to me no offence. It is their being laid as the foundation of the usefulness of these Biblia Polyglotta, with an endeavour to render them catholic, not in their own strength, but in their appen- dage to the authority that on good grounds is expected to this work, that calls for a due consideration of them. All men who will find them stated in these Prolegomena may not perhaps have had leisure, may not perhaps have the ability, to know what issue the most of these things have been already driven unto in the writings of pri- vate men.
As I willingly grant, then, that some of these things may, without any great prejudice to the truth, be candidly debated amongst learned men, so taking them altogether, placed in the advantages they now enjoy, I cannot but look upon them as an engine suited to the de- struction of the important truth before pleaded for, and as a fit ' Prolog. 6, sect. 8-10. « Ibid. 6, sect. 12.
OF THE PURITY OF THE ORIGINALS. 353
weapon put into the hands of men of atheistical minds and princi- ples, such as this age abounds withal, to oppose the whole evidence of truth revealed in the Scripture. I fear, with some, either the pre- tended infallible judge or the depth of atheism will be found to lie at the door of these considerations. " Hoc Ithacus vellet." But the deba,te of the advantage of either Komanists or Atheists from hence belongs to another place and season. Nor is the guilt of any conse- quences of this nature charged on the workmen, which yet may be feared from the work itself.
CHAPTER II.
Of the purity of the originals — The auroypx(pa of the Scripture lost — That of Moses, how and how long preserved — Of the book found by Hilkiah — Of the auTi'ypa(pa of the New Testament — Of the first copies of the originals — The scribes of those copies not 9-io-:Tvivirroi — What is ascribed to them — The great and incomparable care of the scribes of it — The whole word of God, in every tittle of it, preserved entire in the copies of the original extant — Heads of ar- guments to that purpose — What various lections are granted in the original of the Old and New Testaments — Sundry considerations concerning them, manifesting them to be of no importance — That the Jews have not corrupted the text — The most probable instances considered.