The various arguments giving evidence to this truth that might be produced are ,too many for me now to insist upon, and would take up more room than is allotted to the whole discourse, should I Proleg. 7, sect. 12.
358 INTEGRITY AND PURITY OF THE HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT.
I handle them at large, and according to the merit of this cause, 1. The providence of God in taking care of his word, which he hath magnified above all his name, as the most glorious product of his wisdom and goodness, his great concernment in this word answering his promise to this purpose; 2. The religious care of the church (I speak not of the Romish synagogue) to whom these oracles of God were committed ; 8. The care of the first writers in giving out au- thentic copies of what they had received from God unto many, which might be rules to the first transcribers; 4. The 'multiplying copies to such a number that it was impossible any should corrupt them all, wilfully or by negligence; 5. The preservation of the authentic co- pies, first in the Jewish synagogues, then in the Christian assemblies, with reverence and diligence ; 6. The daily reading and studying of the word by all sorts of persons, ever since its first writing, rendering every alteration liable to immediate observation and discovery, and that all over the world; with, 7. The consideration of the many millions that looked on every letter and tittle in this book as their inheritance, which for the whole world they would not be deprived of: and in particular, for the Old Testament (now most questioned), 8. The care of Ezra and his companions, the men of the great syna- gogue, in restoring the Scripture to its purity when it had met with the greatest trial that it ever underwent in this world, considering the paucity of the copies then extant;^ 9. The care of the Masoretes from his days and downward, to keep perfect and give an account of every syllable in the Scripture, — of which see Buxtorfius, Cora. Mas. ; 10. The constant consent of all copies in the world, so that, as sundry learned men have .observed, there is not in the whole Mishna, Gemara, or either Talmud, any one place of Scripture found other- wise read than as it is now in our copies; 11. The security we have that no mistakes were voluntarily or negligently brought into the text before the coming of our Saviour, who was to declare all things, in that he not once reproves the Jews on that account, when yet for their false glosses on the word he spares them not;^ 12. Afterward the watchfulness which the two nations of Jews and Christians had always one upon another, — with sundry things of the like import- ance, might to this purpose be insisted on. But of these things I shall speak again, if occasion be offered.
Notwithstanding what hath been spoken, we grant that there are
' " Ilierorolynns Bahylonica expugnationc deletis, oranc iDstrumentum Judaicac lite- raturoe per Esdram constat restauratum." — Tertull. lib. de Hab. Mul. cap. iii.
2 " Quod si aliquis dixerit Hebrteos libros a Judseis esse falsatos, axidiat Origenem, quid in octavo voluminc cxplanationum Esaise respondeat qurestiunculte ; quod nunquam dominus et apostoli qui cajtei'a crimiua arguunt in Scribis et Pharisceis, de lioc erimiue quod erat maximum reticuisscnt. Sin autem dixerint post adventum Domini et pr^- dicationom apostolorum libros Hcbrseos fuisse falsatos cachinuum teucrc non potero." — ■ IlJcrom. in cap. vi. Esaia3.
OF THE PURITY OF THE OllIGINALS, 859
and have been various lections in the Old Testament and the New. For the Old Testament, the Keriand Ketib, the various readings of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, of the eastern and western Jews, evince it. Of the ^''03^ """ip I shall speak particular! 3'' afterward. They present themselves to the view of every one that but looks into the Hebrew Bible. At the end of the great Kabbinical Bibles (as they are called) printed by Bombergus at Venice, as also in the edition of Buxtorfius at Basil, there is a collection of the various readings of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, of the eastern and western Jews ; — we have them also in this Appendix. For the two first mentioned, they are called among the Jews, one of them, K Aaron, the son of R. Moses, of the tribe of Asher ; the other, R. Moses, the son of David, of the tribe of Naphtali. They flourished, as is probable, among the Jews, about the year of Christ 1030, or thereabouts, and were teachers of great renown, the former in the west or Palestina, the latter in the east or Babylon. In their exact consideration of every letter, point, and accent of the Bible, wherein they spent their lives, it seems they found out some varieties. Let any one run them through as they are presented in this Appendix, he will find them to be so small, consisting for the most part in unnecessary accents, of no im- portance to the sense of any word, that they deserve not to be taken notice of. For the various readings of the oriental or Babylonian, and occidental or Palestine Jews, all that I know of them (and I wish that those that know more of them would inform me better) is, that they first appeared in the edition of the Bible by Bombergus-, under the care of Felix Pratensis, gathered by R. Jacob Ben Chajim, who corrected that impression. But they give us no account of their original, nor (to profess my ignorance) do I know any that do: it may be some do, but in my present haste I cannot inquire after them. But the thing itself proclaims their non-importance ; and Cap- pellus, the most skilful and diligent improver of all advantages for impairing the authority of the Hebrew text, so to give countenance to his " Critica Sacra," confesses that they are all trivial, and not in matters of any moment. Besides these, there are no other various lections of the Old Testament. The conjectures of men conceited of their own abilities to correct the word of God are not to be ad- mitted to that title. If any others can be gathered, or shall be here- after, out of ancient copies of credit and esteem, where no mistake can be discovered as their cause, they deserve to be considered. Men must here deal by instances, not conjectures. All that yet ap- pears impairs not in the least the truth of our assertion, that every letter and tittle of the word of God remains in the copies preserved by his merciful providence for the use of his church.