Page images
PDF
EPUB

rable Difficulties, Contradictions and Abfurdities, not only in the Fact mistaken, but in a Train of Confequences, and has kept them under an Impoflibility of search ing into, and acquiring the Knowledge or Certainty of Things, when, or by what Means, and in what Manner thofe Effects were produced, either from Scripture, Hiftory, or by any other Informations, Reafoning thereupon, and the natural Deductions which might, if they had understood the Truth loft by that Miftake, have been made, and the Benefits thereby, which have any Relation to that Truth fo miftaken; and that the Inconveniencies increafe by Length of Time, till it be rectified, as in a lower Degree the Notions of Vortexes, Attraction, &c. have hindered Men from enquiring into natural Çaufes, and discovering them.

I need not inftance the Mifconftruction of Aleim, and Words which express the Trinity of Perfons in the Effence, and their Names, nor those about the Fall of Man, whereby they had made the Crime not the greatest which could be committed, but fo fmall, that it has been at laft thought there was no Occafion for a Redeemer, fo had endangered the Foundation of the Chriftian Religion; nor that of making

the

the Heathens worship Devils, inftead of the Agents of God, the Second Causes; making the Sacrifices, nor from the Fall and Emblems of Chrift, but Services paid to thofe Devils, and brought by Mofes into the Temple of God: Nor many other important Points, about which there have been fo many Difputes. I hope each of them is fet in its proper Light, and determined. Telling us the facred Scripture is an old Story pick'd up from Tradition, offering their own Opinions, or citing the Opinions of others about Facts revealed, or the Conftruction of the Words which reveal them, after they are conftrued in the Method I have taken, will fignify nothing; unless it were poffible that they could fhew from other Parts of the fame Writing, from Things feen, or Truths as certainly understood, that the Relations of Things or Facts could not be fo, and must have been otherwise.

Tho' I have fhewed in my Effay to the N. H. of the Bible, that the Confufion predicted at Babel was not about Language, but about Religion, or that Part of it which we call Confeffion, or acknowledging the Existence of, or Power in the Object of Worship, fo Praife: Yet all this Smoak was not without fome Fire. There was a Confufion

Confufion of Tongues followed the Affair of Babel: But the Jews never defigned to tell us how it was performed, it affects them too nearly; they were not willing to fhew that the Scripture was infallibly writ and fufficient, but imperfect, fubject to their Conftructions, Oral Traditions, Church Authority, and fuch Loopholes. So they shuffled it off to an immediate Miracle upon the Place, and one of such a Nature, as we do not find God ever used with Man.

Those who talked of confounding the Languages at Babel, did not confider what fuch a Miracle would have done. It would have been not only blotting out of every Man's Memory the Ideas he had of all Things paft, and fo fufpending all Knowledge and Intercourfe among Men, till new Ideas had been acquired, and new Languages had been formed; or elfe infpiring every Man to fix a new Word to every Idea, which entered afterwards, and infpiring every Man in that Company reciprocally to understand him who uttered thofe Words.

As it was declared, predicted or promifed, that the Aleim would confound this new. Confeffion, as not one Tittle fo predicted pofitively without Condition,

could

could poffibly fail of coming to pass, or being accomplished; and as neither the then present Time, nor any other Time was mentioned; and as it was not done at that Time, nor when the Ifraelites came up out of Egypt, because it was even then at its full Height, and perfectly understood in Canaan, &c. and went on in other Countries, and fometimes there among the Jews for many Ages after, and was in the State predicted, when Christ came, the Fulnefs of Time, the Time when that Prophecy was fulfilled, when not a Man upon Earth (of that Religion) could understand what his Neighbour meaned by the Words of his Confeffion we are to fhew what was done in the mean Time by the facred Hiftory, where we have it among the Jews, &c. and from thence what must of Course have happen'd among their Neighbours, and what did happen by the concurring Evidence of all their Neighbours, of which fome is remaining in Writing, Monuments, &c. and others referred to, which are now loft.

;

I need only fay that D is the Lip, and when used for the Voice, the Indication of the Mind, 'tis never once in the Bible used in any other Senfe than for Confeffion. Before the Apoftacy at Babel, all VOL. IV.

B

Men

Men had the fame Confeffion, and the fame Words, or one commmon Form: And notwithstanding the Tranflation of the Bible, the Jews ufe the Word in that Senfe. in their private Writings, and where it cannot be in any other Senfe. R. Levi's. Hebr. Laws by Hottinger, p. 270. "The Service on the Day of Expiation- Before. the Faft, and the folemn Regard paid to it; the Confeffions and other Ceremonies of this Day, are treated of in a Talmudic Tract appropriated to the Matter called Ioma. See alfo Maimonides- The Ufe of this Precept was under the Temple. But now deftitute as we are, upon Ac-. count of our Sins, of a Sanctuary, an High Priest, the minifterial Habit and Sacrifice, all the Ifraelites perform this Service with Prayers and Supplications, &c. as it is. written, We offer up the Fruit of now our Lips." i. e. Confeffions. Buxtorf, or the Jew, who they fay helped him, has not been fo honeft as to hint at this in his Lex. Talmud. &c. now or DD, but only Labia, Lips. This would have fpoiled his Scheme, which is a Warning how we trust to Lexicon Makers in Languages (if I may call these, which are nothing but Confufion fo,) where we have no Concordance. So it muft ftand thus.

Ge.

« PreviousContinue »