imagined to be found in, could not run into. For if they be of this Nature, this very Confideration is enough to take off the force of the Objection against the Authority of any Book; and we must conclude, that the Objections are capable of being answered, and that the Mistake lies not in the Book it felf, but in the Readers, who without fufficient skill or attention, pass a rafh judgment upon it. For by all the Rules of Reasoning, an Objection may imply too much, as well as prove too little to be of any force: And the common Rules of Candor and Equity, would prevent many Objections which are wont to be made against the Scriptures. For if we will but fuppofe the writers of the Scriptures to have been Men of any tolerable Senfe, even without Inspiration, they could never have committed fuch mistakes as fome would faften upon them. Ifrael beheld Jofeph's Sons, and faid, Who are these? Gen. xlviii. 8. and yet the Eyes of Ifrael were dim for Age, fo that he could not fee, ver. 10. i. e. he could not fee plainly and diftin&tly the Objects before him. In like manner, we read, Exod. xxxiii. 11. And the Lord Spake unto Mofes, face to face, as a Man fpeaketh unto his Friend: yet, ver. 20. the Lord anfwers Mofes, who had befought God to fhew him his Glory. Thou canst not fee my face: for there fhall no Man fee me, and live. Would it not be impudent trifling to pretend any contradiction in these two Verfes, when they are easily understood in a confiftent fenfe, and no Man of any judgment can be fuppofed to write Contradictions, and lay them so near toge ther? God himself fpake immediately to Mofes, not by the Meffage of an Angel, even apparently, and not in dark Speeches, Num. xii. 8. When it is faid, Alts ix. 7. that the Men, who journeyed with St. Paul, heard a Voice, but faw no Man: and, Acts xxii. 9. that they heard not the Voice of him that fpake to St. Paul: befides the Explications which are known and obvious to reconcile these Texts, thofe, who will not be at the

pains to confult Expofitors, or to confider the importance of the Words, may be pleased to obferve, that St. Luke was a Man bred to Learning; and this History of the Acts of the Apostles, fhews him to have been, at least, a prudent and wife Man; and therefore he could never have written fo palpable a Contradiction, as the Objection must fuppofe, in fo fmall a compass, concerning one of the most remarkable things in his whole Hiftory, relating to a Perfon, with whom he conftantly travelled and convers'd. Į appeal to any Man, whether, if he had met with two fuch Paffages, which feem to contradict each other, in Thucydides or Xenophon, or, even in the very worst Hiftorian, he would not be enclined rather to seek out for fome way of reconciling them, than to fufpect that he could fo foon forget what he had written fo little a while before, in an account of a thing of that nature. Of the fame kind is that difference, which is between the Genealogy of Chrift in St. Matthew, and that in St. Luke. For there is no doubt but the Genealogies of the Jews were then, and long after, extant in the Publick Regifters, they could repeat them by heart with as much readiness as they could their own Names; and to infert a wrong Genealogy, had been to give up all the Arguments that could be alledg'd for our Saviour's being the Chrift: Nothing ' could be more destructive to their Caufe, than for the Evangelifts to produce a falfe Pedigree, when the true one might be fo eafily produced by any who had a mind to difprove them. The Merits of their Cause wholly depended upon the Proof. of Chrift's Defcent from Abraham and David; and therefore whatever difficulties there may now be thought to be in this two-fold Genealogy, it was certainly acknowledged

d Ab exordio Adam ufque ad extremum Zorobabel, omnium generationes ita memoriter velociterque percurrunt, ut eos fuum putes referee nomen. Hieron. in Tit. iii. 9.

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by those of that Age, and beyond all Difpute, or elfe it would never have been produced by the Evangelifts, or had for ever ruin'd their Caufe, if they had produced it.

Some Crimes are too great to charge upon Men of any Credit or Reputation; and fome Errors are so notorious that no Man of common Prudence can be fupposed to commit them: And therefore when we find an Author rational and confiftent in other parts of a Difcourfe, the ordinary Ingenuity and Candour of Mankind will hinder us from fuppofing him to commit grofs and palpable Mistakes; and it is great Difingenuity and Folly to fhew the lefs Refpect to any Author, because he is at least believ'd to have written by Inspiration, or to deny him the Refpect due to a Man, because God has enabled him to write infallible Truth.

V. If any Contradictions be framed or forced from the various Readings, the Difficulties in Chronology, or whatever elfe of this nature is to be found in the Difputes of Criticks, they prove no more against the Authority of the Scriptures, than they do against the Authority of all other Books in the World; unlefs it could be fhewn that these Difficulties could not happen in a Book written by Divine Infpiration, but that it must be firft written in fuch a manner as to afford no occafion for Disputes, and that it must be ever after fo preferv'd by a conftant Miracle, that it may be subject to none of the Accidents and Cafualties, to which all other Books are liable. On the contrary, it can never be proved, that God might not permit Books written by Inspiration, to be obnoxious to any fuch Cafualties as are not prejudicial to the End and Defign of a Revelation. But if the neceffary Points of Doctrine be preferv'd entire, and the Evidence of Matters of Fact be fufficient to prove the Truth of the Miracles and Prophecies in Confirmation of that Doctrine; all leffer Matters may

be

be left to the fame Contingencies which befal all other Books in the World.

That the Evidence is very clear and full in Proof both of the Prophecies and Miracles, which demonftrate to us the Divine Authority of the Scriptures, has been already fhewn, and if no more could be produced than has by me been brought to prove their Authority; yet unless this can be proved to be infufficient from fome Miftakes or Defects in it, no fuch Objections can invalidate it. Because no Man can prove that God might not fuffer a Book written by his own Appointment and Authority, to be encumber'd through length of Time, and the Frailty and Negligence of Men, with infuperable Difficulties, if it be fuppofed ftill to retain the visible Marks and Characters of a Divine Original in all the Evidence necessary to prove it from Matter of Fact, and in the DoEtrines deliver'd by it. For as long as these two things are fecured, all the reft, though it be of never fo great Ufe and Excellency, yet cannot be necessary in order to the ends of a Divine Revelation. And therefore a Book of Divine Revelation might be permitted by God for the Sins, and by the Fault and Ignorance of Men, to become perplex'd with abundance of divers Readings, and even with Contradictions in the Chronological and lefs material Points of it. For fo long as it cannot be proved Defective as to the ends and purposes of a Divine Revelation, either for want of Evidence to make it appear to be fuch, or thro' Defect of the Matter and Doctrine contain'd in it; all other Difficulties will never prove it not to be of Divine Authority, because fo long there is no Defect, but what might be in any Book, tho' we suppose it to be of Divine Authority.

CHA P. IX.

Of the Creation of the World, and the Prefervation of it.

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Y Creation in the Book of Genefis, is understood not only the Production of the World out of Nothing, but the Formation and Difpofal of the feveral Parts of the Universe. But there has an Opinion of late years prevail'd, very injurious to Religion, and repugnant to Reafon and the Judgment of former Ages; That God only created Matter and gave it Motion, to be perform'd under certain Laws, by which all the Phanomena of Nature both in the Creation and Prefervation of Things are brought about, without any farther immediate Divine Power or Concourse than what is juft neceffary to continue this Matter and Motion in Being; that is, God created Matter, and put it into Motion, and then Matter and Motion do all the rest in a fettled Course, and by establish'd Laws, without any need of the Divine Aid or Diretion. This Notion indeed can never be reconcil'd to the Scriptures, but then it is as little befriended by Reafon and Natural Religion. In proof of which, I fhall confider: I. The Creation of the World. II. The Prefervation of it; and fhall fhew, that neither of them could be perform'd in this way.

I. As to the Creation, we may confider both the Time and the Manner of it. And by the Time of the Creation, we may understand either the Time, when the Creation of the World began, or the Time which was taken up in the Creation of it. But this latter Senfe will come under what is to be said of the Manner of the Creation.

1. The Time of the Creation of the World, as that fignifies the Beginning of Time, or of the World's Dura