To My Reverend and Worthy Friends, the Prebends of Christ Church College in Oxford, with All the Students in Divinity in That Society

The reason of my inscribing the ensuing pleas for the Authority, purity, and perfection of the Scripture, against the pretences of some to the contrary, in these days, unto you, is because some of you value and study the Scripture as much as any I know, and it is the earnest desire of my heart, that all of you would so do. Now whereas two things offer themselves unto me, to discourse with you by the way of Preface, namely the commendation of the Scripture, and an exhortation to the study of it on the one hand, and a discovery of the reproach that is cast upon it, with the various ways and means that are used by some for the lessening and depressing of its Authority and excellency on the other; the former being to good purpose, by one or other almost every day performed; I shall insist at present on the latter only; which also is more suited to discover my aim and intention in the ensuing discourses. Now herein as I shall, it may be, seem to exceed that proportion which is due unto a Preface to such short discourses as these following; yet I know, I shall be more brief than the nature of so great a matter as that proposed to consideration doth require. And therefore [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], I shall fall upon the subject that now lies before me.

Many there have been and are, who, through the craft of Satan, and the prejudice of their own hearts, lying under the power of corrupt and carnal Interest, have engaged themselves to decry, and disparage, that excellency of the Scripture which is proper and peculiar unto it. The several sorts of them are too many particularly to be considered, I shall only pass through them in general, and fix upon such instances by the way as may give evidence to the things insisted on.

Those who in this business are first to be called to an account, whose filth and abominations given out in gross, others have but parcelled among themselves, are they of the Synagogue of Rome. These pretend themselves to be the only keepers and preservers of the Word of God in the world; the only ground and pillar of truth. Let us then a little consider in the first place, how it hath discharged this trust; for it is but equal that men should be called to an account upon their own principles; and those, who supposing themselves to have a trust reposed in them, do manifest a treacherous mind, would not be one whit better if they had so indeed.

What then have these men done in the discharge of their pretended trust? Nay what hath that Synagogue left unattempted? Yea what hath it left unfinished, that may be needful to convince it of perfidiousness? That says the Scripture was committed to it alone, and would, if it were able, deprive all others of the possession of it or their lives; what Scripture then was this, or when was this deed of trust made unto them? The oracles of God, they tell us, committed to the Jews under the Old Testament, and all the writings of the New; and that this was done from the first foundation of the Church by Peter, and so on to the finishing of the whole Canon. What now have they not done in adding, detracting, corrupting, forging, aspersing those Scriptures to falsify their pretended trust? They add more books to them, never indited by the Holy Ghost, as remote from being [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]: so denying the self-evidencing power of that word, which is truly [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], by mixing it with things [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], of a human rise and spring; manifesting themselves to have lost the spirit of discerning, promised with the Word, to abide with the true Church of God for ever. Isaiah 59:21. They have taken from its fullness and perfection, its sufficiency and excellency, by their Masora their, oral law or verbum [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], their unknown, endless, bottomless, boundless treasure of traditions; that [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] for all their abominations. The Scripture itself; as they say, committed to them, they plead, to their eternal shame, to be in the Original Languages corrupted, vitiated, interpolated, so that it is no stable rule to guide us throughout in the knowledge of the will of God. The Jews, they say, did it whilst they were busy in burning of Christians. Therefore in the room of the Originals, they have enthroned a translation that was never committed to them, that came into the world they know neither how, nor when, nor by whom. So that one says of its author, Si quis percontetur Gallus fuerit an Sarmata, Judaeus an Christianus, vir an mulier, nihil habituri sint ejus patroni quod expeditè respondeant. All this to place themselves in the throne of God, and to make the words of a Translation authentic from their stamp upon them, and not from their relation unto, and agreement with, the words spoken by God himself. And yet farther, as if all this were not enough to manifest what Trustees they have been, they have cast off all subjection to the authority of God in his word, unless it be resolved into their own; denying that any man in the world can know it to be the word of God, unless they tell him so; it is but ink and paper, skin of parchment, a dead letter, a nose of wax, a Lesbian Rule, of no authority unto us at all. O faithful Trustees! Holy mother Church! Infallible chair! Can wickedness yet make any farther progress? Was it ever heard of from the foundation of the world, that men should take so much pains, as these men have done, to prove themselves faithless, and treacherous in a trust committed to them? Is not this the sum and substance of volumes that have even filled the world; the Word of God was committed to us alone, and no others; under our keeping it is corrupted, depraved, vitiated; the copies delivered unto us we have rejected, and taken up one of our own choice; nor let any complain of us, it was in our power to do worse. This sacred depositum had no [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], whereby it might be known to be the Word of God; but it is upon our credit alone, that it passes in the world, or is believed; we have added to it many books upon our own judgment, and yet think it not sufficient for the guidance of men, in the worship of God, and their obedience they owe unto him: yet do they blush? Are they ashamed as a thief when he is taken? Nay do they not boast themselves in their iniquity? And say, they are sold to work all these abominations? The time is coming, yea it is at hand, wherein it shall repent them for ever, that they have lifted up themselves against this sacred grant of the wisdom, care, love, and goodness of God.

Sundry other branches there are of the abominations of these men, besides those enumerated; all which may be reduced to these three corrupt and bloody fountains.

1. That the Scripture at best, as given out from God, and as it is to us continued, was, and is, but a partial revelation of the will of God: the other part of it, which how vast and extensive it is no man knows, (for the Jews have given us their [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] in their Mishna and Gemara; These kept them locked up in the breast, or chair of their holy Father) being reserved in their magazine of Traditions.

2. That the Scripture is not able to evince or manifest itself to be the Word of God, so as to enjoy and exercise any Authority in his name, over the souls and consciences of men; without an accession of Testimony, from that combination of politic, worldly minded men, that call themselves the Church of Rome.

3. That the Original copies of the Old and New Testament are so corrupted (ex ore tuo, serve nequam) that they are not a certain standard and measure of all doctrines, or the touchstone of all Translations.

Now concerning these things you will find somewhat offered unto your considerations in the ensuing discourses; wherein, I hope without any great altercation or disputes, to lay down such principles of truth, as that their Idol imaginations will be found cast to the ground before the sacred Ark of the word of God, and to lie naked without wisdom or power.

It is concerning the last of these only, that at present I shall deliver my thoughts unto you; and that because we begin to have a new concernment therein, wherewith I shall afterward acquaint you. Of all the Inventions of Satan to draw off the minds of men from the word of God, this of decrying the authority of the Originals seems to me the most pernicious. At the beginning of the reformation, before the Council of Trent, the Papists did but faintly, and not without some blushing, defend their vulgar Latin Translation. Some openly preferred the Original before it, as 1 Cajetan, Erasmus, 2 Vives, and others. Yea, and after the Council also, the same was done by Andradius 3, Serarius 4, Arias Montanus 5, Masius 6, and others. For those who understood nothing but Latin amongst them, and scarcely that, whose ignorance was provided for in the Council, I suppose it will not be thought meet that in this case we should make any account of them. But the State of things is now altered in the world, and the iniquity, which first wrought in a mystery, being now discovered, casts off its vizard and grows bold; nihil est audacius istis deprensis. At first the design was managed in private writings, Melchior Canus 7, Gulielmus Lindanus 8, Bellarminus 9, Gregorius de Valentia 10, Leo Castrius 11, Huntlaeus 12, Hanstelius 13, with innumerable others, some on one account, some on another, have pleaded that the Originals were corrupted; some of them with more impudence than others. Leo Castrius, as Pineda observes, raves almost, where ever he falls on the mention of the Hebrew text. Sed is est Author (saith he) dum in hujusmodi Ebraizationes incidit, vix sui compos; & bono licet zelo, tamen vel ignoratione rerum quarundam, vel vehementiori aliquâ affectione, extra fines veritatis & modestiae rapitur: & si ex hujusmodi tantum unguibus Leonem illum estimaremus, non etiam ex aliis praeclaris conatibus, aut murem aut vulpem censeremus, aut canem aut quiddam aliud ignobilius. Yea Morinus, who seems to be ashamed of nothing, yet shrinks a little at this man's impudence and folly. Apologetici libros (saith he) sex bene longos scripsit, quibus nihil quam Judaeorum voluntarias & malignas depravationes demonstrate nititur; zelo sanè pio scripsit Castrius, sed libris Hebraicis ad tantum opus quod moliebatur parum erat instructus. In the steps of this Castrius walks Huntley a subtle Jesuit, who in the treatise above cited, ascribes the corruption of the Hebrew Bible to the good providence of God, for the honour of the vulgar Latin. But these with their companions have had their mouths stopped by Reinolds, Whitaker, Junius, Lubbertus, Rivetus, Chamierus, Gerardus, Amesius, Glassius, Alstedius, Amama, and others. So that a man would have thought this fire put to the house of God had been sufficiently quenched. But after all the endeavours hitherto used, in the days wherein we live, it breaks out in a greater flame; they now print the Original itself, and defame it; gathering up translations of all sorts, and setting them up in competition with it. When Ximenius put forth the Complutensian Bibles, Vatablus his, & Arias Montanus those of the King of Spain, this Cockatrice was not hatched, whose fruit is now growing to a flying fiery Serpent. It is now but saying the ancient Hebrew letters are changed from the Samaritan to the Chaldean; the points or vowels and accents are but lately invented, of no Authority, without their guidance and direction nothing is certain in the knowledge of that tongue, all that we know of it comes from the translation of the 70, the Jews have corrupted the old Testament, there are innumerable various lections both of the old and new; there are other copies differing from those we now enjoy, that are utterly lost. So that upon the matter, there is nothing left unto men, but to choose, whether they will be Papists or Atheists.

Here that most stupendous fabric that was ever raised by ink and paper, termed well by a learned man magnificentissimum illud (quod post homines natos in lucem prodiit unquam) opus biblicum; I mean the Parisian Bibles, is prefaced by a discourse of its Erector Michael de Jay, wherein he denies the Hebrew text, prefers the vulgar Latin before it, and resolves that we are not left to the word for our rule, but to the Spirit that rules in their Church: pro certo igitur atque indubitato apud nos esse debet, vulgatam editionem, quae communi catholicae Ecclesiae lingua circumfertur verum esse & genuinum sacrae Scripturae fontem; hanc consulendam ubique, inde fidei dogmata repetenda; ex quo insuper consentaneum est, vera ac certissima fidei Christianae autographa in Spiritu Ecclesiae residere, neque ab ejus hostium manibus repetenda.

Et certè quamcunque pietatis speciem praetexunt, non religione quapiam, aut sincerâ in Scripturam sacram veneratione aguntur dum eam unicam, quasi ineluctabilem salutis regulam, usurpant; neque spiritûs Evangelici veritatem investigare decreverunt; dum ad autographa curiosius recurrentes, ex quibus, praeter perplexa quaedam vestigia, vix aliquid superest, vel capitales fidei hostes, vel eos qui Ecclesiae minus faverint, de contextuum interpretatione a germano sacrorum codicum sensu consulunt. Scilicet non alia est opportunior via à regio illius itinere secedendi, neque in privatarum opinionum placitis blandius possunt acquiescere, quas velut unicas doctrinae suae regulas sectari plerumque censuerunt.

Apage caecam animorum libidinem, non jam in institutionem nostram subsistit litera, sed Ecclesiae spiritus; neque è sacris codicibus hauriendum quidquam, nisi quod illa communicatum esse nobiscum voluerit. So he, or Morinus in his name; and if this be indeed the true state of things, I suppose he will very hardly convince men of the least usefulness of this great work and undertaking. To usher those bibles into the world, Morinus puts forth his Exercitations, entitled of the sincerity of the Hebrew and Greek Text, indeed to prove them corrupt and useless. He is now the man amongst them that undertakes to defend this cause: in whose writings whether there be more of Pyrgopolynices, or Rabshekah, is uncertain. But dogs that bark loud, seldom bite deep; nor do I think many ages have produced a man of more confidence and less judgment; a prudent Reader cannot but nauseate at all his leaves, and the man is well laid open by a learned person of his own party. By the way, I cannot but observe, that in the height of his boasting, he falls upon his mother Church, and embraces her to death. Exercitation 1, chapter 1, page 11. That he might vaunt himself to be the first and only discoverer of corruptions in the original of the Old Testament, with the causes of them, he falls into a profound contemplation of the guidance of his Church, which being ignorant of any such cause of rejecting the originals, as he hath now informed her of, yet continued to reject them, and prefer the vulgar Latin before them hîc admirare lector (saith he) Dei spiritum ecclesiae praesentissimum, illam per obscura, perplexa, et invia quaeque, inoffenso pede agentem: quanquam incognita esset Rabbinorum supina negligentia, portentosa ignorantia, foedaque librorum Judaicorum corruptela, et Haeretici contraria his magnâ verborum pompâ audacter jactarent; adduci tamen non potuit Ecclesia, ut versio, quâ solâ per mille ferè et centum annos usa fuerit, ad normam et amussim Hebraei textus iterum recuderetur. But is it so indeed, that their Church receives its guidance in a stupid brutish manner, so as to be fixed obstinately on conclusions, without the least acquaintance with the premises? It seems she loved not the Originals, but she knew not why; only she was obstinate in this, that she loved them not. If this be the state with their Church, that when it hath neither Scripture, nor Tradition, nor Reason, nor New Revelation, she is guided she knows not how, as Socrates was by his Daemon, or by secret and inexpressible species of pertinacy and stubbornness falling upon her imagination; I suppose it will be in vain to contend with her any longer. For my own part I must confess, that I shall as soon believe a poor deluded fanatical Quaker, pretending to be guided by an infallible Spirit, as their Pope with his whole conclave of Cardinals, upon the terms here laid down by Morinus.

But to let these men pass for a season; had this leprosy kept itself within that house which is thoroughly infected, it had been of less importance: it is but a farther preparation of it for the Fire. But it is now broken forth among Protestants also; with what design, to what end or purpose, I know not, [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩], God knows, and the day will manifest. To declare at large how this is come about, longa esset Historia; too long for me to dwell upon; some heads of things I shall briefly touch at. It is known to all, That the Reformation of Religion, and restoration of good learning were begun, and carried on at the same time, and mostly by the same persons. There was indeed a Triumvirate among the Papists of men excellently skilled in Rabbinical learning before the Reformation. Raymundus Martinus, Porchetus de sylvaticis, and Petrus Galatinus, are the men; of the which, the last dedicated his book to Maximilian the Emperor, after that Zuinglius and Luther had begun to preach. Upon the matter these three are but one: great are the disputes, whether Galatinus stole his book from Raymundus or Porchetus; from Porchetus, says Morinus, and calls his work plagium portentosum, cui vix simile unquam factum est: Exercitation 1 Chapter 2 from Raymundus, says Scaliger, Epistle 2 41 mistaking Raymundus Martinus for Raymundus Sebon; but giving the first tidings to the world of that book. From Raymundus also, says Josephus de Voysin in his prolegomena to the Pugio fidei, and from him Hornebeck in his Prolegomena ad Judae. I shall not interpose in this matter, the method of Galatinus and his style are peculiar to him, but the coincidence of his Quotations too many to be ascribed to common Accident. That Porchetus took his Victoria adversus impios Judaeos for the most part from Raymundus, himself confesses in his Preface. However certain it is, Galatinus had no small opinion of his own skill, and therefore, according to the usual way of men, who have attained, as they think, to some Eminency in any one kind of learning, laying more weight upon it than it is able to bear, he boldly affirms, that the Original of the Scripture is corrupted, and not to be restored but by the Talmud; In which one concession he more injures the cause he pleads for against the Jews, than he advantages it by all his books beside. Of his [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] of Rabbena Haskadosh there is no more news as yet in the world, than what he is pleased to acquaint us withal. At the same time Erasmus, Reuchlin, Vives, Xantes, Pagninus, and others, moved effectually for the restoration of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. But the work principally prospered in the hands of the first Reformers, as they were all of them generally skilled in the Hebrew, so some of them as Capito, Bibliander, Fagius, Munster to that Height and usefulness, that they may well be reckoned as the Fathers and Patriarchs of that learning. At that time lived Elias Levita, the most learned of the Jews of that Age, whose Grammatical writings were of huge importance in the studying of that tongue. This man as he was acquainted with many of the first Reformers, so he lived particularly with Paulus Fagius, as I have elsewhere declared. Now in one book, which in those days he published, called Massorech, Hammasoreth, he broached a new opinion, not much heard of, at least not at all received among the Jews, nor for ought that yet appears, once mentioned by Christians before, namely that the points or vowels, and accents used in the Hebrew Bible, were invented by some critical Jew or Masorete, living at Tiberias about 5 or 600 years after Christ: no doubt the man's aim was to reduce the world of Christians to a dependence on the ancient Rabbis, for the whole sense of the Scripture; Hinc prima mali labes, Here lies the first breach in this matter. The fraud being not discovered, and this opinion being broached and confirmed by the great and almost only master of the language of that Age, some even of the first Reformers embraced his fancy. Perhaps Zuinglius had spoken to it before: justly I know not. After a while the poison of this error beginning to operate, the Papists waiting on the mouths of the Reformers, like the servants of Benhadad on Ahab, to catch at every word that might fall from them to their advantage, began to make use of it. Hence Cochlaeus, book de Authoritate Scripturae, Chapter 5 applauds Luther, for saying the Jews had corrupted the Bible with Points and distinctions, as well he might, for nothing could be spoken more to the advantage of his cause against him. Wherefore other learned men began to give opposition to this Error; so did Munster, Junius, and others, as will be showed in the ensuing discourse. Thus this matter rested for a season. The study of the Hebrew tongue and learning being carried on, it fell at length on him, who undoubtedly has done more real Service for the promotion of it, than any one man whatever, Jew or Christian. I mean Buxtorfius the Elder; his Thesaurus Grammaticus, his Tiberias, or Commentarius Massorethicus, his Lexicons and Concordances, and many other Treatises, whereof some are not yet published, evince this to all the world. Even Morinus says that he is the only man among Christians, that ever thoroughly understood the Masora; and Symeon de Muys acknowledges his profiting by him, and learning from him; Other Jews who undertake to be teachers, know nothing but what they learn of him. To omit the Testimony of all sorts of learned men, giving him the preeminence in this learning, it may suffice that his works praise him. Now this man in his Tiberias or Commentarius Massorethicus, printed with the great Rabbinical Bible of his own correct setting forth at Basil, Anno 1620, considers at large this whole matter of the points, and discovers the vanity of Elias his pretension about the Tiberian Masoretes. But we must not it seems rest here: within a few years after, to make way for another design, which then he had conceived; Ludovicus Capellus published a discourse in the defense of the opinion of Elias, (at least so far as concerned the rise of the punctuation) under the Title of Arcanum punctationis revelatum. The book was published by Erpenius without the name of the Author. But the Person was sufficiently known; and Rivetus not long after took notice of him, and says he was his friend, but concealed his name. Isagoge ad Scripturam 1 Chapter 8. This new attempt immediately pleases some. Among others, our learned Professor Doctor Prideaux reads a public Lecture on the Vespers of our Comitia on that subject; wherein though he prefaces his discourse with an observation of the advantage the Papists make of that opinion of the novelty of the points, and the danger of it, yet upon the matter he falls in wholly with Capellus, though he name him not. Among the large Encomiums of himself, and his work, printed by Capellus in the close of his Critica sacra, there are two Letters from one Mister Eyre here in England, in one whereof he tells him, that without doubt the Doctor read on that subject by the help of his book; as indeed he uses his Arguments, and quotes his Treatise, under the name of Sud Hanisebhoth Hanaegalah. But that (I say) which seems to me most admirable in the Doctor's discourse is, that whereas he had prefaced it with the weight of the controversy he had in hand, by the advantage the Papists make of the opinion of the novelty of the Points, citing their words to that purpose, himself in the body of his exercitations falls in with them, and speaks the very things which he seemed before to have blamed. And by this means this opinion tending so greatly to the disparagement of the Authority of the Originals, is crept in amongst Protestants also. Of the stop put unto its progress by the full and learned Answer of Buxtorfius the younger (who alone in this learning, in this age, seems to answer his Father's worth) unto Capellus, in his discourse de origine and antiquitate Punctorum, I shall speak more afterwards. However it is not amiss fallen out that the masters of this new persuasion are not at all agreed among themselves. Capellus would have it easy to understand the Hebrew text, and every word, though not absolutely by itself, yet as it lies in its contexture, though there were no points at all. Morinus would make the language altogether unintelligible on that account; the one says, that the points are a late invention of the Rabbis, and the other, that without them, the understanding of the Hebrew is [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩], yet though they look diverse ways, there is a firebrand between them. But we have this Brand brought yet nearer to the Church's bread corn, in the prolegomena to the Biblia Polyglotta, lately printed at London. The solemn Espousal of this opinion of the Hebrew punctuation, in that great work, was one chief occasion of the second discourse, as you will find it at large declared in the entrance of it. I dare not mention the desperate consequences that attend this imagination, being affrighted among other things, by a little Treatise lately sent me (upon the occasion of a discourse on this subject) by my worthy and learned friend Doctor Ward, entitled fides divina, wherein its Author, who ever he be, from some principles of this Nature, and unwary Expressions of some learned men amongst us, labors to eject and cast out as useless the whole Scripture or word of God. I should have immediately returned an answer to that pestilent discourse, but that upon consideration, I found all his objections obviated or answered in the ensuing, treatises, which were then wholly finished. And this, as I said, was the first way whereby the poison of undervaluing the Originals crept in among Protestants themselves.

Now together with the knowledge 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 has fallen out with this kind of learning and study. Protestants here also have chiefly managed the business. Beza, Camerarius, Scaliger, Casaubon, Drusius, Gomarus, Usher, Grotius, Hensius, Fuller, Dieu, Mede, Camero, Glasius, Capellus, Amama, 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 ensued on the boldness and curiosity of some in criticising on the Scripture, I shall not now insist upon; and what it might yet grow unto, I have often heard the great Usher, expressing his fear. Of the success of Grotius in this way we have a solid account weekly in the Lectures of our 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 me upon to remark.

Among other ways that sundry men have fixed on to exercise their critical abilities, one has been the collecting of various lections both in the old Testament and New. The first and honestest 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, substituting 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 faculty, with the use of sundry Engines, those especially of the Old Translations are to be discovered and removed. And this also receives countenance from these Prolegomena to the Biblia Polyglotta, as will afterwards 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 [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] of the latter are [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]. Now this is one principle of our new Critics, that the Scribes of the Bible were sometimes mistaken by the likeness of the Letters, in respect of figure, sometimes by their likeness in respect of sound; and so remembering the words they wrote, oftentimes 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 lawful 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 every word is regulated by its radix, it often falls out, that in the formation and inflection of words, by reason of letters that are defective, there remains but one letter of the Radix in them, at least that is pronounced. How frequent this is in this tongue, those who have very little skill in it, may guess by only taking a view of Frobenius's Bible, wherein the Radical letters are printed in a distinct character, from all the prefixes and affixes in their variations. Now if a man has a mind to criticize 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 or sound. Let him try what [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] will do in the place of [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] or on the contrary; which as they are radical, 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 pleases the Critic, does 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 evident that this course has stood Capellus and Grotius in very good stead. And Symeon de Muys tells us a pretty story of himself to this purpose. De Hebraica Editione, Antiquitate, et Veritate Sanctae Scripturae. 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.

2. But in case this course fails, and no relief be afforded this way, than the transposition of Letters offers its assistance. Those who know anything in this language, know what alteration in the sense of words may be made by such a way of procedure; frequently words of contrary senses, directly opposite consist only of the same Letters diversely placed. Every Lexicon will supply men with instances, that need not to be here repeated.

3. The points are taken into consideration; and here bold men may even satisfy their curiosity. That word, or those three Letters [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] are instanced in by Jerome to this purpose, Hom. 9. 12: as it may be printed it will afford 8 several senses [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] is verbum and [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] is pestis; as far distant from one another as life and death; those letters in that order may be read with—and—and —and—and—, the Jews give instances how by this means, men may destroy the world. But

4. Suppose that this ground proves barren also, it is but going to an old Translation, the 70, or vulgar Latin, and where any word pleases us, to consider what Hebrew word answers unto it, and if it discovers an agreement in any one Letter, in Figure or sound, with the word in that Text, then to say that so they read in that copy. Yea rather than fail, be the word as far different from what is read in the Bible as can be imagined, aver it to yield the more convenient sense, and a various lection is found out.

And these are the chief heads and springs of the criticisms on the old Testament, which with so great a reputation of learning men have boldly obtruded on us of late days. It is not imaginable what prejudice the Sacred truth of the Scripture, preserved by the infinite love and care of God, has already suffered hereby, and what it may further suffer, for my part, I cannot but tremble to think. Lay but these two Principles together, namely that the points are a late invention of some Judaical Rabbins, (on which account there is no reason in the world that we should be bound unto them) and that it is lawful to gather various Lections by the help of Translations, where there are no diversities in our present Copies, which are owned in the Prolegomena to the Biblia Polyglotta, and for my part I must needs cry out [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], as not seeing any means of being delivered from utter uncertainty in and about all sacred truth. Those who have more wisdom and learning, and are able to look through all the digladiations that are likely to ensue on these principles, I hope will rather take pains to instruct me, and such as I am, than be angry or offended with us, that we are not so wise or learned as themselves. In the meantime I desire those who are shaken in mind by any of the specious pretenses of Capellus and others, to consider the specimen, given us, of reconciling the difficulties, that they lay as the ground of their conjectures in the miscellany notes, or Exercitations of the learned Mister Pocock; as useful and learned a work as is extant in that kind, in so few sheets of paper. The dangerous and causeless attempts of men, to rectify our present copies of the Bible, the Reader may there also find discovered and confuted.

But we have not as yet done; there is a new invention of Capellus, greatly applauded amongst the men of these opinions. He tells us book 6, chapter 10, Critica Sacra: Planum est omnem quae hodie est in terrarum orbe linguae Hebraicae cognitionem servandam tandem esse and ascribendam Graecae [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] 70. Sacrorum Bibliorum translationi. This is greedily taken up by Morinus (as nothing could be spoken more to his purpose) who also tells us, that the learned Prefacer to these Biblia Polyglotta is of the same judgment; Morinus: Preface to the Hebrew Samaritan works. Hereupon he informs us, that in the Translation of the Pentateuch he went for the meaning of sundry words unto Jerome, and the Translation of the 70. But it is not unknown to these learned persons, that Jerome, whom one of them makes his rule; tells us over and over, that notwithstanding the Translation of the 70, he had his knowledge of the Hebrew Tongue, from the Hebrew itself; and the help of such Hebrews as he hired to his assistance. And for Capellus, is not that the Helena for which he contends, and upon the matter the only foundation of his sacred work of Criticizing on the Scripture, that there was a succession of learned men of the Jews at Tiberias until an hundred years after Jerome, who invented the Points of the Hebrew Bible, and that not in an arbitrary manner, but according to the tradition they had received from them who spoke that language in its purity? Shall these men be thought to have had the knowledge of the Hebrew tongue from the Translation of the 70? Certainly they would not then have hated it so, as he informs us they did. But this thing is plainly ridiculous. The Language gives us the knowledge of itself. Considering the helps that by providence have been in all Ages, and at all times afforded thereunto, ever since the time wherein Capellus says, some knew it so well, as to invent and affix the present Punctuation, there has been a succession of living or dead Masters to further the knowledge of it. And this will not seem strange to them who have given us exact Translations of the Persian, and Ethiopic pieces of Scripture. In the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] we are little assisted by the 70. The chiefest seeming help unto this tongue is from the Arabic. And thus have I given you a brief account, how by the subtlety of Satan, there are principles crept in, even amongst Protestants, undermining the Authority of the Hebrew Verity, as it was called of Old; wherein Jerusalem has justified Samaria, and cleared the Papists in their reproaching of the Word of God. Of the New Testament I shall speak particularly in the second discourse ensuing. Morinus indeed tells us, De Hebraici et Graeci Textus Sinceritate, Exercitation 1, chapter 1, page 5, it is a jocular thing that the Heretics in their Disputations do grant, that there are Corruptions, and various Lections in the Greek and Latin copies of the Scripture, but deny it as to the Hebrew: but why, I pray, is this so ridiculous? It is founded on no less stable bottom than this experience, that whereas we evidently find various lections in the Greek copies which we enjoy, and so grant that which ocular Inspection evinces to be true; yet although men discover such virulent and bitter spirits against the Hebrew Text, as this Morinus does, calling all men fools or knaves that contend for its purity, yet they are none of them able to show out of any Copies yet extant in the World, or that they can make appear ever to have been extant, that ever there were any such various lections in the Originals of the Old Testament. And is there any reason that we should be esteemed Ridiculous, because believing our own eyes, we will not also believe the Testimony of same few men of no credit with us, asserting that for truth, which we have abundant cause to believe to be utterly false; But of these men so far.

I thought at the Entrance of my discourse to have also insisted on some other ways, whereby Satan in these days assaults the sacred truth of the Word of God in its Authority, Purity, Integrity, or Perfection; especially in the Poor, Deluded, Fanatical souls amongst us, commonly called Quakers. For the instruction of the younger sort, against whose abominations I have subjoined the Theses in the Close of the other Treatises. But I am sensible how far already I have exceeded the bounds of a Preface unto so small Treatises as these ensuing; and therefore giving a brief account of my undertaking in this Cause of God and his Word, for the vindication of the Authority and Integrity of it, I shall put a Close to this discourse.

It may be some of you have heard me professing my unwillingness to appear any more in the world this way. I have not in some things met with such pleasing entertainment, as to encourage me unto it: where I have been for peace, others have made themselves ready for war. Some of them, especially one of late, neither understanding me, nor the things that he writes about, but his mind for opposition was to be satisfied. This is the manner of not a few in their writings; they measure other men by their own ignorance, and what they know not themselves, they think is hid to others also; hence when anything presents itself new to their minds; as though they were the first that knew, what they then first know, and which they have only an obscure glimpse of, they rest not until they have published it to their praise. Such are the discourses of that person, partly trivial, partly obviated and rendered utterly useless to his purpose by that treatise, which he ventured weakly to oppose. I wish I could prevail with those, whose interest compels them to choose rather to be ignorant, than to be taught by me, to let my books alone. Another after two or three years consideration, in answer to a book of near 140 sheets of paper, returns a scoffing reply to so much of it, as was written in a quarter of an hour. I am therefore still minded to abstain from such engagements. And I think I may say if there were less writing by some, there would be more reading by others, at least to more purpose. Many books full of profound learning lie neglected, whilst men spend their time on trifles; and many things of great worth are suppressed by their authors, whilst things of no value are poured out, one on the neck of another. One of yourselves I have often solicited for the Publishing of some Divinity lectures, read at solemn times in the University, which, if I know ought, are, to say no more, worthy of public view. I yet hope a short time will answer my desire and expectation. Of my present undertaking there are three parts. The first is a subject that having preached on, I was by many urged to publish my thoughts upon it, judging it might be useful: I have answered their requests; what I have performed through the grace of Christ in the work undertaken, is left to the judgment of the godly learned reader. The second concerns the Prolegomena and Appendix to the late Biblia Polyglotta: of this I said often, ab alio quovis hoc fieri mallem, quàm à me, sed à me tamen potius quàm à nemine. The reasons of my engaging in that work are declared at large in the entrance of it. The theses in the close were drawn in by their affinity in subject to the other discourses, and to complete the doctrine of the Scripture concerning the Scripture, I endeavoured to comprise in them the whole truth about the Word of God, as to name and thing opposed by the poor fanatical Quakers, as also to discover the principles they proceed upon in their confused opposition to that truth.

I have no more to add, but only begging I may have the continuance of your prayers, and assistance in your several stations, for the carrying on the work of our Lord and Master in this place committed unto us, that I may give my account with joy and not with grief, to him that stands at the door, I commend you to the powerful word of his grace; and remain

Your fellow labourer and brother in our dear Lord Jesus. I. O. From my study, September 22, 1658.

The reason I am dedicating the following defense of the authority, purity, and perfection of Scripture against various objections raised in our day to you, is that some of you value and study the Scripture as much as anyone I know, and it is my heartfelt desire that all of you would do the same. Two topics present themselves for me to address in this preface: on one hand, a recommendation of Scripture and an encouragement to study it, and on the other, an exposure of the attacks against it and the various methods people use to undermine its authority and excellence. Since the first of these is already being accomplished almost daily by one person or another, I will focus only on the second, which also better reveals my purpose in the discussions that follow. In doing so, I may seem to go beyond what is appropriate for a preface to such brief writings. Yet I know I will still be more brief than such a weighty subject truly demands. Therefore, I will now turn directly to the subject before me.

Many people, past and present, have set themselves against the unique excellence of Scripture -- driven by Satan's cunning and the prejudice of their own hearts, controlled by corrupt and self-serving interests. The different kinds of such people are too many to examine one by one. I will only survey them in general, pausing along the way for specific examples that illustrate the points being made.

The first group to be called to account -- whose corruption others have merely parceled out among themselves -- is the synagogue of Rome. These people claim to be the only guardians and preservers of God's Word in the world, the only ground and pillar of truth. Let us then first consider how they have carried out this trust. It is only fair that people be held to their own standards. Those who claim to hold a trust yet show a treacherous spirit would be no better even if the trust were genuinely theirs.

What then have these men done with their supposed trust? What has that Synagogue left untried? What has it left unfinished that would prove its unfaithfulness? This group claims Scripture was entrusted to it alone and would, if it could, strip everyone else of either their Bible or their lives. But what Scripture was this, and when was this trust supposedly given to them? They tell us it was the oracles of God committed to the Jews under the Old Testament, along with all the writings of the New, and that this happened from the first founding of the Church by Peter onward until the entire canon was complete. What have they not done -- adding, subtracting, corrupting, forging, and slandering those Scriptures -- to betray their supposed trust? They add books never inspired by the Holy Ghost, which are far from being divinely breathed. In doing so, they deny the self-evidencing power of God's true Word by mixing it with writings of merely human origin, proving that they have lost the spirit of discernment promised to remain with the true Church of God forever along with His Word. Isaiah 59:21. They have taken away from Scripture's fullness, perfection, sufficiency, and excellence through their Masora, their oral law or unwritten tradition -- their unknown, endless, bottomless, boundless treasury of traditions that serves as a cover for all their abominations. As for the Scripture itself, which they claim was entrusted to them, they argue -- to their everlasting shame -- that in its Original Languages it is corrupted, damaged, and altered, so that it is no longer a reliable rule to guide us in knowing God's will. They say the Jews did this while the Church was busy burning Christians. Therefore, in place of the Originals, they have enthroned a translation that was never committed to them -- one that entered the world in a way they cannot explain: they do not know how, when, or by whom it was made. So that one writer says of its author, Si quis percontetur Gallus fuerit an Sarmata, Judaeus an Christianus, vir an mulier, nihil habituri sint ejus patroni quod expedite respondeant. All this is done to place themselves on God's throne, making the words of a Translation authoritative because of their stamp on it, rather than because of its relationship to and agreement with the words God Himself spoke. And further still, as if all this were not enough to show what kind of trustees they have been, they have cast off all submission to God's authority in His Word unless it can be traced back to their own authority. They deny that anyone in the world can know it to be God's Word unless they say so. Without their approval, they say it is nothing but ink and paper, parchment skin, a dead letter, a nose of wax, a Lesbian Rule -- carrying no authority for us at all. O faithful Trustees! Holy mother Church! Infallible chair! Can wickedness go any further than this? Has it ever been heard of since the beginning of the world that people would work so hard, as these men have done, to prove themselves faithless and treacherous with a trust given to them? Is not this the summary of the volumes that have filled the world: 'The Word of God was entrusted to us alone and no one else. Under our care it has become corrupted, damaged, and ruined. The copies given to us we have rejected and adopted one of our own choosing. And let no one complain about us -- it was in our power to do worse.' They say this sacred deposit had no distinguishing marks by which it could be known as God's Word. It passes as authentic in the world and is believed only on their word alone. They have added many books to it based on their own judgment, and yet they still consider it insufficient to guide people in worshiping God and obeying Him. Yet do they blush? Are they ashamed like a thief caught in the act? No -- do they not actually boast in their wrongdoing? Do they not say they are committed to carrying out all these abominations? The time is coming -- yes, it is near -- when they will forever regret that they have risen up against this sacred gift of God's wisdom, care, love, and goodness.

There are many other branches of these men's abominations beyond those already listed, all of which can be traced back to three corrupt and deadly sources.

1. That Scripture, at best -- both as originally given by God and as it has come down to us -- was and is only a partial revelation of God's will. The other part, whose vast extent no one can measure (for the Jews have given us their version in their Mishna and Gemara; Rome kept theirs locked away in the heart or chair of their holy Father), has been stored in their treasury of Traditions.

2. That Scripture cannot prove or demonstrate itself to be God's Word, and therefore cannot rightfully exercise any authority in His name over the souls and consciences of people, without additional testimony from that alliance of politically-minded, worldly men who call themselves the Church of Rome.

3. That the original manuscripts of the Old and New Testament are so corrupted (ex ore tuo, serve nequam -- 'out of your own mouth, wicked servant') that they are no longer a reliable standard for all doctrines or the touchstone for all translations.

You will find some discussion of these matters in the treatises that follow. In them, I hope to lay down such clear principles of truth -- without much argument or dispute -- that their false ideas will be found cast to the ground before the sacred Ark of God's Word, exposed as having neither wisdom nor power.

For now, I will share my thoughts with you only on the last of these three points, because we have a new reason to be concerned about it, which I will explain shortly. Of all Satan's schemes to turn people's minds away from God's Word, this attack on the authority of the Originals seems to me the most destructive. At the beginning of the Reformation, before the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholics only weakly -- and with some embarrassment -- defended their Vulgar Latin Translation. Some openly preferred the Original over it, such as Cajetan, Erasmus, Vives, and others. Indeed, even after the Council, the same position was held by Andradius, Serarius, Arias Montanus, Masius, and others. As for those among them who understood nothing but Latin -- and barely that -- whose ignorance the Council had made provision for, I suppose no one would think it worthwhile to consider their opinion in this matter. But the situation has now changed. The wickedness that at first worked in secret has now been exposed and throws off its disguise, growing bold; nihil est audacius istis deprensis -- nothing is bolder than those caught in the act. At first the campaign was carried out through private writings. Melchior Canus, Gulielmus Lindanus, Bellarminus, Gregorius de Valentia, Leo Castrius, Huntlaeus, Hanstelius, and countless others -- some on one basis, some on another -- have argued that the Originals were corrupted. Some did so with more shamelessness than others. Leo Castrius, as Pineda observes, rages almost uncontrollably whenever he touches on the Hebrew text. Sed is est Author (says Pineda) dum in hujusmodi Ebraizationes incidit, vix sui compos; & bono licet zelo, tamen vel ignoratione rerum quarundam, vel vehementiori aliqua affectione, extra fines veritatis & modestiae rapitur: & si ex hujusmodi tantum unguibus Leonem illum estimaremus, non etiam ex aliis praeclaris conatibus, aut murem aut vulpem censeremus, aut canem aut quiddam aliud ignobilius. Even Morinus, who seems to be ashamed of nothing, flinches a little at this man's shamelessness and folly. Apologetici libros (he says) sex bene longos scripsit, quibus nihil quam Judaeorum voluntarias & malignas depravationes demonstrate nititur; zelo sane pio scripsit Castrius, sed libris Hebraicis ad tantum opus quod moliebatur parum erat instructus. Following in the footsteps of Castrius is Huntley, a subtle Jesuit, who in the treatise just mentioned attributes the corruption of the Hebrew Bible to God's good providence for the honor of the Vulgar Latin. But these men and their allies have had their mouths stopped by Reinolds, Whitaker, Junius, Lubbertus, Rivetus, Chamierus, Gerardus, Amesius, Glassius, Alstedius, Amama, and others. One would have thought this fire set against God's house had been thoroughly put out. But after all the efforts made so far, in our own day it breaks out in an even greater flame. They now print the Original itself and defame it, gathering up translations of every kind and setting them up as rivals to it. When Ximenius published the Complutensian Bibles, Vatablus his, and Arias Montanus those of the King of Spain, this venomous creature had not yet hatched -- but its offspring is now growing into a flying fiery serpent. Now all they need to say is: the ancient Hebrew letters were changed from the Samaritan to the Chaldean; the vowel points and accents were recently invented and carry no authority; without their guidance nothing in the language is certain; everything we know of it comes from the translation of the Seventy; the Jews have corrupted the Old Testament; there are countless variant readings in both the Old and New Testaments; there are other manuscripts differing from the ones we now have that are completely lost. So that in the end, people are left with no choice but to become either Papists or Atheists.

Here that most astonishing work ever produced by ink and paper -- rightly called by a learned man magnificentissimum illud (quod post homines natos in lucem prodiit unquam) opus biblicum; I mean the Parisian Bibles, is introduced by a preface from its creator Michael de Jay, in which he denies the Hebrew text, prefers the Vulgar Latin over it, and concludes that we are not left to the Word for our rule, but to the Spirit that rules in their Church: pro certo igitur atque indubitato apud nos esse debet, vulgatam editionem, quae communi catholicae Ecclesiae lingua circumfertur verum esse & genuinum sacrae Scripturae fontem; hanc consulendam ubique, inde fidei dogmata repetenda; ex quo insuper consentaneum est, vera ac certissima fidei Christianae autographa in Spiritu Ecclesiae residere, neque ab ejus hostium manibus repetenda.

Et certe quamcunque pietatis speciem praetexunt, non religione quapiam, aut sincera in Scripturam sacram veneratione aguntur dum eam unicam, quasi ineluctabilem salutis regulam, usurpant; neque spiritus Evangelici veritatem investigare decreverunt; dum ad autographa curiosius recurrentes, ex quibus, praeter perplexa quaedam vestigia, vix aliquid superest, vel capitales fidei hostes, vel eos qui Ecclesiae minus faverint, de contextuum interpretatione a germano sacrorum codicum sensu consulunt. Scilicet non alia est opportunior via a regio illius itinere secedendi, neque in privatarum opinionum placitis blandius possunt acquiescere, quas velut unicas doctrinae suae regulas sectari plerumque censuerunt.

Apage caecam animorum libidinem, non jam in institutionem nostram subsistit litera, sed Ecclesiae spiritus; neque e sacris codicibus hauriendum quidquam, nisi quod illa communicatum esse nobiscum voluerit. So he writes -- or Morinus in his name. And if this is truly the state of things, I think he will find it very hard to convince anyone that his great work and undertaking has the slightest usefulness. To introduce those bibles to the world, Morinus published his Exercitations, titled on the sincerity of the Hebrew and Greek Text -- though their real purpose was to prove the texts corrupt and useless. He is now their champion who takes on the defense of this cause. Whether there is more of the boastful soldier Pyrgopolynices or the blasphemous Rabshekah in his writings is hard to say. But dogs that bark loudly seldom bite deeply. I do not think many generations have produced a man of more confidence and less judgment. A thoughtful reader cannot help but grow weary at every page, and the man has been thoroughly exposed by a learned person from his own side. On a side note, I cannot help but observe that at the height of his boasting, he attacks his own mother Church and embraces her to death. Exercitation 1, chapter 1, page 11. In order to boast that he alone first discovered the corruptions in the original Old Testament and their causes, he stumbles into a deep reflection on his Church's guidance. His Church, being unaware of any such reason for rejecting the originals as he has now supplied, nonetheless continued to reject them and prefer the Vulgar Latin over them. Hec admirare lector (he says) Dei spiritum ecclesiae praesentissimum, illam per obscura, perplexa, et invia quaeque, inoffenso pede agentem: quanquam incognita esset Rabbinorum supina negligentia, portentosa ignorantia, foedaque librorum Judaicorum corruptela, et Haeretici contraria his magna verborum pompa audacter jactarent; adduci tamen non potuit Ecclesia, ut versio, qua sola per mille fere et centum annos usa fuerit, ad normam et amussim Hebraei textus iterum recuderetur. But is this really the case -- that their Church receives its guidance in a mindless, brutish way, stubbornly clinging to conclusions without the slightest familiarity with the reasoning behind them? It seems she did not love the Originals, but she did not know why. Her only certainty was her stubborn refusal to love them. If this is the condition of their Church -- that when it has neither Scripture, nor Tradition, nor Reason, nor New Revelation, it is guided by something it cannot explain, the way Socrates was led by his Daemon, or by secret and indescribable impulses of stubbornness and obstinacy acting on its imagination -- then I suppose it is pointless to argue with her any longer. For my own part, I must confess that I would just as soon believe a poor deluded fanatical Quaker claiming to be guided by an infallible Spirit, as their Pope with his whole assembly of Cardinals, on the terms laid down here by Morinus.

But setting these men aside for now -- if this disease had stayed within the house already thoroughly infected, it would have been less serious. It would simply be further preparation of that house for the fire. But it has now broken out among Protestants as well. With what motive or purpose, I do not know. God knows, and the day will reveal it. To explain at length how this came about would take too long -- longa esset Historia -- for me to dwell on. I will only briefly touch on the main points. Everyone knows that the Reformation of religion and the restoration of genuine learning began and advanced at the same time, and mostly through the same people. There was indeed a Triumvirate among the Roman Catholics of men with outstanding skill in Rabbinical learning before the Reformation. Raymundus Martinus, Porchetus de sylvaticis, and Petrus Galatinus are these men. The last of them dedicated his book to Maximilian the Emperor after Zuinglius and Luther had begun to preach. In substance, these three are really just one. There is great debate over whether Galatinus stole his book from Raymundus or Porchetus. From Porchetus, says Morinus, calling his work plagium portentosum, cui vix simile unquam factum est (Exercitation 1, Chapter 2). From Raymundus, says Scaliger (Epistle 241), mistaking Raymundus Martinus for Raymundus Sebon but giving the world its first notice of that book. From Raymundus also, says Josephus de Voysin in his prolegomena to the Pugio fidei, and from him Hornebeck in his Prolegomena ad Judae. I will not take sides in this dispute. The structure and style of Galatinus are distinctly his own, but the overlap of his quotations is too extensive to attribute to mere coincidence. That Porchetus drew his Victoria adversus impios Judaeos mostly from Raymundus he himself admits in his preface. In any case, Galatinus clearly had a high opinion of his own expertise. Following the common pattern of men who believe they have reached some excellence in a particular field of learning, he placed more weight on it than it could bear. He boldly declared that the Original of Scripture was corrupted and could only be restored through the Talmud. In this one concession he does more damage to the cause he argues against the Jews than all his other books combined contribute to its defense. Of his supposed work by Rabbena Haskadosh, nothing more is known in the world than what he himself chooses to tell us. At the same time, Erasmus, Reuchlin, Vives, Xantes, Pagninus, and others worked effectively for the restoration of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages. But the work prospered most in the hands of the early Reformers. They were all generally skilled in Hebrew, and some of them -- such as Capito, Bibliander, Fagius, and Munster -- reached such heights of usefulness that they may rightly be considered the founding fathers and Patriarchs of that field of learning. Living at that time was Elias Levita, the most learned Jew of his generation, whose Grammatical writings were enormously important for studying the Hebrew language. This man was acquainted with many of the early Reformers and lived in particular with Paulus Fagius, as I have explained elsewhere. Now in one book he published in those days, called Massorech Hammasoreth, he introduced a new opinion that had scarcely been heard of before, and was certainly not accepted among the Jews or, as far as we can tell, ever mentioned by Christians. His claim was that the vowel points and accents used in the Hebrew Bible were invented by some scholarly Jew or Masorete living at Tiberias about five or six hundred years after Christ. The man's aim was no doubt to make the entire Christian world dependent on the ancient Rabbis for the whole meaning of Scripture. Hinc prima mali labes -- Here is where the first crack in this matter appeared. Because the deception went undetected, and this opinion was introduced and defended by the most prominent -- and nearly the only -- master of the language in that era, even some of the early Reformers embraced his theory. Perhaps Zuinglius had addressed it before -- I am not sure. After a while, as the poison of this error began to take effect, the Roman Catholics -- watching the Reformers' words like the servants of Benhadad watching Ahab, eager to seize on anything said to their advantage -- began to use it for their own purposes. So Cochlaeus (book de Authoritate Scripturae, Chapter 5) applauds Luther for saying the Jews had corrupted the Bible with points and distinctions -- and well he might, for nothing could have been said more to the advantage of his cause against Luther. Therefore other learned men began to resist this error. Munster, Junius, and others did so, as the following discussion will show. Thus the matter rested for a time. The study of the Hebrew language and its scholarship continued to advance until it eventually came to the man who has undoubtedly done more real service for its progress than any other single person, whether Jew or Christian. I mean Buxtorfius the Elder. His Thesaurus Grammaticus, his Tiberias or Commentarius Massorethicus, his Lexicons and Concordances, and many other works -- some still unpublished -- prove this to the entire world. Even Morinus says that he is the only Christian who ever truly understood the Masora. And Symeon de Muys acknowledges learning from him and profiting by his work. Other Jews who set themselves up as teachers know nothing beyond what they learn from him. Setting aside the testimonies of all kinds of learned men giving him first place in this field, it is enough that his works speak for themselves. This man, in his Tiberias or Commentarius Massorethicus -- printed with the great Rabbinical Bible that he himself carefully prepared at Basil in 1620 -- examines this entire question of the vowel points at length and exposes the emptiness of Elias's claims about the Tiberian Masoretes. But we must not stop here, it seems. Within a few years, to pave the way for another project he had conceived, Ludovicus Capellus published a treatise defending Elias's opinion (at least as far as it concerned the origin of the vowel pointing) under the title Arcanum punctationis revelatum. The book was published by Erpenius without the author's name. But the author was well enough known, and Rivetus soon took notice of him, saying he was his friend but had hidden his name. Isagoge ad Scripturam 1, Chapter 8. This new effort immediately appealed to some people. Among others, our learned Professor Doctor Prideaux delivered a public lecture at the Vespers of our Comitia on this subject. Though he prefaced his talk with a warning about how the Roman Catholics exploit the idea that the vowel points are a late invention, and about the danger of this view, in substance he sided entirely with Capellus, though he did not name him. Among the extensive self-congratulations that Capellus printed at the end of his Critica sacra, there are two letters from a Mister Eyre here in England. In one of them, Eyre tells Capellus that the Doctor undoubtedly delivered his lecture with the help of his book. And indeed Prideaux uses his arguments and cites his treatise under the name Sud Hanisebhoth Hanaegalah. But what (I say) seems most remarkable to me in the Doctor's lecture is this: although he prefaced it by stressing how serious the controversy was -- noting the advantage the Papists gain from the belief in the novelty of the Points and quoting their words to that effect -- he then proceeds in the body of his presentation to side with them and say the very things he seemed to have criticized earlier. And in this way, the opinion that so greatly undermines the authority of the Originals has crept in among Protestants as well. I will say more later about how Buxtorfius the younger (who alone in this generation seems to match his father's worth in this field of learning) put a stop to its progress with his thorough and scholarly reply to Capellus in his treatise de origine and antiquitate Punctorum. Still, it has worked out well that the champions of this new view cannot even agree among themselves. Capellus would make it easy to understand the Hebrew text and every word -- if not absolutely by itself, then at least in its context -- even without any vowel points at all. Morinus would make the language completely unintelligible without them. One says the points are a late invention of the Rabbis; the other says that without them, understanding Hebrew is impossible. Yet though they face opposite directions, there is a firebrand between them. But we have this firebrand brought even closer to the Church's bread in the prolegomena to the Biblia Polyglotta recently printed at London. The formal adoption of this opinion about Hebrew vowel pointing in that major work was one of the chief reasons for the second treatise, as you will find explained at length in its introduction. I dare not mention the extreme consequences that follow from this theory. I am frightened, among other things, by a short treatise recently sent to me (prompted by a discussion on this subject) by my worthy and learned friend Doctor Ward, titled fides divina. In it, the author -- whoever he may be -- uses principles of this kind, along with careless statements from some learned men among us, to try to throw out and discard as useless the entire Scripture or Word of God. I would have immediately written a response to that destructive treatise, except that upon reflection I found all his objections already addressed or answered in the following writings, which were by then completely finished. And this, as I said, was the first way the poison of undermining the Originals crept in among Protestants themselves.

Along with knowledge of the original languages, the use of that knowledge in critical observations also grew. The tremendous value of this study and its results in explaining various difficulties, along with many other benefits, can hardly be overstated. But just as the best things are the most likely to be abused, so it has turned out with this particular area of learning and study. Here too, Protestants have led the way. Beza, Camerarius, Scaliger, Casaubon, Drusius, Gomarus, Usher, Grotius, Hensius, Fuller, Dieu, Mede, Camero, Glasius, Capellus, Amama, and countless others have excelled in this field. But the human mind is extremely vain, curious, and restless. Once a door to reputation and fame through this kind of learning was opened to the world, ambition quickly pushed past all limits of restraint. I will not dwell now on the many problems -- if not outright dangers -- that have resulted from the boldness and curiosity of some in criticizing Scripture. I have often heard the great Usher express his fears about what it might lead to. We are getting a solid account of Grotius's work in this area through the weekly lectures of our learned Professor, which I hope he will in due time share with the public. But only one or two things are relevant to my present purpose.

Among the various ways people have found to exercise their critical abilities, one has been collecting variant readings in both the Old and New Testaments. The first and most honest approach used for this purpose was consulting various manuscripts and comparing them with one another. Yet even this process had significant flaws, as I will show in the second treatise. This was the work of Erasmus, Stephen, Beza, Arias Montanus, and some others. Those who came after them, finding this territory already claimed and no similar world left for them to conquer, settled on a different approach. They adopted a principle as dangerous as any ever embraced by a learned person since the founding of the Church of Christ -- except for those of Rome. This principle is that, on many grounds (which some of them go on at length recounting), various corruptions have crept into the Originals. These corruptions are to be detected and corrected through their critical skill, using various tools -- especially the old translations. This view also receives support from the Prolegomena to the Biblia Polyglotta, as I will later show and discuss. Once this principle is established, and a freedom -- even a necessity -- to criticize Scripture is derived from it, the corrections and amendments that spring up under their hands are beyond counting. Let me not be thought tedious if I walk you through some of them.

1. It is well known that Hebrew consonants share two kinds of similarity: some look alike but sound different, and others sound alike but look different. The first kind includes letters like those that are similar in shape, and the second kind includes those that share similar pronunciation. Now one principle of our new Critics is that biblical scribes were sometimes misled by the visual similarity of letters and other times by their similar sounds. When remembering what they heard, they often wrote one letter instead of another. So whether they relied on their eyes or their memories, they failed one way or the other -- even though the Jews deny that any copy among them was ever written except exactly from a model. They insist it is not lawful for a scribe to write even a single word in a copy from memory, even if he could recite the whole Bible by heart. Now since every word's meaning is determined by its root, it often happens that during the formation and modification of words -- because of letters that drop out -- only one letter of the root remains, at least that is pronounced. How common this is in Hebrew, even those with very little knowledge of it can guess simply by looking at Frobenius's Bible, where the root letters are printed in a different typeface from all the prefixes and suffixes attached to them. So if someone wants to criticize and correct the Bible, he simply takes whatever word he chooses and tests what it would become by swapping letters that look or sound alike. He tries what one letter will do in place of another, or the reverse -- letters that either as root letters or as prefixes would substantially change the meaning. The same applies to all the others mentioned. If this process produces any new meaning that is tolerable and pleases the Critic, he simply says the scribe was confused by the similarity of the letters or the closeness of the sounds. Then it does not matter if every manuscript in the world agrees on the original reading without the slightest variation. Clearly this method has served Capellus and Grotius very well. And Symeon de Muys tells us an amusing story about himself to illustrate this point. De Hebraica Editione, Antiquitate, et Veritate Sanctae Scripturae. Indeed, this is the most prominent source of the criticisms on the Old Testament that our age has produced. A thousand examples could be given.

2. But in case this approach fails and no help is found this way, the transposition of letters offers its assistance. Those who know anything about this language know what dramatic changes in meaning can be made by rearranging letters. Frequently, words with completely opposite meanings consist of the same letters placed in a different order. Any lexicon will supply examples, so there is no need to repeat them here.

3. The vowel points are also brought into the discussion, and here reckless men can truly satisfy their curiosity. Jerome gives the example of one three-letter word for this purpose (Homily 9.12): as it may be written, it can yield eight different meanings. One vowel pattern makes it mean 'word,' and another makes it mean 'plague' -- as far apart as life and death. Those letters in that arrangement can be read with various vowel combinations, and the Jews give examples of how, by this method, a person could destroy the world. But

4. Suppose this approach also proves fruitless. Then one simply goes to an old translation -- the Septuagint or the Vulgar Latin -- and wherever a word catches one's interest, considers what Hebrew word corresponds to it. If it shows any similarity, even in a single letter's shape or sound, to the word in the text, one declares that this is how they read it in that manuscript. If that fails too, and the word is as different from what appears in the Bible as can be imagined, one simply asserts that it yields a more fitting meaning -- and a new variant reading is born.

These are the chief sources and methods behind the criticisms of the Old Testament that men have boldly thrust upon us in recent times, boasting of great learning all the while. It is impossible to measure how much damage the sacred truth of Scripture -- preserved by the infinite love and care of God -- has already suffered through this. And what it may yet suffer, I tremble even to think about. Simply place these two principles side by side: first, that the vowel points are a late invention of some Jewish Rabbis (which gives us no reason to be bound by them), and second, that it is legitimate to compile variant readings using translations, even where our existing manuscripts show no differences. Both of these principles are endorsed in the Prolegomena to the Biblia Polyglotta. For my part, I cannot help but cry out in alarm, seeing no way to escape complete uncertainty about all sacred truth. Those who have more wisdom and learning, and who can see through all the battles that are likely to erupt from these principles, will I hope take the trouble to instruct me and people like me, rather than be angry or offended that we are not as wise or learned as they are. In the meantime, I encourage those who are unsettled by any of the plausible arguments of Capellus and others to consider the example provided in the miscellaneous notes or Exercitations of the learned Mister Pocock -- a work as useful and scholarly as any in its field, and in so few pages. There the reader will also find the dangerous and groundless attempts of men to correct our present copies of the Bible exposed and refuted.

But we are not done yet. Capellus has another innovation that is greatly applauded among those who share his views. He tells us (book 6, chapter 10, Critica Sacra): Planum est omnem quae hodie est in terrarum orbe linguae Hebraicae cognitionem servandam tandem esse and ascribendam Graecae 70. Sacrorum Bibliorum translationi. Morinus eagerly seizes on this (since nothing could serve his purpose better) and tells us that the learned Prefacer to the Biblia Polyglotta holds the same view; Morinus: Preface to the Hebrew Samaritan works. On this basis, Morinus explains that in translating the Pentateuch he went to Jerome and the Septuagint translation for the meaning of various words. But these learned men surely know that Jerome -- whom one of them treats as his authority -- tells us again and again that, regardless of the Septuagint translation, he gained his knowledge of the Hebrew language from Hebrew itself and from the help of Hebrew scholars he hired for assistance. And as for Capellus, is not this the very point he fights for -- essentially the only foundation of his great project of criticizing Scripture? He claims there was a line of learned Jewish men at Tiberias continuing until a hundred years after Jerome, who invented the vowel points of the Hebrew Bible -- not randomly, but according to the tradition they received from those who spoke the language in its purity. Are we to believe these men got their knowledge of the Hebrew language from the Septuagint translation? They certainly would not have hated it as much as he tells us they did, if that were the case. But this claim is simply absurd. The language gives us knowledge of itself. Considering the resources that providence has provided in every age and time -- ever since the period when Capellus says some people knew the language well enough to invent and apply the current vowel pointing -- there has always been an unbroken line of living or written authorities to further knowledge of it. And this will not seem strange to those who have produced accurate translations of the Persian and Ethiopic portions of Scripture. In the poetic books, we get little help from the Septuagint. The greatest apparent aid for this language comes from Arabic. And so I have given you a brief account of how, through Satan's cunning, principles have crept in even among Protestants that undermine the authority of the Hebrew Verity, as it was traditionally called. In this, Jerusalem has justified Samaria and cleared the Roman Catholics in their attacks on God's Word. I will address the New Testament specifically in the second treatise that follows. Morinus indeed tells us (De Hebraici et Graeci Textus Sinceritate, Exercitation 1, chapter 1, page 5) that it is a laughable thing that the Heretics in their debates acknowledge corruptions and variant readings in the Greek and Latin copies of Scripture, but deny this when it comes to the Hebrew. But why, I ask, is this so ridiculous? It rests on a foundation no less solid than direct experience: we plainly find variant readings in the Greek manuscripts we have, and so we acknowledge what visual inspection proves to be true. Yet although men display such bitter and hostile attitudes toward the Hebrew Text as Morinus does -- calling everyone who defends its purity either fools or frauds -- not one of them can produce from any manuscripts now in existence, or that they can show ever existed, evidence that there were ever any such variant readings in the Originals of the Old Testament. Is there any reason we should be considered ridiculous because, trusting our own eyes, we refuse also to trust the testimony of a few men who have no credibility with us, asserting as true what we have abundant reason to believe is completely false? But enough about these men for now.

At the beginning of this discussion, I had also intended to address some other ways that Satan attacks the sacred truth of God's Word in our day -- targeting its authority, purity, integrity, or perfection -- especially through the poor, deceived, fanatical souls among us commonly called Quakers. For the instruction of younger readers, I have added the Theses at the end of the other treatises to address their errors. But I am already aware of how far I have gone beyond the proper boundaries of a Preface for such brief works as these. So after giving a short explanation of why I have taken up this cause on behalf of God and His Word -- defending its authority and integrity -- I will bring this discussion to a close.

Some of you may have heard me say I was unwilling to appear in public again through my writings. I have not always met with a warm enough reception to encourage me to do so. When I have been for peace, others have readied themselves for battle. One person in particular has recently written against me, understanding neither me nor the subjects he writes about, but his appetite for opposition had to be fed. This is how more than a few people handle their writings. They measure others by their own ignorance, and what they do not know themselves, they assume is hidden from everyone else. So when something strikes them as new, as though they were the first to discover what they only just learned -- and of which they have only a dim understanding -- they cannot rest until they have published it to win praise. Such are this person's arguments: partly trivial, partly already addressed and rendered completely useless for his purpose by the very treatise he so feebly attempted to oppose. I wish I could convince those whose interests drive them to prefer ignorance over being taught by me to simply leave my books alone. Another person, after two or three years of deliberation, responds to a book of nearly 140 pages with a mocking reply to the portion of it that was written in a quarter of an hour. I remain determined to avoid such engagements. And I think that if some people wrote less, others would read more -- and to better purpose. Many books full of profound learning lie neglected while people waste their time on trivial things. Many works of great value are held back by their authors while worthless publications pour out one after another. I have often urged one of your own number to publish certain Divinity lectures delivered on formal occasions at the University, which, if I am any judge, are -- to say the least -- worthy of public attention. I still hope the near future will fulfill my desire and expectation. My present work has three parts. The first covers a subject I had preached on, and many people urged me to put my thoughts in writing, believing it would be helpful. I have answered their request. What I have accomplished through Christ's grace in this undertaking is left to the judgment of the godly and learned reader. The second concerns the Prolegomena and Appendix to the recent Biblia Polyglotta. Of this I often said, ab alio quovis hoc fieri mallem, quam a me, sed a me tamen potius quam a nemine -- I would rather anyone else had done this than me, but better me than no one. The reasons for my taking up this work are explained at length in its introduction. The theses at the end were drawn in by their connection in subject matter to the other treatises. To complete the doctrine of Scripture concerning Scripture, I tried to include in them the whole truth about the Word of God -- both in name and substance -- as it is opposed by the poor fanatical Quakers, and also to uncover the principles they rely on in their confused opposition to that truth.

I have nothing more to add, except to ask for your continued prayers and help in your various roles as we carry on the work of our Lord and Master in this place entrusted to us. May I give my account with joy and not with grief to Him who stands at the door. I commend you to the powerful word of His grace, and remain

Your fellow laborer and brother in our dear Lord Jesus. J. O. From my study, September 22, 1658.