quisite to know it, 'tis only in order to know the date of those Writings. Fourthly, you will easily imagine that Mofes might have imployed one or several Writers as he thought most convenient to finish that History, and might have ordered the last to infert the Death of the for mer at the end of their History; and yet all this could never have been taken for any true and real alteration. 4 ال And now let us but substitute God in the stead of Mofes, as well as Moses himself, together with all the Prophets after him in the stead of those other Writers or Secretaries appointed by Mofes's Orders to compose that Sacred History, and the truth will appear in this Hypothefis. The Writings of the Jews, are the Writings of God; Mofes and the rest of the Prophets are but his Secretaries appointed to write by his Inspiration and Order. 'Tis not necessary to know the Names of those Writers or Secretaries who wrote them; or if it be, 'tis only to know at what time they were written, or for the like Reasons, but not to impart them any Authority or Credit to be derived from those subaltern Authors. And fince those are the Writings of God, no Man of his own head can alter any thing in them, without a rash and facrilegious Impiety: But God himself may alter in them what he pleases; and those very Writers he hath enlightned with his holy Spirit for the continuation of that work, have power to insert in them any new Parentheses, Connexions or Genealogies, according to which the Holy Ghost shall make them think most expedient for the time they write in. Howevor, We do not affirm, that this really has.eever happened; but supposing it should so happen, we we should have no reason to wonder at it. These little Alterations therefore that are objected against us, are of no manner of importance, though they were never so unquestionable, fince we fuppose that these Books were fuccessively written one after another, in order to make up one Body of Revelation; that they were written by Orders from God, and by those Men upon whom he had poured down his Holy Spirit. Besides, we own there is a possibility that those little Additions might have insensibly flipt from the Margent into the Text, as it is incident to all other Books. For example, such was perhaps the Text of the Fourteenth Chapter of Genefis, And be pursued them unto Lais or Lezem; there might have been put in the Margent Dan, for the better explaining that proper Name which was then become unintelligible: And so the fol lowing Writers finding those Two Names, might have joyned them together in this manner, unto Lezem which is Dan. I do not say, that it did really so happen; but I fay, that fuppofing sit had fo happened, we should have no reason to wonder at it. For First, We ought not here to alledge the Obligation Providence lies under, to take care that no Alteration should be made in the Scriptures, for that is true with respect only to all Effential Alterations of things, but not with respect to those little Alterations which are fo inconfiderable, as not so much as to deserve to bear that Name. Besides, to prevent all fuch little Grammatical Revolutions, God would be obliged to work a constant and perpetual Miracle, by infpiring with a Prophetical Spirit, not only the Compilers of those Books, but those also who copied and wrote them out in all Ages. Now 'tis impossible S 4 impossible there should be a constant and perpetual Miracles for besides, that it is not the method of Divine Wisdom so to act, it would (if it happned,) change Faith into Sight, nay, and would become of no use, if it were perpetual; for then it would be as easie for God to reveal himself unto Men by perpetual and immediate Revelations, without the help of any Writing, as with them. Besides, a perpetual Miracle implies a kind of contradiction, because a Miracle is nothing else but an interruption of the Laws of Nature, and that so long and ordinary an Interruption, would at length grow into a Law of Nature. After what has been said, we hope the World will do us the Justice to believe, that we do not make the truth of the Jewish Religion any ways depend upon those little Alterations which some Men seem to discover in the Books of Moses; and that 'tis not out of any necessity of defending our Cause, but purely out of a desire to declare our Opinion in this point, which we take to be true, that we differ from the Opinion of those who take up the Cudgel in this respect against us. But he did not observe, (says that Author of me,) that in those Two Places, the Hebrew Particle which denotes time, signifies nothing else but then; and that to render the Words (then already) in Hebrew, the Particle Meaz, or Minaz, must be used, and not az, as it is in those Places. We would not have him deceive himself, for we have taken special notice of it; but we thought that Meaz or Minaz were some times taken in the same Sense with the Particle az, according to the subject spoken of, and all the other other Circumstances of the Discourse. But rather this Author himself did not confider, that we do not here argue from the force of the Hebrew Particle, as regulating the Sense of this Place, but from the force of the Sense of this Place, as determining the signification of the Hebrew Particle. For when we see these Two Propositions follow one another in any Discourse, Abraham arrived in that Land; the Canaanite was then in the Land; one would think this was the natural interpretation of these Propositions ; The Canaanite was then already in the Land when Abraham came into it; or if you had rather, even at that time'; and consequently az and meaz by the force of the sense, do here import the same meaning. But let us hear him repeating our own Words. 1 The Same Author, says he, maintains his Thought in this manner. It may be that the Canaanites were deprived of that Land by some of the Children of Cuz, who were at first very powerful in the Land, and reigned under Nimrod, Noah's Grand-Son. But this we could willingly pass by; but bis greatest Blunder is, that he denies there is any mention made in Genefis, of the Canaanites being the first Inhabitants of Palestine; whereas in the Tenth Chapter of the fame, ver. 18, 19. we plainly find the contrary, wherein the Sacred Author tells us, that the Families of the Canaanites in the dispersion of Mankind, took pofSession of that Land, having before observed, that the Children of Nimrod, the Son of Cuz, poffefsed Mefopotamia and Affyria. I need not suppose in order to maintain my Opinion, that there was any other Nation in that Land, that was deprived of it by the Canaanites; For whether it be so or not, it is equally true, that the Children of Canaan had not always dwelt dwelt therein; and that was sufficient to give Mofes an occasion seasonably to obferve, that when Abraham came into that Country, the Canaanite was then already in the Land, which in its natural Sense, signifies no more than that he had already settled in it. He is in the right for taking notice, that Nimrod was the Son of Cuz, who was Noah's Grand-Son, but he should not have been ignorant, that the Scripture Stile phrases it the Son of Manasseh, instead of the Grand-Son of Manaffeh; and that in like manner I might say Noah's Son, or Grand-Son, meaning any of his Descendents: But if he would have had me speak with all the strictness of the Letter, I confess that instead of faying Noah's Grand-Son, I ought to have written the Son of Noah's GrandSon; which is all the mistake I can be charged with. For I had just cause enough to deny, that in the Book of Genesis, there was any mention made that the Canaanites were the first Inhabitants of Palestine; and I further deny that the contrary can be proved out of the 18th and 19th Verses of the 10th Chapter of the faid Book of Genesis, quoted by that Author. For these are the Two Verses he cites, together with those that immediately go before them; And Canaan begat Sidon bis First-born, and Heth, and the Jebulite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite; and afterward were the Families of the Canaanites spread abroad: And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar unto Gaza, as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboim, even unto Lashah; I find therein Two several things which have no manner |