quifite to know it, 'tis only in order to know the date of thofe Writings. Fourthly, you will cafily imagine that Mofes might have imployed one or several Writers as he thought most convenient to finish that Hiftory, and might have ordered the last to infert the Death of the for mer at the end of their Hiftory; and yet all this could never have been taken for any true and real alteration.

i

And now let us but fubftitute God in the stead of Mofes, as well as Mofes himself, together with all the Prophets after him in the ftead of thofe other Writers or Secretaries appointed by Mo fes's Orders to compose that Sacred Hiftory, 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 thofe fubaltern Authors. And fince those are the Writings of God, no Man of his own head can alter any thing in them, without a rafh and facrilegious Impiety: But God himfelf 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 infert in them any new Parenthefes, Connexions or Genealogies, according to which the Holy Ghoft fhall make them think moft expedient for the time they write in. Howevor, We do not affirm, that this really has eever happened; but fuppofing it should fo happen,

we

we fhould 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 fo unquestionable, fince we fuppofe that thefe Books were fucceffively written one after another, in order to make up one Body of Revelation, that they were written by Orders from God, and by thofe Men upon whom he had poured down his Holy Spirit.

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Befides, we own there is a poffibility that thofe little Additions might have infenfibly flipt from the Margent into the Text, as it is incident to all other Books. For example, fuch was perhaps the Text of the Fourteenth Chapter of Genefis, And he 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 fo the following Writers finding thofe Two Names, might have joyned them together in this manner, unto Lezem which is Dan. I do not fay, that it did really fo happen; but I fay, that fuppofing it had fo happened, we fhould have no reafon to wonder at it. For Firft, We ought not here to alledge the Obligation Providence lies under, to take care that no Alteration thould be made in the Scriptures, for that is true with refpect only to all Effential Alterations of things, but not with refpect to thofe little Alterations which are fo inconfiderable, as not fo much as to deserve to bear that Name. Besides, to prevent all fuch little Grammatical Revolutions, God would be obliged to work a conftant and perpetual Miracle, by inspiring with a Prophetical Spirit, not only the Compilers of thofe Books, but thofe alfo who copied and wrote them out in all Ages. Now 'tis S 4

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impoflible

impoffible there fhould be a conftant and perpe tual Miracle, for besides, that it is not the method of Divine Wisdom fo 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 eafie 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 fo long and ordinary an Interruption, would at length grow into a Law of Nature.

After what has been faid, we hope the World will do us the Juftice to believe, that we do not make the truth of the Jewish Religion any ways depend upon thofe little Alterations which fome Men feem to discover in the Books of Mofes ; and that 'tis not out of any neceffity of defending our Caufe, but purely out of a defire 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 refpect against us.

But he did not obferve, (says that Author of me,) that in thofe Two Places, the Hebrew Particle which denotes time, fignifies 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 thofe Places.

We would not have him deceive himself, for

we have taken special notice of it; but we thought that Meaz or Minaz were fome times taken in the fame Senfe with the Particle according to the fubject fpoken of, and all the

other

other Circumstances of the Difcourfe. 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 fignification of the Hebrew Particle, For when we see these Two Propofitions 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 Propofitions; The Canaanite was then already in the Land when Abraham came into it; or if you had rather, even at that time; and confequently az and meaz by the force of the fenfe, do here import the fame meaning. But let us hear him repeating our own Words.

The fame Author, fays he, maintains his Thought in this manner. It may be that the Canaanites were deprived of that Land by fome 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 firft Inhabitants of Palestine; whereas in the Tenth Chapter of the fame, ver. 18, 19. we plainly find the contrary, where in the Sacred Author tells us, that the Families of the Canaanites in the difperfion of Mankind, took pofJeffion of that Land, having before obferved, that the Children of Nimrod, the Son of Cuz, poffeffed Mefopotamia and Affyria.

I need not fuppofe 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 fo or not, it is equally true, that the Children of Canaan had not always

dwelt

an

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dweft therein; and that was fufficient to give Mofes an occafion feasonably to obferve, that when Abraham came into that Country, the Canaanite was then already in the Land, which in its natural Senfe, fignifies no more than that he had already fettled 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 fhould not have been ignorant, that the Scripture Stile phrafes it the Son of Manaffeh, inftead of the Grand-Son of Manaffeh; and that in like manner I might fay Noah's Son, or, Grand-Son, meaning of his Defcendents: But if he would have had me fpeak with all the ftrictness of the Letter, I confefs 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 juft caufe enough to deny, that in the Book of Genefis, 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 Verfes of the 10th Chapter of the faid Book of Genefis, quoted by that Author. For these are the Two Verfes he cites, together with those that Immediately go before them; And Canaan begat Sidon bis Firft-born, and Heth, and the Jebulite, and the Amorite, and the Girgafite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvaz dite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite; and afterward were the Families of the Canaanites (pread abroad: And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar unfo Gaza, as thou goeft unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboim, even unto Lafhah; I find therein Two feveral things which have no manner

of