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TIN's words (m) are, "Now what the Jews "will fay and do when they fee CHRIST a coming in glory, we are foretold by the

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cc prophet ZACHARY, in thefe words: I "will command the four winds to gather together my difpers'd children: I will command the north to bring them, and "the South not to binder them. And then "there shall be a great wailing in Feru"falem; not a wailing of the mouths or lips, but a wailing of the heart and they shall not rend their garments but their minds. One tribe hall wail ano"ther tribe: and then hall they fee him "whom they have pierc'd; and they shall

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fay, why haft thou, O Lord, made us to "wander from thy way? The glory with " which our fathers have blefs'd us, is become a reproach to us.".

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In fine, Mr. W. (n) fays, the Jews have chang'd this claufe, they pierc'd my hands and my feet, which he thinks evidently foretold the piercing the hands and feet of JESUS of Nazareth, and instead thereof read, as a lion my hands and my feet.

Before I answer to these objections, I will readily confefs to Mr. W. that the books of the Old Teftament are greatly corrupted,

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that

(m) Juftini Apologia 1. §. 67.

(n) Whifton, p. 78, 79. Pf. 22. v. 16.

that is, greatly chang'd from what they were when they proceeded from the authors of them. He has himself acknowledg'd, and in many respects prov'd, that thofe books are (0) greatly corrupted; and particularly, that they are fo frequently corrupted in the names, and numbers therein fet down, efpecially the books written after the captivity, that it is almost endless to enter into the detail of them; many fuch changes happening without any form'd defign, from the nature of things. And it is now generally allow'd by the most judicious and learned (p) criticks, fuch as HUET, SIMON, DuPIN, LE CLERC, and particularly, of late, by our excellent PRIDEAUX; that, after the captivity, feveral places were added throughout the holy fcriptures: or that there are feveral interpolations, which occur in many places of the holy fcriptures; for that there are fuch interpolations is undeniable,

(o) Whifton, p. 33, 44--86. 113-129, 140, 202. See alfo Simon Hift. Crit. du V. Teft. 1. 1. & Capelli Critica Sacra.

(p) Huetii Demonft. Evangel.

Simon, lb.

Dupin Differt. Prelim. fur la Bible.

Le Clerc in Vet. Teftam. & fentimens des Quelques Theol. de Hollande.

Prideaux's Connection, c. Vol. 1. p. 342, &c.
See alfo Epifcopii inftit. Theol. 1. 3. c. I. p. 217.
Limburgii Amica Collatio, &c. p. 181.

deniable, there being many paffages thro the whole facred writ, which create difficulties, that can never be folv'd, without allowing of them.

Which interpolations being allow'd to be made long after the captivity, it should seem, that there are more others than are commonly thought on, and particularly, that many of the prophetical paffages with their completions have been added. For if once it be allow'd, that books collected into one volume have been retriev'd from obscurity, and have had additions made throughout to them, and that without any exprefs notice given of fuch additions, which are only to be found out by a critical examination of those books themselves; prophefies with their completions recorded in thofe books, or fulfill'd before those books were pub lifh'd with additions, may be justly fufpected to be interpolations or additions. For plain prophefies, with exact completions, are not matters in themselves very credible without the best and most undepiable atteftations, that the former existed before the latter; and it feems most natural, upon the first view of a prophefy plainly fulfilled, to fuppofe the prophefy made for the fake of the event, or both prophefy and event invented; as we do in the cafe of HOMER and VIRGIL, and other pagan authors, who make telling things by way of prophefy,

prophefy, a method of writing; founded in all likelihood on a design to keep up prophefy (which made fo great a part of the pagan religion) among the pagans.

The Pentateuch, or book of the law, (the grofs (q) whereof feems only contended for as genuine and faithfully preferv'd must in a particular manner have been liable to great alterations; as having been anciently much neglected by the Jews, who, both during their commonwealth and monarchy, were for the most part idolaters, and fubject to fome other religious law; and as having been reduc'd for a confiderable time to (r) One Copy, which was alfo loft fo long, that the contents of it were become unknown. And the alterations have been according to (s) SIMON, fuch and fo many, as to binder us from difcerning now, what truly belongs to MOSES, from that which has been added by thofe who fucceeded bim, or by the authors of the laft collection of the books of Moses. Which alterations made JEROM (t) fay, It was indifferent

23.

(1) Stanhope's Boylean Lectures, 1701. Sermon 2. p.

(r) 2 Kings 22.

Prideaux's Connection, Vol. 1. p. 373. See alfo p. 47,

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(s) Simon Hift. Crit. du Vieux Teftam. p. 59. (t) Hieron, adv. Helvidium.

ferent to him, whether you faid Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, or that ESDRAS re-eftablish'd it,

Moft of the books of the Old Teftament were liable to great corruptions during the captivity, when the Jews, who went idolaters into captivity, did before the expiration of it lofe their native tongue; as all the books afterwards were, when they were transcrib'd, as is ufually (u) fuppos'd out of the Hebrew into the Chaldee character; which feems to fuppofe the body of the Jews unable to read their own hebrew books, and confequently eafy to be impos'd on in fuch a tranfcript, which in its (w) defign and nature did in all probability produce many changes.

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There feems alfo to be another, and that no inconfiderable fource of alterations, tho' not before obferv'd as I know of by any body, in the books of the Old Teftament which the reader must bear in mind were, by the confeffion of all, confiderably alter'd by ESDRAS, or fome body else after the captivity. It is to be obferv'd, that the Jews, who were greatly departed from the law of MOSES, and efpecially from the doctrine of the Unity of God, went (x) idolaters into

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(u) Simon Ib. p. 48.

(w) Whiston's Effay, p. 266, 267, 268. (x) 2 Kings. 2 Chron.

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