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bleffed and charitable Saviour imply'd thereby, that the Samaritans and all other men, befides the Ferufalem Jews, were to be eternally damm'd, and efpecially for fuch a matter, of no confequence in it felf, as the mere place of worship, whether on this or that mountain. Such a notion, fo manifeftly abfurd and uncharitable, can only be grounded on the fpirit of Sectarianifm, and can only proceed from the most weak and self-interested

men.

God in dealing with the ten tribes, after their revolt from the tribes of JUDAH and BENJAMIN, and fetting up a worship in Samaria, throughout the Old Testament always acts with fuch of them as his people, who fell not into idolatry: and in a very general defection of thofe tribes to the worThip of BAAL, God owns feven thousand of them to be his people; when he (e) fays, yet I have left me feven thousand in Ifracl, all the knees which have not bow'd to Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed

bim.

Moft of the prophets (f) themselves, whofe works make a part of the books of the Old Teftament, were of the Samaritan fchifm. HOSEA was of the tribe of ISSACHAR JOEL

(e) 1 Kings 19. 18.

Ο Σ

(†) Basnage Hift. des Juifs, 1; â; §;£2. §. 277—288;

JOEL was of the tribe of RUBEN; JONAH was of the tribe of ZABULON; and OBEDIAH was born at BETHACAD in the neighbourhood of the city of Samaria. And And yet I prefume no one will fay, these prophets are damn'd.

ELIJAH and ELISHA, two renown'd prophets and workers of many miracles, always liv'd in the fchifm; the firft whereof had a miraculous paffage to heaven, going thither in his life time in a fiery chariot; which is a more evident proof of his not being damned, than can be had of any man of the most orthodox church.

any

Nor do we ever hear of of these prophets going to Jerufalem to worship, or exhorting the people of Samaria to do fo; tho' it was the known practise of other Jews to come annually from very remote places to worship at Jerufalem: and they feem concern'd only to keep up the worship of God, according to the inftitution of MOSES, in Samaria, and to prevent and root out idolatry.

From all which it fhould feem, that the Samaritan feparation, or worship fet up at Samaria, in oppofition to the worship eftablish'd at Jerufalem, did not damn all those who were engag'd in it, but was a way to heaven no lefs certain than the fame worship at Ferufalem.

Befides,

Befides, our bleffed Saviour (g) by his parable of the good Samaritan seems to fuppofe the Samaritans in a better way to heaven, than even the Jewish Levites; and it (b) feems, that he should not condemn the Samaritan woman with whom he convers'd, and other Samaritans whom he brought to him; who all believ'd him to be the MESSIAS, and that with more readiness than the FeruSalem Fews.

Secondly, that falvation is of the Jews feems to me (i) to fignify only, that the MESSIAS, or Saviour, or Redeemer of Ifrael, fhould arife out of thofe Jews who worfhip'd at Ferufalem, and not from among thofe Jews who worship'd at Samaria, or mount Gerizim]

3. But in relation to the Samaritan Pentateuch, I would ask Mr. W. whether that has not the fame account of MOSES's death, and burial, and comparifon between him and the fucceeding prophets in Ifrael, together with the other allow'd interpolated paffages, which are to be found in the vulgar Hebrew and Septuagint Pentateuchs; which interpolated paffages are ufually (upon tradition or conjecture) attributed to ESDRAS, who, on his return from the Babylonish captivity

0 3

(g) Luke 10.

(b) John 4.

(i) Luke 1.69-77. lb. 2. 30.

tivity is fuppos'd to have publifh'd the Old Teftament, or a great part of it, corrected and enlarg'd? And if it has them; how can that Pentateuch be deriv'd from a copy extant feveral hundred years before the time of ESDRAS? Muft it not be from a copy made long after the feparation of the ten tribes, even long after the firft return from the Babylonith captivity? All the paffages, fays ŞIMON, (k) which I have produced to prove, that MOSES was not wholly the author of the Pentateuch, as we now have it, are exactly

the fame in the Samaritan Pentateuchactly

therefore we cannot fay, that the Samaritans have kept a copy of the original as it was before the captivity of the Jews.

4. I obferve, alfo, that there is a great agreement in chronology after the deluge, between the Samaritan and Septuagint Pentateuchs, wherein they both differ from the original hebrew about 700 years; which chronology (1) may be juftly deem'd invented and forg'd, and inferted into the Septua gint, in order to render the books of the Jews more credible to the heathens, and from thence, like other particulars, added

to

(k) Simon Hift. Crit. du V. Teft. p. 66. (1) Ib. p. 68, 207.

Lightfoot's Works, Vol. 2. p. 701.

to the Samaritan Pentateuch. And this the Jews of Ferufalem, Alexandria, and other places, and the Samaritans, might all tacitly concur to practise as a pious fraud, like the Miffionaries of our days to CHINA; Who, tho' they may think the Septuagint chronology falfe, yet ufe that chronology in (oppofition to their bible) the better to prepare the Chinese for the reception of the gofpel: for which wife conduct the Miffionaries are much (m) commended. Il fera toujours permis aux Millionaires de la Chine de fe fervir de la Chronologie des 70 toute fauffe qu'elle eft, dans les Entretiens qu'ils ont avec les Chinois. Cette fage Oeconomie, dont les Fefuites qui prêchent l'Evangile en ce pais la fcavent fi bien fe fervir, & avec tant de fruit, n'a jamais eté defendue. Les Peres & mefme les Apoftres (n) l'ont mife en pratique, fans nuire a la verité de la Religion Chretienne, comme le Pere PETAU l'a demontré par plufieurs exemples, dans la judicieufe preface qu'il a mife a la tête du fecond tome de fes Dogmes Theologiques. Mr. W. in a former (0) work makes it one of his Poftulata or Axioms, that the Hebrew text of the Old Teftament, being the 0 4 origi

(m) Simon Bibl. Crit. Vol. 2. p. 472.
(n) See Erafmus in Acta Apoft. c. 17. V. 23.
() Whifton's foors View of the Cbron. p. 2, 3.

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