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An Introduction to the Reading of the Holy Scriptures, in-

tended chiefly for young Students in Divinity. By Messrs.

BEAUSOBRE and L'ENFANT. Camb. 1779. p. 101.

This is a Work of extraordinary Merit; the Authors have left scarcely

any Topic untouched, on which the young Student in Divinity may be

supposed to want Information. Macknight's Preliminary Observations,

&c. prefixed to his Harmony; Lamy's Apparatus Biblicus; Pritii Intro-

ductio ad Lectionem N. Testamenti; Harwood's Introduction to the

Study of the New Testament; Percy's Key to the New Testament; and

Collyer's Sacred Interpreter, may be properly read along with this Intro-

duction.

A Key to the Apostolic Writings, or an Essay to explain the

Gospel Scheme, and the principal Words and Phrafes the

Apostles have used in defcribing it. By J. TAYLOR.

Lond. 1754.
P. 315.

This Work, which is prefixed to the Author's Paraphrafe and Notes

on the Epistle to the Romans, is greatly admired by the Learned, as

containing the best Introduction to the Epistles, and the clearest Ac-

count of the whole Gospel Scheme, which was ever written. The

Doctrine of a double Justification was disliked by Bp. Bull; and it has

lately been animadverted on, as not founded in Scripture: however that

may be, it has had, in modern Times, other Supporters besides Dr.

Taylor; and it seems to have been well understood by Grellius, above

150 Years ago. Justificatio nostra vel accipitur pro ejufmodi a reatu ac

pœna, quam peccatis promeruimus, abfolutione ac liberatione, qua fit,

ut nolit nos Deus punire, fed potius nobifcum perinde velit agere, ac fi

justi et innocentes effemus: vel accipitur pro ipsa salute nostra quam ali-

quando confecuturi fumus. Illa Justificatio fimul ac fidem in Chriftum

complectimur nobis contingit, et tam diu durat, quamdiu in nobis du-

rat fides, eaque viva et per charitatem efficax, seu quæ Obedientiam,

qualem Chriftus a nobis requirit, habeat conjunctam. Hæc vero poste-

rior Justificatio quæ ex illa prima fluit in adventu Domini Jesu nobis con-

tinget. Crel. in Rom. c. v. and in his commentary on 1 Cor. c. i. he

says, Juftificamur fimul atque Doctrinæ Christi fidem adjungimus, id est

jus adipiscimur ad immunitatem ab omnibus pænis et ad vitæ æternæ

adeptionem. Verum hoc jus nondum est plenum, sed adhuc a condi-

tione, quæ fequi debet, pendet, nempe ut conftantes in fide fimus, ac

sanctitati vitæ in pofterum studeamus, itaque justificatio partim antecedit

fanctificationem, partim fequitur. Hinc patet, quid fentiendum de illo

triftifimo dicto (of St. Augustine): Bona opera non antecedunt justifi-

candım, fed fequuntur juftificatum; antecedunt enim justificandum plenè,

sequuntur juftificatum inchoatè, &c.

Plain Reasons for being a Christian. Lond. 1730. р. 456.

The Merit of this Tract will not be seen by an hafty Reader; every

Article of it contains Matter for much Confideration, and shews the
Author to have been well acquainted with his Subject. It was written
by Dr. Chandler, but not published till it had been revised by some other
Dissenting Ministers.
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REVEREND SIR,

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OU defire to know, " Since the Greek Septuagint and 'the Eng"lish Bible are Tranflations from the Original Hebrew, how "it comes to pass that these two Translations have such Variations " from each other ? I do not mean in some few Words only, but in " whole Sentences; many being in our English Translation which are " not to be found in the Septuagint, and fome again in the LXX which " are not to be found in our English Bible."

I do not at all wonder at your asking fuch a Question; for a Clergyman who has but a small Benefice, which will not afford him Means to buy Books of a large Price, and lives in an obfcure Place in the Country, near no Library from which he may borrow such Books, or have Opportunity to consult them, is not to be blamed, if he should not know how to answer this, or other Questions relating to ecclefiaftical Matters. For although he came from the University well versed in the learned Languages, (as you shew yourself to be, or you could not have compared our English Bible with the LXX, and so would never have thought of the Matter) yet for want of Books to inform him how the Scriptures have from Time to Time been copied, tranflated and published, he may not be able to answer such a Question, and fatisfy himself in fuch a Point as this.

And I must confess for myself, that if I had not the Polyglot Bible, before which Bishop Walton (the learned Editor of that noble and useful Work, confifting of fix large Folios) has put several excellent Prolegomena, and Du Pin's Compleat Canon of Scripture, with some other Books relating to the Editions and Translations of the Holy Scriptures, I could not have answered your Question. But by the Affiftance of VOL. III. thefe

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these Books, I hope I may do it to your Satisfaction. And I can give you a plain, short, and casy Answer, which is, that there were different Copies of the Hebrew Original, and the LXX tranflated from one Copy, and our English Translators from another; so as the Copies differed, the Translations differed alfo.

But another Question may arife. How came there to be so much Difference between feveral Copies of the same Book? I answer, the fame will always happen in all Books frequently transcribed by several Hands. Now, I believe no Book ever had so many Transcripts as the Bible. As the Jews had feveral Synagogues in Judea, so had they in all Countries where they were dispersed after the Captivity. For they did not all return to Judea at the Restoration of ferufalem and the Rebuilding of the Temple, but very many continued in those Parts of the Chaldean, Persian, Grecian and Roman Empires where they had obtained Settlements, where also they increased and multiplied. This we may be convinced of from what we find in the New Testament, where we read that in every Place unto which the Apostles went to preach the Gofpel they found Numbers of Jews and a Jewish Synagogue. And every Synagogue had at least one Copy of the Bible, beside the many Copies written for the Use of private Persons. Every one of these Copies was written fingly by itself, (the Invention of Printing, by which ten Thousand Copies coming out of the fame Press shall not differ fo much as a Letter or a Comma, being yet scarce three Hundred Years old) and therefore could hardly fail to differ in some Particulars even from the Copy from which it was taken, unless more than once carefully revised, compared and corrected, which we may reasonably suppose was not always done. These Copiers therefore could hardly keep free from making many Mistakes, such as often to omit a Word, or to write one Word for another: which last Mistake might eafily be made in Hebrew Books, where the Letters and כ, and, and and fome others are so near alike, that very often in Writing one can hardly be diftinguished from the other; and the mistaking such a Letter changes the Word, and gives it another Signification.

Copiers alfo, in the tranfcribing so large a Book as the Hebrew Bible, might easily mistake so far as to be guilty of confiderable Overfights, even to overlook and omit a whole sentence, especially when they wrote in Hafte, as, no Doubt, many of them did, who made it their Business to copy Books for their Livelihood. Where therefore the LXX want a Period or Sentence which is in our English Bibles, we may suppose it was wanting in the Copy from whence they tranflated: And where they have a Sentence which is wanting in our English Bibles, we may suppose it was in the Copy from which their Translation was made, but left out in the Copy from whence our prefent Hebrew Copies were taken, and from which we have our English Tranflation And to vice versa. This I think is a natural and rational Account how these Diversities arose; that is, from different Copies of the Original. Which Differences could hardly be avoided, and might eafily happen through the Carelesness and Overfights or Mistakes of Transcribers, who could scarce avoid them in fo long a Work.

Soupe indeed will tell you that the LXX in their Tranflation took

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great Liberties, and departed from the original Text with Design, adding fome Things, and leaving out others wilfully to ferve some private Views of their own. And others will tell you that this has been done by the Jews, who out of Hatred to the Christians have malicioufly altered the Hebrew Copies. But I think it is unjust to charge either the Jews, who were the Keepers and Prefervers of the Original Hebrew, or the LXX, who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, with any wilful Variations from the true and authentic Text, where those Variations may be otherwise accounted for in the Manner I have shewed they may be. However, I confess, there are some Variations which I think cannot be so accounted for; the Difference being fuch as could hardly proceed from mere Mistake or Overfight. This particularly appears in the Genealogies of the Patriarchs in the fifth and eleventh Chapters of Genesis: Where almost every Patriarch is said to have lived an hundred Years longer before he begat his Son according to the LXX, than he is according to the present Hebrew Bibles. Such a long, regular Difference as this could not proceed from the Carelefness or mere Oversight of any Transcriber. However, we cannot fay that the LXX did here wilfully vary from the Original, or that this Variation was not in the Hebrew Copies before the LXX made their Translation, and that these hundred Years might be in that Hebrew Copy from whence they tranflated; though at this Distance of Time we cannot account for it. We have just Reason to believe that in the Chronology of those Genealogies there was a Variation in the Hebrew Copies before the Days of Jofephus, who lived at the Time when Jerufalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans: And therefore also might be in those Copies before the Verfion of the LXX.

For as Jofephus was a Priest, who in his Course attended on the Temple to perform the Service of the Temple, we can scarce doubt but he had an Hebrew Copy of the Bible; nevertheless, in his Chronology, he differs from the present Hebrew Text, as he does alfo from the LXX. The Samaritan likewise (which is but another Copy of the Original Hebrew, written in the more ancient Hebrew Letter; that which is now used by the Jews, being what they learned from the Chaldeans during their Captivity in Babylon) differs in its Chronology from the other three. From whence we may reasonably conclude, that the LXX were not the Authors of this Difference, but followed that Hebrew Copy from whence they translated.

Another great Difference between the present Hebrew Copies and the LXX, which may also feem to have been done with Design, is the Transposition of Chapters or Parts of Chapters towards the latter End of the Book of Exodus. After you come to the End of the seventh Verse of the 36th Chapter in the LXX, you will find immediately following, what follows not in the present Hebrew, consequently not in our English Bibles, until you come to the 39th Chapter. And fo through the 36, 37, 38 and 39th Chapters, you will find that put in one Place of the LXX which stands in another Place in the present Hebrew and English Bibles. The Occasion of these Transpositions, and of the like in fome other Places, Dr. Grabe, in his Letter to Dr. Milles, conjectures might probably proceed from those who made up or stitched together

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together the Rolls or Leaves the Books after they were written, and by Mistake placed one Roll Leaf where another should have been: Such Mistakes we find Bookbinders sometimes make now. And this Mistake having been made in the Hebrew Copy from whence the Verfion of the LXX was made, these Dislocations are found in all the Copies of the LXX.

Another Ocoafion of various Readings, particularly as to whole Sentences or Periods, is supposed to have risen froin marginal Notes, which private Persons sometimes made in their Bibles; fome Copier transcribing from fuch Book, believing these Notes to have been fet there to supply an Omission of a Sentence by the former Copier, has put it into the Text of the Copy he writes, from whence other Copies being taken, this marginal Note becomes Part of the Text in those Copies which are transcribed from it. This might be done in Hebrew Bibles, before the Tranflation of the LXX, and from thence might be taken into that and other Translations.

Many various Readings also with regard to Words only between the LXX and other ancient Translations, and that of our English Bible and other modern Translations made from the present Hebrew Copies have proceeded from the Jewish Majorites, who having invented a Number of Vowel Points and Pauses, have thereby affixed a particular Reading and Senfe to many Words, different from that Reading and Sense in which they were understood by the LXX, and other ancient Tranflations made before the Invention of these Points. But of these Maforitic Points I shall have Occasion to say more hereafter.

As I said before, various Readings, and confiderable ones too, will be found in all Books written before Printing was invented. And the more Copies of fuch Books have been written, the more various Readings there will be. And as more Copies of the Holy Scriptures have been written than of any other Books, it is no Wonder if more various Readings be found in them, than in Books less often transcribed. For except the Transcribers of the Holy Scriptures were all inspired, and preserved from Error by the Spirit of God, as the first Penmen of those facred Books were, it is morally impossible but they should be guilty of fome flight Mistake or Overfight in so long a Work. And therefore, we find like various Readings in the Greek Copies of the New Testament, which you (by comparing the LXX and the English Versions) have done in the Old, though perhaps not so confiderable. The learned and industrious Dr. Milles has collected a very great Number of various Readings from several Manuscripts, in his excellent Edition printed at Oxford and published 1707. To give an Instance of one or two confiderable ones. The Doxology at the End of the Lord's Prayer, Matth. vi. 13. is omitted in several MSS. And eleven whole Verfes at the Beginning of the eighth Chapter of St. John's Gospel. Also the 7th Verse of the fifth Chapter of the first Epistle of St. John is omitted in almost all the MSS. now remaining in these western Parts of the World. So that the Doctor could not procure or be informed of one MS. that had it. Though Robert Stephens declares it to have been in fome of the MSS. from which he published his neat and correct Edition of the New Testament 200 Years ago: Which Edition our present printed

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