of the Stoicks thought should be burnt to Ashes and then would follow an immediate restoration of all things But these were but wild and â—oveing Guesses in general no certain determination was Mankind able to make about this matter in particular And yet of how great use is the assurance of it to all the ends of Virtue and Religion and how Sovereign a remedy is it against the terror of Death which Aristotle calls the terriblest of all Terrors to be assured upon safe grounds our Bodies shall be raised again and all the Friends we part with here shall in their Souls and Bodies Re-united Exist for ever But waveing the prosecution of these there be two things in themselves of absolute necessity to the being of all Religion and beyond all possibility of a Natural discovery from whence I shall endeavour to demonstrate the necessity of a Revelation in order to the present and future happiness of Mankind First a certain distinct Knowledge how that Evil we find in Mankind came first to Exist whence the Corruption of Humane Nature came In short how there came to be such a thing as Evil and Sin in the World Secondly how Sin and Guilt arising from the Conscience of it may be removed and Men brought to a Reconciliation with God! and an inward Acquescency about it For the first That there is such a thing as Evil and Sin in Men and Guilt resulting from it needs no proof every mans own Reason determines the Case and the whole transaction of the World is too sad an Evidence of We find in the Prayers of all Nations a Confession of Sin And no worship but some way or other tending to the removal of it which is a publick protest in the Case entered by the whole World against themselves 'T is visible our Inferiour faculties do combate our Superiour and our Wills over Rule us to that which our own Reasons determine against Aristotle in the end of the last Chapter of his first Book of Ethicks confesseth There is somewhat in our Nature that opposeth right Reason Whatever directions the Philesophers and Moralists gave to Conquer our Passions and subdue our Sensual Appetites and to conduct us to Virtue they are all grounded upon this supposal Hierocles a Stoical Philosopher in his Discourse upon the Golden sayings of Pythagoras speaks fully and excellently to this point His words are these Man sayes he is of his own motion inclined to follow the Evil and leave the Good There is a certain strife bred in his affections He hath a free Will which he abuseth bindang himself wholly to encounter the Laws of God And this Freedom it self is nothing else but a Willingness to admit that which is not good rather then otherwise That a certain Knowledge of the Origine of this we call Evil and a clear discovery of the first rise and Cause of it is of absolute necessity to the Being of all Religion and that a Man cannot be Religious as he ought without it is easily proved and will be sufficiently so by a due consideration of these four things First how can we acknowledge Gods Justice in Punishing Mankind and without repining submit to it as we ought unless we know whence this Evil first came what Author it had and how and upon what terms man comes to be guilty of that for which he is punished Secondly how can we be as we ought to be sensible of Gods general or particular favours and adore his goodness in preserving us and providing for us unless we be rightly informed of our own demerits and rebellion again him and that Mankind have deserved a total ruine and subversion which we can never be unless we know the first entrance of evil and the original Cause of it Thirdly how can we properly address our selves to God to repair our ruines unless we perfectly know how the first breach came to be made Lastly how is it possible upon reasonable Grounds to restrain Mankind from Impeaching the Wisdom Power and Goodness of God in making and Governing the world unless we know the first rise and primary Cause of all the disorder we see which is not to be known till we come to the Spring-head of evil and sin With what Impatience did Men use to reproch God and Nature about it as if there were a kind of Malevolens and ill will in the Deity to the happiness of Men One sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And a third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor indeed can we well blame the disorder of mens minds that contemplate the present posture of the World and are able to give no satisfying account to themselves how things came at first so to be And that a certain account of evil in its original is impossible to be had without revelation will appear very evident How should any man ever come to discover whence that internal conflict first arose between the Will and the Judgment How a man came to be first so divided against himself one condemning the other No man naturally knows any thing of its Causality nor more of it then that it is so How should any man ever find out from whence or by what means those unrnly lusts and passions those evil and crooked inclinations that naturally infest the minds of men and are a part of themselves that create a guilt in mens own Breasts and prove so ruinous to others came first to exist What footsteps are there in Nature to conduct us to the first cause of these things and the miseries that attend them something indeed we may say Negatively of the Origine of evil but we cannot affirm possitively the least thing about it VVe can much less tell how Mankind came to be wicked then we can tell how they came first to be and yet 't is impossible to know that but by revelation 'T is easie to derive the beings of men in general from some Supreme maker though we can never find out the time when nor the manner how they came first to be made but we can no way at all imagine from whence to derive the evil of their beings or upon what to father the Corruption of humane Nature nor what Date to give it From a Being infinitely perfect and good evil it self could not originally come that is Men could not at the first be made so That we may safely say in the Negative to assert mans Apostacy however any part of the world may dream otherwise 't is demonstrable that man is some way or other degenerated from his Primitive state from the clear evidence of which if we duly consider it results the absolute necessity of a revelation 'T is impossible evil it self should be Con-created with him and be originally appurtenant to him as part of him And 't is thus demonstrable if man had been at the first made as now he is naturally inclined to evil and
Political is derived from him as the Head of it and He himself is the Supreme Magistrate over the whole and can no otherwise stand related to the World We can no other way rightly conceive of Gods Power and Authority but as Magistratical nor look upon him in any other notion then as our chief and supreme Ruler and so are to take no measure of His proceedings from the actings of private persons but are to suppose God so to deal with the World as the supreme dispenser of Justice and placed in the highest Seat of Magistratical Authority And if this be true as most demonstrably 't is so how contrary is Epicurus his Doctrine to a right apprehension of God! and how inconsistent with it How inseperably is providence annexed to all true Conceptions of him And what a poor account does Epicurus give us of God without it What a Magistrate does he render the most supreme Magistrate One that neither relieves the oppressed punishes the guilty rewards the well-doer nor indeed takes any notice of what his Subjects either do or say 'T is in short impossible to separate supreme Magistracy from God His being supposeth it 't is evidently proved virtually and essentially to belong to him from an induction of all particulars relative to it And if so 't is extreamly unreasonable not to suppose from his hand the most compleat and perfect exercise of all Magistratical Authority that we are any way able to conceive of Fourthly To suppose that God declines the exercise of all Empire and Rule over the world is to suppose him to decline the most essential property of his own being and the noblest exercise of any being First the most essential property of his own being 'T is as essential to God to Rule as to Be. Gods existence we say is a necessary existence He cannot but be which implies a necessary superiority That which cannot but be cannot but be above all For whatever has a power superior to it has a possibility not to be And that which cannot but be above all cannot but Rule over all Because the very being of superiority lies in the exercise of Dominion and cannot be upheld without it To fancy the existence of infinite Power without exercise is to frame an Idol in in our own imaginations and to fancy what is in it self impossible to be Infinite Power to Rule implies infinite Actual Rule We can never separate between infinite Power and infinite Dominion The being of the one necessarily implies the other Whatever is in God is actually in him God has not only virtually an infinite power but an infinite power in Act. Infinite power must needs be in continual Act and cannot be otherwise because Infinite And therefore all things must needs be in subjection to it VVe are so to conceive of all Gods Attributes as things not only in Potentia but in Facto esse Gods infinite VVisdom is not onely an ability to be wise but an infinite Act and Exertion of wisdome So his infinite knowledg is not only an infinite capacity of knowing and ability to know but an infinite actual knowledge of all things excluding an ignorance of anything 'T were to annex imperfection to Gods Attributes to say they are not in exercise Power in its exercise implies Dominion 'T is from defect where 't is not so exerted And therefore from infinite Power in which there can be no defect must needs arise infinite Dominion 'T was a childish conceit of Epicurus to think that infinite Power could be set by and not be in continual operation or that any thing could move act or exist without a necessary subjection to infinite Power Should the world rule it self and be under no subjection Gods Power would cease to be what it can never but be which is infinite in its Supremacy Should any one thing be done in the VVorld and not come under the exercise of Gods supreme and Sovereign Rule his Power would cease to be Infinite because not actually above all VVhich it can never be unless it actually Rule over all Besides Were it a supposition capable of admission or such a thing as could pretend to a possibility that infinite power could be set by and exist without exercise who could embrace so gross an absurdity as to believe that God should thus determine with himself that the best use that could be made of infinite Power were to make no use at all of it And so having at first made the World by his wisdome and Power should leave it perfectly to its own Chanceable revolutions without any farther effect or communication of either Secondly We suppose God in declining the Rule of the World to decline the noblest exercise of any being VVe can think of nothing more excellent then Rule and Dominion to imploy the largest mind and dispense the compleatest virtues And is it reasonable to divest the highest Power of it To have Power and to use it for the good of others is that we most applaud amongst men Those best faculties we have by which we can only conceive of Gods excellent nature their Perfection lies in Communication He that Rules well does the best thing we can frame an idaea of And therefore the Rule of the VVorld is the most excellent thing we can ascribe to God Cicero in his 2 Book De Nat. Deor. speaks fully to this Nihil est says he praeclarius mundi administratione Deorum Igitur Consilio administratur mundus Nihil est praestantius Deo Ab eo igitur necesse est mundum regi Those of the best endowments we think the fittest for Empire And the more excellent any soul is the more inlarged and vigorous in action it is And shall we suppose God not to Rule in Heaven Shall we think him very vain that should tell us VVe then make the best Vse of all humane abilities when we least imploy them Because the great and natural end of all ability for action is action And yet shall we suppose that God layes by the exercise of all his Infinite attributes and wholly retires himself in Heaven Who is able without assaulting his own Reason to admit such conception of that excellent being we ascribe to God and father that upon him which would make up the Character of a very ill man But to render the absurdity of this Doctrine more evident to every impartial man let me ask the Epicureans this question If God doth not rule the World and that darling Axiome of Epicurus be true that Quod eternum beatumque sit nec habere ipsum negotii quidquam nec exhibere alteri How comes God to give Laws to the World to admit the one and still to affirm the other were ridiculous for they are inseperable Relatives All Laws necessarily relate to Rule and Dominion on the one hand and obedience and subjection on the other hand That God has planted a natural Law in every mans Being relating to his own Superiority and mans
wise people laughed at those Mysteries Never any man scorn'd any thing more than Caesar himself did his own gods and as Tertullian observes pleased himself often in that he was able to make his gods feel the power of his anger What a Childish folly 't was then to believe that a Roman Consul lost his whole Army because he slighted the feeding of some young Chickens or that Marcus Crassus was therefore slain by the Parthians because he despised some fopperies of Atteius If we look off from their publick Religion and the general practice of their Divinity and take a view of what the Wisest and Best thought what a poor product were all their Notions compared with the Bible What a Midnight were men in in respect of Religion in that clear Sunshine of Humane Knowledge Socrates who saw the furthest of any man in the Age wherein he lived into the vanity of the Heathen Theology and died for a pretended Contempt of it for the Charge that Melius one of his Accusers brought against him at Athens as Laertius sayes was Jura violat Socrates quos ex majorum instituto suscepit Civitas Deos esse negans alia vero nova Demonia inducens The first Philosophical Martyr that we read of has yet left but little better Divinity behind him Nor can I perceive he had any design or ability to reform the World that way for he Answers his Charge by a flat denial as appears by his Apology in Plato and his whole carriage sufficiently assures us 't was out of choyce and not out of fear that he did so Sometimes also before he advised others to content themselves with the Religion of the Countrey they lived in And we find likewise in Plato how uncertain and doubtful he was about that great point of the Soul's Immortality and a future state of Men after this life and could determine nothing with himself positively about it though he seems to incline that way and to think it the more probable opinion that the Soul is Immortal Much in the same way that Cicero speaks of it in his Tusculane Questions who gives it but a probability And as Plato does in his Phaed who sayes in the Conclusion of his discourse that he is not certain about it nor will not be confident of it 'T was doubtless a high degree of uncertainty in his thoughts about those matters that made him say He knew not whether 't were better to dye or to live and that 't was a foolish thing to be troubled about that of which we have no certain Knowâ—edge whether it be to be desired or feared And when he came near to his end he expressed great contentment in the hopes of being with Hercules and Palamedes in the next World but still qualified those Hopes with this doubtfull Parenthesis In case the Soul be not extinguished with the Body He chose indeed to be rather a good Moralist and to deal in those Notions wherein he found some certainty then to attempt much in the speculative part of Divinity being wholly unable to frame any satisfactory Notions to himself about the Being of God and Divine Worship He often plainly declares that of the Nature of God and the business of another World he was wholly ignorant and many of the wisest Philosophers acknowledged as much and thought those things utterly beyond the reach of all Humane Knowledge all Notions about them to be full of uncertainty and therefore chose to submit to the Vulgar Sentiments rather then perplex themselves with doubtful and unsatisfying Speculations and run the hazard of contradicting the publick Religion of those Countreys where they lived Plato the famous Divine Philosopher who exceeded all the Graecian Philosophers as much in the Speculative part of Religion as Socrates did in the Practick though there was more true Divinity uttered by him then by any of the Philosophers where he first had it is not hard to determine yet attended with marvellous vanities and intollerable Errours ' T is not easie to forbear smiling in reading over the account he gives of the Creation of the World the matter of which he makes to be Eternal the fabulous conceits he has about that and many other things of that Nature 't would tire out any ordinary patience to read A great promoter he was of that gross Idolatry of Damon-Worship for he sayes That when men die their Souls become Daemons and if their merits be good they are Lares if Evil Lemures if different Manes Of which St. Austin gives a large account De Civ Dei lib. 9. Ch. 11. Though he speak much of one God yet himself then as all the Platonists since held that many gods are to be Worshiped and in his Timaeus he calls Saturn Ops Juno and others Gods and sayes the Daemons and Heroe's are to be Sacrificed to and the good Estate of the City commended to them Cicero observes likewise out of his Timaeus that he spake with great obscurity and uncertainty about this one God Sometimes calling him an Eternal Mind And sometimes calling the Sun Moon and Stars all parts of the World the Souls of men and whatever the Heathens worshipped Gods And at last concludes that the whole of his Principles per se sunt falsa sibi invicem repugnantia Are in themselves false and self contradictious Aristotle that great Luminary of the Rational World a man of a most sagacious wit who travelled with such unparallel'd success through all the Theorems of Nature and all parts of Humane Knowledge what Mushrom-Divinity has he left behind him With what obscurity uncertainty and confusion with himself has he spoke of those two great fundamentals of all Religion the Being of God and the Immortality of the Soul to such a degree that many of his Disciples since have avowed that he denied the latter If out of Aristotles Books we should but extract a Model of his Religion it might be for a Monument of wonder that such a Giant in all Natural Knowleage should die such a Child in Divinity Cicero who carried the Top-Sail of Learning in the Age wherein he lived to whom the elder Pliny gave this Testimony That he only had a Wit equal to the greatness of the Roman Empire why did not he compose a right Systeme of Divinity and leave a good account of those things to posterity behind him from whom might we with more Reason have expected it he designing the Nature of the Gods and Divinity for his Subject In the beginning of his Book he tells us with what unequal Sentiments men had debated those matters Some of the Philosophers doubted whether there were any Gods as Protagoras Some possitively affirmed there were none as Diagoras and Theodorus Cyrenaicus â—â—â—i vero Deos esse dixerunt tanta sunt in varietate ac dissentione constituti ut corum molestum sit annumerare Sententias Nam de siguris Deorum de locis atque sedibus Actione vitae multadicuntur Deque
Truths are visibly concenter'd in it Here is indeed a perfect Rendesvouz of all such Truths as were any where scattered and the World imperfectly has had and all such as they were in need to have All such natural Truths both of a Moral and Divine Nature as the Reason of the World does acknowledge and a full discovery of all such supernatural Truths as the minds of men naturally pursue and are inquisitive after Whatever is written in mans heart or upon the Works that God has made is here after an excellent manner Transscribed Justified and Improved And many defects of natural Knowledge supernaturally supplyed by a most suitable Revelation So that if we'lâ— judge of this Book either by what we certainly do know or by what we need and desire to know and expect should be revealed to us concerning God our selves and this whole World We shall find great reason to derive this Book from Above and subscribe to it as Divine For the First Never any Book contained such a System of natural Truth since the World began nor ever so far interpreted to us what truly is so And of this every mans own Reason becomes a proper and competent Judge Secondly Never any Book has told us so much nor gone so far to fix the restless minds of men about all such supernatural things as they are most inquisitive after 'T is here we have a certain account of God's Nature and the manner of his Existence how and when he created the World With what Designs and to what Ends he disposes and governs it Whence all our disorder first came How 't is to be cured Sin removed and Man reconciled to God! 'T is here we are certainly assured of the Resurrection of our Bodies the Immortality of our Souls and the condition of our future being for ever 'T is here we know all we can know and all we need to know both of this World and the next From no other but God himself could such a Beam of Light have broke forth so to enlighten the World Nor will it seem any way tolerable to an unprejudiced Judgment to father such a Book upon the highest principle of Falshood and derive it from the worst design that ever the World was defiled with Secondly I shall endeavour to shew that this Book so far as it relates to matters of Fact wherein an Etxernal justification is necessary is so far witnessed unto that there can be no room left for any reasonable doubt to be made about it First That there was such a man as Moses and such a People as the Jews in Egypt in those times which the Scripture mentions That Moses was their Leader and that he led them out of Egypt wrote their Story and gave Laws to them we have attested to us by the most Ancient Records of the Egyptians the Phenicians the Caldeans and the Grecians By Sanchomathon the famous Phenician Antiquary Berosus a Caldean Ptolomeus and Manetho Writers of the Egyptian-Chronicles The latter of whom Manetho speaks very particularly both of the Jews coming into Egypt and their departure thence And amongst the Grecian Writers by Artapanus Polemo Eupolemus Diodorus Siculus with many others as is at large proved by Josephus in his first Book against Appoin And one of these Artapanus is so large in his Relation of the Story of Moses that he sets down much of the business of his whole life and many of his Miracles his contesting with the Magicians before the King of Egypt his carrying the Jewâ— thorow the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptians who pursued them his dwelling with the Jews after in the Wilderness Who were there says he fed with a certain Snow that God rained from Heaven And at last describes particularly the very Person of Moses and sets down his Stature his Countenance and his Complexion Many of the same things are Recorded by Eupolemus Demetrius and others Numemus a Pythogorean-Philosopher whom we find quoted in Origens's fourth Book against Celsus tells us he had read the Life of Moses in many good Histories And relates many particulars of him as his being taken out of the Water his being bred up in the Court that he wrought many Miracles and that certain Magicians called Jannes and Jambres attempted to do the like No one Story amongst the Heathen of any Nation has been so witnessed unto by Writers Forraign to that Nation as the History of the Jews has been who from their greatest enemies have received a sufficient Testimony in point of Fact to the truth of Moses and what he wrote And indeed considering how great and eminent a Common-wealth was at first first established by the Writings of Moses and what a notorious and visible conâ—mâ—â—nce and succession there was of it ' Tiâ— Morally impossible that the business of Moses and his Writing in those times in matter of Fact should be fictitious and false Of so much of the History written by Moses as relates to things transacted before the Flood we cannot expect to find any exact and punctual account in a Traditional way Because of the great disadvantage of Oral Tradition especially by the confusion of Babel And yet 't is very evident that some considerable Remainders of the Ancient Story of the first World about the Creation the long lives of men in those first times and divers other things were preserved amongst the several Nations after the dispersion at Babel And we find many things relating thereto in Hermes Orpheus Homer Hesiond and the most Primitive Writers Of which Vossius Bochartus and many others have given a very satisfying account Concerning the Flood that there was such a Deluge nothing has been more universally credited And because the Tradition of it was That it befel in the prime time of the World and men were generally ignorant of the right account of times Therefore they applyed it still to that time they thought most ancient So the Thebans to the times of Ogyges and the Thessalians to the time of Deucalion which Floods of Ogyges and Deucalion were not two other distinct Floods as some have supposed but the same Flood of Noah applyed to those times and called by those Names which they thought of greatest Antiquity One sayes well What Nation has not believed it Even amongst the remotest Indians we find the Tradition of it has remained And what Author has not spoken of it Amongst the Egyptians Phenicians Grecians and Romans nothing more common And well may we suppose it should be so For Those who attempted the rearing of that Structure at Babel had probably a particular respect in what they did to the Flood that was past resolving to prevent the danger of another which sprang from their own Infidelity For God by his Promise to Noah had secured them against all fears of that kind and therefore had sufficient occasion wheresoever they came to preserve and continue the memory of it Berosus one of the most antient Writers after
should be terminated singly in them but be of a much farther Extension and of a perpetual Duration 'T is not to be doubted but that the Apographa's Copies truely taken from the Originals of any part of the Bible were of equal Authority with the Originals themselves 'T was not the Paper nor the Ink nor the Hand wherein they were writ nor any thing Circumstantial of that kind but the Matter it self as dictated by the Holy Ghost that gave Authority to them And wheresoever that Matter is truely contained there is also the same Authority present The great Question in these dayes will be Whether those Copies we have of the Scriptures in those Original Languages in which they were first Writ be True and whether they have not been since Defaced or Corrupted The Satisfaction that ought to be given to this Inquiry must arise these two wayes First by considering the Scriptures themselves in their present posture And Secondly by considering such Circumstances as attended their first Transcription and the various Copies that were then and have been since taken of them I begin with the Latter First the Old Testament we know was delivered over as it first became written to the Church of the Jews and committed by God himself to their Custody And 't was they alone that had the Care incumbent upon them punctually to Transcribe and safely to secure it That they performed this Trust with great Care and exactness and delivered the Old Testament over intire to the Christian Church we have good cause to believe and that both upon general and some more particular ground First upon General ground 'T is notorious that the Jews had the highest value imaginable of their Law and prized it above all else they possessed Both Josephus and Philo tell us that the Jews would rather have suffered a thousand Deaths then that the least thing should be once altered in the Divine Laws and Statutes of their Nation The miraculous power upon which the first Foundation of it was Established had imprinted in that People an indelible veneration of it Secondly it was the Municipal Law of their Countrey and that by which all matters of right were daily Adjudged and by which each mans Property amongst them was maintained and secured Thirdly their Law was not onely the Glory of their Nation and the Foundation of their Political and Ecclesiastical being but it was also the great Title they had to their Countrey The Scriptures contained in themselves the Deeds by which God himself conveyed to them the Land of Canaan and gave them the highest Right to possess it 'T is not hard from hence to conceive that the Jews would be careful of such a Book wherein their Bodies their Souls their Estates their Honour and indeed their All was so much concerned Secondly it appears more particularly and in fact that they were so For after that by Gods Providential disposal Ezra and that Famous Synagogue with him had exactly settled their Canon and delivered over the Scriptures pure and intire to the People at their return out of Babylon the indefatigable Care of the succeeding Mastoriâ—es from those very Times downward to preserve every Letter and Syllable of the sacred Text intire is notoriously known to all that converse with the Jewish Writers even to so great an exactness had they arrived that they knew how often every Letter was used in the Bible And indeed they took such a course to preserve the Original Text intire that it was morally Impossible that the least considerable Alteration or Change could at any time be made in it Eusebius speaks with great Wonder of the Industry and Care of the Jews in this matter Mirabile mihi videtur says he duobus annorum millibus inâ—o majore tempore jam ferè transacto non enim exquisitissimè annorum possum dicere numerum Nec verbum unum in Lege illius esse immutatum sed Centiès unusquisque Judaeorum moritur quam Lege Mosaicae derogavit It seems wonderful to me that for the space of two thousand years and upward for I cannot exactly reckon the number of years not so much as one word should be Changed in their Law but that every Jew would rather dye a hundred times over then derogate in the least from it And that this care of the Judaical Church was by Gods blessing effectual and successful for the securing of the Old Testament from all maime or Imperfection and the least considerable alteration from what it was when it was first Delivered There needs no other Evidence then that our Saviour and the Apostles fully approved it as the Jews were then in possession of it and never charged them with the least Guilt either of Corruption or Neglect in that kind And to suppose the Jews have Corrupted it since considering that it was near three hundred years before our Saviours time translated into Greek and that any after-corruption must needs have been manifestly Discovered from thence and confidering how much of it is quoted in the New is very absurd so thought st Jerome in his time siquis dixerit post adventum Christi predicationem Apostolorum Libros Hebraeos fuisse Falsatos risam tenere non potero ut salvator Apostoli ita Testimonia protuleriâ— sicut à Judaeis falsandâ—erant If any man think the Old Testament says he falsifyed after our saviours coming I can scarce forbear smiling to think that our saviour and the Apostles should quote the Old Testament so as the Jews should falsify it after their times And with the same Contempt speaks Origen and s Austin of such a vain and absurd supposition That we have also good reason to believe that the New Testament is safely and intirely and without any Considerable variation from what it was when it was first written descended down to us will likewise appear first from the Circumstances attending its first Transcription and the Manner and Circumstances of its Conveyance And secondly from its Present condition and posture For the first When the several Parts of the New Testament were first written so very many had imbraced the Doctrine thereof from the Preaching of Christ and the Apostles that it is not to be doubted but that multitudes of Copies were immediately taken and dispersed into all parts of Europe into Asia and Egypt and wheresoever the Christian Religion was by any received Nor can we suppose that men that suffered daily for a Religion the loss of their lives and estates would not be careful Exactly to know the Doctrine of it and to be safely possessed of that great Rule by which they were to be in all things Directed when ' t was so easily to be had Nay ' t is probable that the Apostles themselves might disperse several Transcripts of their own Writings amongst the Christians so innumerable Copies might be taken from many Originals But however Certain it is that the Autographa's of the Apostles the very Originals of the New Testament