LETTER XII. LETTER XII. The excellent nature and tendency of the Mofaic Writings, and the Scriptures of the Old Teftament. Lord Bolingbroke treats it as blafphemy to fay that they are divinely in Spired. A fummary of his objections against their divine original and authority. His charge against the Scriptures as giving mean and unworthy ideas of God confidered at large. The reprefentations he himself gives of God, and of his providence, fhewn to be unworthy, and of the worst confequence. Concerning God's being reprefented in Scripture as entering into covenant with man. The pretence of his being defcribed as a tutelary God to Abraham, and to the people of Ifrael, and of his being degraded to the mea eft offices and employments, diftinctly examined. The paffages in which bodily parts feem to be afcribed to God, not defigned to be taken in a literal fenfe. The Scripture it felf fufficiently guards against a wrong interpretation of thefe paffages. In what fenfe human paffions and affections are attributed to the Supreme Being. A remarkable paffage of Mr. Collins to this purpose. SIR, TH LETTER HE defign of my laft Letter was to vin- XII. dicate the truth and credit of the Mofaic History, and of the extraordinary facts there related. And if that Hiftory be admitted as true, the divine original and authority of the Mofaic conftitution is established. But befides the external proofs arifing from the extraordinary and miraculous, facts, whofoever with an unprejudiced mind looks into the Revelation itself as contained in the facred writings of the Old Teftament, may observe remarkable internal characters, which demonftrate its excellent nature and tendency. Not to repeat what has been already offered to this purpose in the former Volume, Let. XV. p. 478, et feq. at present I shall only observe, that in the Mofaical writings, and the Scriptures of the Old Testament, we are taught to form the worthieft notions of God, of his incomparable perfections, and of his governing providence, as extending over all his works, particularly towards mankind. We are at the fame time inftructed in the true state of our own cafe, as we are weak,dependent, guilty creatures, and are directed to place our whole hope and truft in God alone, and to refer all to him, as our chiefest good, and highest end; to be thankful to him for all the good things we enjoy, and to be patient and refigned to his will under all the afflictive events that befal us. Our moral duty is there fet before us in its just exVOL. II. E c tent. LETTERtent. XII. The particulars of it are laid down in plain and exprefs precepts, inforced upon us in the name and by the authority of God himself, where love of righteoufnefs, goodness, and purity, and just deteftation of vice and wickedness, is represented in the ftrongest manner. Those facred writings every-where abound with the moft encouraging declarations of his grace and mercy towards the truly penitent, and with the moft awful denunciations of his juft difpleasure against obftinate prefùmptuous tranfgreffors. And the important leffon which runs through the whole is this, that we are to make the pleafing and ferving Ged the chief bufinefs of our lives, and that our happiness confifteth in his favour, which is only to be obtained in the uniform practice of piety and virtue. Such evidently is the nature and tendency of the facred writings of the Old Teftament. But very different is the reprefentation made of them by Lord Bolingbroke. Not content with endeavouring to deftroy the credit of the hiftory, he hath by arguments drawn from the nature of the revelation itself contained in the Jewish Scriptures, ufed his utmost efforts to fhew, that it is abfolutely unworthy of God: That "there are marks of an human original in those "books, which point out plainly the fraud, " and the imposture *." And that "it is no lefs "than blafphemy to affert them to be divinely infpired t." • Vol. III. P. 288. + lb. p. 299. The The objections he has advanced against theLETTER Scriptures of the Old Testament, and efpecially, XII. against the Mofaic writings, are principally these that follow: 1. That they give the most unworthy ideas of the Supreme Being. They degrade him to the meanest offices and employments, and attribute to him human paffions, and even the worst of human imperfections. 2. 'Some of the laws there given are abfolutely contrary to the law of nature, which is the law of God, and therefore cannot be of divine original. He inftanceth particularly in the command for extirpating the Canaanites, and for punishing idolaters with death. 3. The first principle of the law of Mofes is infociability; and it took the Jews out of all moral obligations to the rest of mankind. 4. There are feveral paffages in the Mofaic writings, which are false, abfurd, and unphilofophical: As particularly the account there given of the creation of the world, and the fall of man. 5. The fanctions of the law of Mofes were wholly of a temporal nature, and were contrived and fitted to humour and gratify the ap petites and paffions; without any regard to a future ftate of rewards and punishments. Thefe are the principal objections urged by Lord Bolingbroke against the divine authority of the Scriptures of the Old Teftament, and particularly of the books of Mofes. There are fome E e 2 other LETTER other smaller exceptions, which I fhall take noXII. tice of as they come in my way. 1. The first clafs of objections relateth to the mean and unworthy representations that are made to us in Scripture of the Supreme Being. It hath always been accounted one of the diftinguifhing excellencies of the facred writings, that they abound with the most just and sublime defcriptions and reprefentations of the Deity, which have a manifeft tendency to raise our minds to the moft worthy and exalted conceptions of his divine majefty, and his incomparable excellencies and perfections. Our author himself thinks fit to acknowlege, that "there "are many paffages in Scripture, which give "moft fublime ideas of the majefty of the Su preme Being:" And that "the conceptions "which the Jews entertained of the Supreme Being were very orthodox in the eye of reafon; and their Pfalmifts, and their prophets, "ftrained their imaginations to exprefs the "most celebrated fentiments of God, and of "his works, and of the methods of his provi"dence." If therefore there be any paffages which, literally taken, feem to be unworthy of God, they ought, by all the rules of candour and fair criticisin, to be interpreted in a confiftency with thefe; fince it cannot be reasonably fuppofed, that those who entertained fuch noble and fublime fentiments of the Divinity, fhould at the fame time, as he would perfuade us they * Vol. III. p 99.-Vol. IV. p. 463. |