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-be esteem'd fufficiently extravagant, yet have I seen few, or rather none at all, either of the Clergy or Laity, Men or Women, made better by a Court, and its Preferments, and great Number utterly ruined thereby, as is very melancholy for a good Man to think of. It puts me in mind of what that excellent Preacher and Liver Bishop Fleetwood, as I have been informed, faid upon the like Occasion. This good Bishop once came to the House of Lords a little too early, and over-heard certain Perfons debating this Queftion, Whether a Courtier could be a Chriftian or not? And when at length the Company perceived he was there, they would needs have his Opinion: He reply'd, He was no Courtier, nor would determine that Question: But he acknowledged, that he had learned fo much by their Discourse, that it was not very fit for a good Chriftian to go to Court. Had I been there, I should probably have given the fame Reason that I had once a particular Occafion to give myself elfewhere, viz. That the Maxims of a Court are against the Maxims of Chriftianity; the Maxim of a Court is this; that you must always fay and do as the first Minister would have you: The Maxim of Christianity is this; that you must always fay and do according to your own Judgment and Conscience. Yet alafs! alass! all our present Bifhops and Deans, &c. are made by the Court! Hinc illa lachryma! But to proceed.

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In this Year, 1721, I published A Chronological Table, containing the Hebrew, Phænician, Egyptian, and Chaldean Antiquities, compar'd toge

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ther, both before and after the Deluge; from the Samaritan Pentateuch, Jofephus, Sanchoniatho, Herodotus, Dicaarebus, Manetho, Eratofthenes, Abidenus, Berofus, Varro, Ptolemy of Mendes, the Egyptian Obelisk, the Parian Marble, and all the other original Authors: Begun by Bishop Cumberland, by me improved, and brought down to the Era of Nabonaffar: Whence Dr. Prideaux, in his Connexion of the Old and New Teftament, and Mr. Marfball's Edition of Bifhop Lloyd's Chronological Tables, carry on the Series 'till the Times of Chriftianity. In two large Sheets, Price 2s. See Collection of Authentick Records, Page 1011, 1041, 1055, 1068. and Supplement to Literal Accomplishment of Prophecies, Page 124, 125. and Essay on the Old Testament, Appendix, Page 223, 224, 225. of which last immediately.

In the Year 1722, I published An Essay towards reftoring the true Text of the Old Teftament, and for vindicating the Citations made thence in the New Teftament. With a large Appendix. Containing, in the Treatise itself, the following Propofitions.

I. The prefent Text of the Old Teftament is, generally fpeaking, both in the Hiftory, the Laws, the Prophecies, and the divine Hymns, or as to the main Tenor and Current of the whole, the fame now that it ever has been from the utmost Antiquity.

II. The Greek Verfion of the Old Teftament, called the Septuagint Verfion, as it stood in the

Days

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Days of Chrift and his Apostles, was agreeable to
the genuine Hebrew Text, as it was in that Age.

III. The prefent Hebrew Copies of the Old Te
ftament are different in many Places, from those
genuine Hebrew and Greek Copies thereof, which
were extant in the Days of Chrift and his Apostles.

IV. The modern Copies of the Septuagint Verfion, fince the fecond Century, especially fince the Days of Origen, are alfo confiderably different from those genuine Hebrew and Greek Copies, which were extant in the first Century, in the Days of Chrift and his Apostles.

V. That intire Change, which has been made in the Characters of the Hebrew Bible, from the Old Samaritan, to the New Chaldee, was not done by Efra, as the modern Jews pretend; but by the Jews themselves, about the Beginning of the fecond Century of Christianity.

VI. The Samaritan Pentateuch, even as among us, is generally a faithful and uncorrupt Copy of the five Books of Mofes, as that Pentateuch was extant, both in Hebrew and Greek, in the Days of Chrift and his Apostles.

VII. The prefent Septuagint Version of the
Pfalms of David, especially as ftill preserved in its
most ancient Latin Verfion, the Roman Pfalter, is
a faithful and uncorrupt Copy of that facred Book,
as it stood both in the Hebrew and Greek Copies of
the first Century.

VIII. Philo the Jew, the facred Authors of the
New Testament, the Apoftolical Fathers, with the
Primitive Greek and Latin Writers now extant, of

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almost four intire Centuries, do every one make their Citations out of the Old Testament, not from the prefent Hebrew Original, but from one agreeing with the Septuagint Verfion thereof; or from fome Latin Translation made according to that Septuagint Verfion.

IX. Jofephus, the famous Jewish Hiftorian, cotemporary with the Apoftles of our Saviour, always made ufe of the then Hebrew Copies of the Old Teftament, and not of the Septuagint Verfion, in his Antiquities.

X. The genuine Chronology of Jofephus, agrees neither with the present Hebrew, nor with the prefent Greek, but almost always with that of the Samaritan Pentateuch.

XI. The particular Periods of Jofephus's Chronology stated.

XII. The Jews, about the Beginning of the fecond Century of the Gospel, greatly altered and corrupted their Hebrew and Greek Copies of the Old Teftament, and that in many Places on Purpofe, out of Oppofition to Christianity.

XIII. The Texts cited by our Saviour and his Apostles, and the rest of the Writers of the New Teftament, out of the Old, were truly cited by them, and in Agreement with the genuine Hebrew and Greek Bibles of that Age.

The APPENDIX contains,

I. The Variations of the Samaritan Pentateuch from the Hebrew,

II. A De nonftration that the Apoftolical Confti-
tutions were written in the first Century.
III. That Sefoftris was that Pharoah who was
drowned in the Red-fea.

IV. A Collection of original Monuments refer-
ed to in my Chronological Tables.

To which I added the next Year, 1723.

A Supplement, proving that the Canticles is not a Sacred Book of the Old Teftament, nor was originally owned as fuch by the Jewish or Chriftian Church, 8vo. Price togethur 6 s. 6 d.

About this Year, 1723, as it is in my Life of Dr. Clarke, ift Ed.p.127, 128. I revised, and improved, and corrected my Grand Propofal for publishing a very cheap and correct Edition of the Primitive Fathers; to be tranfmitted to every Parish of Great Britain and Ireland, and our Plantations; which Proposals are printed in my Vlth Volume of the Sacred Hiftory of the New Teftament, p. 609-613.

ters,

And give me Leave to add farther, that I find most of our present Bishops, Priefts, and Deacons, fo little acquainted, with the Primitive Writhat not only our own Diffenting Brethren, who used to be far inferior to the Church of England Clergy in fuch Learning, but the ordinary popish Priefts themselves will be foon able to run them a-ground. And had not our Clergy been very much more verfed in them, at the End of King Charles II. and through King James IId's Reigns, we had humanly speaking been quite

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