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fenfe; yet is he fo kind as to compliment David with some knowledge this way; for, he adds, though they understood Mofes as only speaking of meats, yet, he says, David took the commands in relation to the three forts of animals (viz. fishes, beasts and birds) rightly; for he says, (Pfal. i.) Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, (i. e. as the fishes which are unclean, who go down in darkness to the deep ;) nor hath stood in the way of finners, (i. e. as perfons who seem to fear the Lord, but fin as the fow does :) and hath not fat in the feat of scorners, (i. e. as those who fit and watch that they may devour.) Admirable reafoning indeed! Is this likely to proceed from one full of faith and the Holy Ghost, as Barnabas is faid to be, Acts xi. 24?

5. Ch. XV. he proves the world fhall last juft fix thoufand years, and no more, because God made the world in fix days, and refted the seventh.

The preceding instances are enough to prove the Epistle of Barnabas, to contain the moft trifling and filly things. And can it be imagined, God would ever put his creatures under a neceffity of believing things fo contrary to their best improved and informed judgments? Or can such an author be fit to be a guide to us in matters of everlafting confequence? God forbid!

CHAP.

CHAP. XLIII.

An Examination of what is faid by Bishop Fell and the Archbishop of Canterbury, in Vindication of the Allegories of this Epiftle: the Jews' Ufe of fuck, no Apology for this Author: our Saviour and his Apoftles never used any fuch Allegories.

I

AM not infenfible that Bishop Fella and the present Arch

bishop of Canterbury have endeavoured to evade the force of this argument, by telling us," it was the cuftom of "the Jews at that time, the practice of the Apoftles (Bishop "Fell adds, and of our Saviour too), and of the primitive "Chriftians in the ages next fucceeding Barnabas, to interέσ pret the Scripture after the fame manner; and the last"named writer adds, that if any of Barnabas's feem to be far"fetched, either the very fame, or the traces and footsteps of "them, are to be found in St. Paul's Epiftles." To which I answer.

1. That fuppofing all this to be true, the credit and authority of this Epiftle muft nevertheless sink, because his allegories and interpretations are groundless, falfe, and proceed from and upon mistakes.

2. That the custom of the Jews can be no apology for Barnabas. Their allegories, it is true, were as filly and trifling as his; but will it at all juftify a perfon in a fault, that others were guilty as well as he? The merits of the cause are to be enquired into, and if it appear that the pretended Barnabas hath often trifled with and mistaken the Scripture (as I have above fhewn), it will be nothing at all in his favour to say, the Jews were wont to do fo too. The Jews dealt much in cabalism; Barnabas did fo too is Barnabas therefore at all the better for that? The Jews prove by their Geometria (a fpecies of theoretick cabalism), that Eliezer, the numeral letters of whose name make three hundred and eighteen, was

Præfat. in Barnab.

Differtation concerning the Epiftle of Barnabas, chap. 7. §. 27.

taken

taken by Abraham to war, and that he beat his enemies with him alone; which is directly contrary to the Scripture, which fays, he took the three hundred and eighteen fervants with him. Barnabas by a like cabalism finds, that Abraham knew of Chrift and his cross by the number three hundred and eighteen, whom he circumcised; which is alfo, as I have proved, absolutely falfe. Is now the Jewish cabalism any apology for Barnabas's mistake? The fame way it were easy to argue in the other inftances.

3. It is faid by Bishop Fell, that our Saviour himself used this way of reasoning and interpreting Scripture. But that Bishop would have done well to tell us where. Sure no man who has read the Gospels ever imagined there were fuch things in them, as I have above produced out of Barnabas; if there be, I defire the next patron of this Epiftle to produce them for the good of mankind, who are in general ignorant of them. Our Saviour has indeed ufed parables; but every one must fee how different thefe are from the forced, far-fetched interpretations of this author. But on the contrary, our Saviour was fo far from any thing of this fort, that, if I mistake not, he has often inveighed against it. In how many places does he speak against their traditions, which were for the most part founded upon fuch myftical, mistaken applications and interpretations of Scripture! He tells them, that in vain they worshipped him, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men; i. e. vien the explications which the Pharifees, and that body of the Jews who reckoned the traditions as good as Scripture, gave of it, and of which the Cabala was a confiderable part.

4. It is farther urged, that the Apostle Paul, in his Canonical Epifiles, affords many inftances of this which is so much found fault with in Barnabas. Any Any one may find, fays Bishop Fell "; and I might easily make appear from a multitude of paffages out of them, were it needful for me to enlarge myself on a point, which every one, who has read the Scriptures with any care, cannot choofe but have obferved, faith the Archbishop. I wish either

a See Matth. xv. and xxiii. and Mar. vii. and Dr. Lightfoot's Hor. Hebr. in Matt, xv. 2.

b Loc. jam. cit.
In the place last cited.

the

the Bishop or his Grace had made this appear by particular proof; as they have not, I fhall think it fufficient to say, till the contrary is proved, that I could never difcern in Paul's Epiftles any thing like what is in Barnabas. There are, it is true, two or three allegories; but then they are natural, juft, and have all the perfections of an allegory in them; whereas thofe in Barnabas are unnatural, harfh, ftrained, and, what is worst of all, have the misfortune to be falfe, and built upon falfe foundations.

5. Whereas it is urged, that the Chriftian writers of the ages fucceeding Barnabas (Origen for inftance, and Clemens Alexandrinus) have made use of the very fame method of interpreting Scripture; I answer, that it is indeed too true; they have done fo, and done it to the great scandal of the Christian religion: their enemies derided and bantered them for it, as they justly might; and, as Rivet well obferves in the place above cited, they hurt the cause of Christianity by this means more than they were aware of. Hence came the clamour in all ages, of pious frauds and religious cheats. What could weaken the Chriftian religion more, than pretending to support it by such idle reafonings as are in this Epiftle under the name of Barnabas? What could do Christianity more injury, than to pretend to prove the truth of it by fuch predictions as this book contains, especially when as to many of them they were no where to be found, but were mere pious forgeries to ferve a purpose? Such as thefe in the writings of the Fathers, leffened the opinion which the men of fenfe among the Pagans had of our holy religion; as well as they certainly leffen the opinion now of these Fathers, in the minds of many of folid learning and good judgment. The forgery of the Sibylline oracles in favour of Christianity, is a thing owned now almost by every one; fee Cafaubon, Daillé, Dr. Cave, Spanheim, and others cited to this purpose in the former volume. And who now can vindicate those primitive Chriftians,

a Adv. Baron. Annal. Exercit. I. Num. 18.

b

Right Ufe of the Fathers, c. 3. p. 18, 19.

• Hift. Liter. in Sibyll. p. 34. Hift. Chrift. Secul. II. §. 11. Part II. Ch. XXXIV.

who

who either forged them, or made use of them to delude their adverfaries? Laudo propofitum, confilium vehementer improbo, et toto pectore deteftor, fays the great Cafaubon *; I approve their defign, the method of effecting I dislike and abhor with all my foul. This learned writer thought it no virtue in the primitive Fathers, to make use of fuch methods as Barnabas to maintain Christianity. And it is well known that Celfus fet Origen very hard to it for an answer, when he urges that the Chriftians had corrupted the books of the Sibyls, by inferting many things in favour of Christianity into them. See more to this purpose, Vol. I. Part II. Ch. XXXIV. p. 361. But after all, what apology can it be for Barnabas, that the Fathers followed him in his errors, and by his example were led into an unreasonable way of expounding Scripture? This, if the Epiftle had been really written by Barnabas, would have been so far from extenuating, that it would have aggravated his crime. I conclude therefore, notwithstanding all these apo logies, that this Epiftle is both spurious and Apocryphal.

Arg. VII. The Epiftle under the name of Barnabas is Apocryphal, because it is not in the 'Syriack Verfion, Prop.

XV.

Upon the whole then I have endeavoured to prove, that the Epistle under the name of Barnabas was not written by him, but by fome person who was originally a Pagan, who confeffes himself formerly to have been an unbeliever in the true God, and a worshipper of idol-Gods, who making continually a distinction between Jew and Gentile, conftantly ranks himfelf among the latter, and who has none of the Hebraifms of the Hellenistick language; that the Epiftle was wrote after the destruction of Jerufalem, and confequently after the true Barnabas was dead; that it is Apocryphal, because it is not to be found in any of the ancient catalogues of the facred books of the New Teftament, not cited as Scripture in any of the writings of the primitive Fathers, but excluded from the Ca

Loc. jam cit.

Orig. cont. Celf. lib. 7. p. 368, 369.

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