BY THE Books of Holy Scripture are understood those which ought to be the canon,that is to say,the rules of Christian life.And because all rules of life,which men are in conscience bound to observe,are laws,the question of the Scripture is the question of what is law throughout all Christendom,both natural and civil.For though it be not determined in Scripture what laws every Christian king shall constitute in his own dominions;yet it is determined what laws he shall not constitute.Seeing therefore I have already proved that sovereigns in their own dominions are the sole legislators;those books only are canonical,that is,law,in every nation,which are established for such by the sovereign authority.It is true that God is the Sovereign of all sovereigns;and therefore,when he speaks to any subject,he ought to be obeyed,whatsoever any earthly potentate command to the contrary.But the question is not of obedience to God,but of when,and what God hath said;which,to subjects that have no supernatural revelation,cannot be known but by that natural reason which guided them for the obtaining of peace and justice to obey the authority of their several Commonwealths;that is to say,of their lawful sovereigns.According to this obligation,I can acknowledge no other books of the Old Testament to be Holy Scripture but those which have been commanded to be acknowledged for such by the authority of the Church of England.What books these are is sufficiently known without a catalogue of them here;and they are the same that are acknowledged by St.Jerome,who holdeth the rest,namely,the Wisdom of Solomon,Ecclesiasticus,Judith,Tobias,the first and the second of Maccabees (though he had seen the first in Hebrew),and the third and fourth of Esdras,for Apocrypha.Of the canonical,Josephus,a learned Jew,that wrote in the time of the Emperor Domitian,reckoneth twenty-two,making the number agree with the Hebrew alphabet.St.
Jerome does the same,though they reckon them in different manner.For Josephus numbers five books of Moses,thirteen of prophets that writ the history of their own times (which how it agrees with the prophets writings contained in the Bible we shall see hereafter),and four of Hymns and moral precepts.But St.Jerome reckons five Books of Moses,eight of prophets,and nine of other Holy Writ which he calls of Hagiographa.The Septuagint,who were seventy learned men of the Jews,sent for by Ptolemy,king of Egypt,to translate the Jewish law out of the Hebrew into the Greek,have left us no other for Holy Scripture in the Greek tongue but the same that are received in the Church of England.
As for the books of the New Testament,they are equally acknowledged for canon by all Christian churches,and by all sects of Christians that admit any books at all for canonical.
Who were the original writers of the several books of Holy Scripture has not been made evident by any sufficient testimony of other history,which is the only proof of matter of fact;nor can be by any arguments of natural reason:for reason serves only to convince the truth,not of fact,but of consequence.The light therefore that must guide us in this question must be that which is held out unto us from the books themselves:and this light,though it show us not the writer of every book,yet it is not unuseful to give us knowledge of the time wherein they were written.
And first,for the Pentateuch,it is not argument enough that they were written by Moses,because they are called the five Books of Moses;no more than these titles,the Book of Joshua,the Book of Judges,the Book of Ruth,and the Books of the Kings,are arguments sufficient to prove that they were written by Joshua,by the Judges,by Ruth,and by the Kings.For in titles of books,the subject is marked as often as the writer.The History of Livy denotes the writer;but the History of Scanderberg is denominated from the subject.We read in the last chapter of Deuteronomy concerning the sepulchre of Moses,"that no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day,"that is,to the day wherein those words were written.It is therefore manifest that those words were written after his interment.For it were a strange interpretation to say Moses spake of his own sepulchre (though by prophecy),that it was not found to that day wherein he was yet living.But it may perhaps be alleged that the last chapter only,not the whole Pentateuch,was written by some other man,but the rest not.Let us therefore consider that which we find in the Book of Genesis,"And Abraham passed through the land to the place of Sichem,unto the plain of Moreh,and the Canaanite was then in the land";which must needs be the words of one that wrote when the Canaanite was not in the land;and consequently,not of Moses,who died before he came into it.Likewise Numbers,21.14,the writer citeth another more ancient book,entitled,The Book of the Wars of the Lord,wherein were registered the acts of Moses,at the Red Sea,and at the brook of Arnon.It is therefore sufficiently evident that the five Books of Moses were written after his time,though how long after it be not so manifest.
