SOME

CURSORY REFLECTIONS

ΟΝ ΤΗΕ

DISPUTE OR DISSENSION,

WHICH HAPPENED AT

ANTIOCH,

BETWEEN THE

APOSTLES PETER and PAUL:

AND

On the Variations alfo or Inconfiftencies, which are found among the Four Evangelists, in their different Accounts of the fame Facts;

IN ORDER TO DISCOVER

What Light thefe Facts afford Us, towards illuftrating the proper Notion of Infpiration, or that Measure of it especially which was indulged to the Apostles and Evangelifts, and how far they may be of Ufe, if rightly interpreted, towards determining the Controverfies which have been raifed concerning the Proofs and Evidences of the Chriftian Religion, as far at leaft as they depend upon the Prophecies of the Old Teftament, which are cited for that Purpose in the New.

PREFACE.

S

EVERAL of these pieces, which compose this Volume, were written by me many years ago; chiefly for my own information, on the occafion of certain controverfies, then warmly agitated, concerning the grounds and reafons of the Chriftian religion; and especially on the prophecies of the Old Teftament, which are cited in the New, and applied to the particular acts and circumstances of our Saviour's life. For when the enemies of revelation attempted to difcredit thofe citations, as being neither fairly made, nor rightly applied; and our Divines, on the other hand, had nothing to offer in the defence of them, in which a man of fenfe could reasonably acquiefce; I was willing to try, whether, from my own examination of the cafe, I might not be able to draw out fomething more fatisfactory; and if no folution of the difficulty could be found in the citations themselves, whether it might not be drawn from the characters of the Evangelifts, who made and applied them for this topic, I knew, tho' intimately connected with the quæftion, was, what none of our common Advocates would venture to touch upon: whofe fortunes in the Church depend, not on feeking out what is true, but on defending what is established; and VOL. II. R

on

on inventing expedients to puzzle, where they cannot confute an Adversary. But truth, as the Antients tell us, lies buried in the deep, and cannot be discovered, but by searching things to the bottom and when produced to the public view, fhines always the brightest, after it has been polished, as Tully fays, by the file of difputation.

As to the effect of my fearches into the particular fubject here intimated, it is fully explaned in the following fheets. For though the controversies, which gave birth to them, have long fince been at an end, yet I flatter myself, that they may still be seasonable and ferviceable, towards checking that spirit of disaffection, which, in every part of the Kingdom, is visibly exerting itself, against the established religion, by all the various arts, which Popery, Methodism, and Infidelity can fupply: the growth of all which has of late years been greatly complained of by the Clergy. For as this increasing evil is owing, partly to certain articles, publicly profeffed and impofed by our Church, which are justly liable to exception; and partly to groundlefs prejudices, and falfe notions of religion in general, conceived by the weak, and confirmed in them by the crafty; fo it cannot poffibly be cured by any other method, than by placing the common religion of Chriftians on its right foundation, the Gofpel, and clearing our particular fyftem of it from all just offence, and reducing it to its original fimplicity and conformity

with the natural law or reason of man; which, in all quæftions whatsoever, is the primary guide. and ultimate test of right and wrong, truth and falfehood, to the whole human species.

In the Heathen world, though there were always many Infidels and Heretics with regard to the established religion, there were no Diffenters from the established modes of worship, and very little disturbance given to the State by the intemperance of their religious contefts: yet this was not owing to a want of zeal for the popular religion, in any order of men, for they all profeffed the greatest, but to a reasonable way of thinking and acting with refpect to it. The wiser fort were univerfally of opinion, that the multitude were to be deceived and allured to their duty, by fictions and fabulous tales, contrived to instill a fuperftitious reverence for the rites of their Ancestors, and a firm belief of their divine origin. This therefore was the common principle of all the politer nations, and particularly of the antient Romans; whofe religion feems, of all others, to have been the best calculated, to promote the general good and profperity of the Republic [a]. But though they were perfuaded of the neceffity of putting this deceit upon the populace, they thought it neceffary at the same time, that the better fort

[a] Hæc Pontifex (Scævola) noffe populos non vult -expedire igitur exiftimat, falli in religione Civitates,

quod dicere etiam in libris rerum divinarum ipfe Varro non dubitat. Auguft. de Civ. D. 1. iv. €. 27. R 2

fhould