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felf, went to bishop Lloyd, of whom he had then the greatest opinion, both as to his fkill in chronology and the fcriptures, and particularly in the fcripture-prophefies; and this, in order to fee, whether it might not be fit for him to infert fome of his predictions from those prophefies into a preface to thofe fermons; that upon their completion they might be of fervice to chriftianity; upon fome of which prophefies he alfo himself preached part of his fecond year's fermons; as his relation, who is now in poffeffion of thofe fermons, as well as another friend of mine who heard fome of them, have informed me; though he never printed them; the reafon of which will appear by what follows. For, upon his application to the bishop, and the bishop's frank and open anfwers, he was fo far from being fatisfied, that he immediately began to fuppofe, that his difappointment arofe from the facred books of Daniel and the Revelation themfelves, and not only from his own, or the bishop's misunderstanding them. He was offended, that the bishop understood a day in the prophefies to denote a year in their completion; as all expofitors had done before him, and as the ancient language of prophefy plainly imply'd. [See Effay on the Revelation, 2d Edition, page 5-18.] Nay, fo greatly was he offended at this interpretation, that he long afterward bluntly asked Sir Ifaac Newton himself (with whom I had brought him acquainted about A. D. 1696.) who thus expounded the prophefies alfo, whether he could demonftrate the fame. Sir Ifaac Newton was fo greatly offended at this, as invidiously alluding to his being a mathematician; which fcience was not concerned in this matter; that he would not fee him, as Dr. Bentley told me himfelf, for a twelvemonth afterward. Nay, fo far did he carry this matter, as to perfuade the learned Mr. Daubuz, though in the way of banter only, but

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fuch a banter as Mr. Daubuz did not perceive, that he ought to demonftrate this expofition, not a pofteriori only, as did others; but a priori alfo ; which he injudiciously attempted to do, in the preface to his Expofition of the Apocalypfe; which expofition yet, on account of the great critical fagacity of its author therein fhewed, Dr. Bently had in high efteem. He pretended alfo, that there had never been a version of Daniel made by the Septuagint interpreters; which yet is notoriously known to have been several times quoted by the most ancient fathers; altho' this was afterwards banished out of the church, by Theodotion's verfion. Nay, when Dr. Bentley was courting his lady, who was a most excellent chriftian woman, he had like to have loft her, by ftarting to her an objection against the book of Daniel, as if its author, in defcribing Nebuchadnezzar's image of gold, Daniel vi. to be 60 cubits high, and but 6 cubits broad, knew no better, than that mens height were 10 times their breadth, whereas it is well known to be not more than 6 times. Which made the good

lady weep. While the ftatue, with a pedestal, might eafily be 10 times high, even fuppofing it were a figure of a man; which yet is not at all in the text. It might be an idol ftanding on the top of a pillar; as there is, I remember, one in old Perfepolis, as the cuts of it in one of our latter travellers demonftrates. He aimed alfo to pick a quarrel with fome fmall niceties in Daniel's chronology; and fuppofed the book to have been written after the time of Onias, the high priest; and that this Onias was Daniel's Meffiab; and the flaughter of this Onias at Antioch was the cutting off the Meffiab. Dan. ix. 26. 2 Maccabees ii. 34, 35. In fhort, he was very defirous to get clear of the authority of the book of Daniel. Yet, when he was put in mind how our bleffed Saviour exprefly quoted this book,

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as written by Daniel the prophet himself, Matt. xxiv 9. Mar. xiii. 14. Luke xxi. 20; he told Dr. Clarke, from whom I had it, that at firft this made his Hairs ftand an End: but that at last he pretended that was done only ad hominem, as we fpeak; or by way of condefcenfion to the Jewish prejudices. He alfo tried to run down the Apocalypfe, as not written by the apostle John; tho' I told him it agreed to his own character of St. John's ftile, which he had observed to have much fewer particles of connection, fuch as v, de, yap x. T. X. than the other evangelifts. He alfo talked ludicrously of this author's beads and borns. And he alfo tried to find some perfons or times to which the author might allude; as he had fancied of Onias for Daniel. However, he confeffed, that he had not then been able to do it, but hoped he should find it some other time. Thefe accounts I had from his own mouth. But what he said of Isaiah's naming Cyrus fo long before he was born, viz. that he supposed it an interpolation, I had at fecond-hand from a learned bishop: But it fo exactly agrees with what I had from his own mouth, concerning Daniel and the Apocalypfe, that I have no doubt of the truth of it. Nor need any one hereafter wonder at Dr. Bentley's Scepticism, as to both the Old and New Testament. But take notice, that I only fay Scepticism, not Infidelity. For I take the evidence for the truth of the Bible to be fo prodigiously strong, in all original authors, that no perfons, fo learned as Dr. Bentley and Dr. Hare, can, I believe, by any temptation, proceed further than Scepticism: How much farther foever comparatively ignorant and unlearned writers, I mean, fuch as Collins, Tindal, Toland, Morgan, and Chubb, may have proceeded in their groffer degrees of infidelity.

As to Dr. Bentley's grand difpute with Mr. Boyle, and his learned friends at Oxford, about

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the epiftles of Phalaris, which was efteemed then fo important, that the great bifhop Lloyd was drawn into the chronological part of it; and which then made a mighty noife in the world; I cannot but wonder, that any ferious clergymen fhould fatisfy themselves to divert from their facred employment, and enter into fuch ufelefs and trifling fpeculations. Laymen, I allow it, 'may divert themselves as well with fuch literary amufements, as with hunting, or hawking: but for clergymen, who are to give themselves wholly to facred matters, 1 Tim. iv. 15. To avoid foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they do gender ftrifes. 2 Tim. ii. 23. How they can fatisfy their confciences in fo doing, if they be in earnest in their religion, is hard, exceeding hard, to say.

If any wonder, that I added Dr. Hare to Dr. Bentley, as a kind of fceptick, I fhall give my reafons for fo doing. Tho' when I first published my Effay on the Revelation, Dr. Hare greatly attended to it (which effay had also preferved a courtier, a friend of mine, from infidelity for a great while; and which, among other books upon the prophecies, had intirely recovered the late lord Abercorn, a confiderable member of the Royal Society, from his fcepticism or infidelity; as he fully owned to me himfelf long before his death:) yet did Dr. Hare fo accuftom himself to talk ludicrously of facred matters; (which Mr. Rundle greatly complained of to me, when I first introduced him to Dr. Cannon and his acquaintance.) He was for laying wagers about the fulfilling of fcripture-prophecies, in the fame ludicrous way: nay, when he wrote about the difficulties and difcouragements to the study of the fcriptures, he could not forbear doing it after a ludicrous manner, tho' he feemed then to mean it very honeftly he was greatly familiar with Dr. Cannon, one of the greateft fcepticks that ever was

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born. He put fuch a flight upon our most authentick hiftorian Jofephus, in the preface to his pfalms, which hardly any but fuch scepticks ever do. Nay, he once blabb'd out to me, that grand fecret which I fuppofe Dr. Cannon had afferted: viz. that "He feared Chrift and his apoftles were fo weak, as to depend on the double fenfe of "prophecies for the truth of christianity:" fuch as Grotius, and all our late modern commentators admit of; and which even fuch ftill later learned men as bishop Chandler, and Dr. Clarke, made ufe of; till I, upon Sir Ifaac Newton's original fuggeftion, fhewed them the contrary. It now fully appearing, that fuch foolish expofitions were fo far from being used in the first or fecond centuries, that they are no older than the fourth; and were indeed mainly introduced by the learned Jerome, in order to apologize for fome knavish quotations of his out of his Hebrew copies. [See Sacred Hiftory of the New Teftament, page 334, 335.] And I well remember, that when I once told Dr. Hare, that I feared Dr. Cannon had made him a fceptick, his reply was, That he was not fo great a fceptick as Dr. Cannon. No, faid I, you are a better fcholar: for as Dr. Cannon thought mathematicks themselves, with Sir Ifaac Newton's philofophy built thereon, to be uncertain, as being no mathematician himself; Dr. Hare being a pretty good mathematician, could not go fo great a length with him. But as for Dr. Cannon, he was fo thorough a fceptick in religion, that had not my lord Townshend prevailed with him to the contrary, he was once refolved to have caft off his gown and caffock; and refufed to have allowed himfelf to be a clergyman any longer; yet would he join with the church in figning the thirty-nine articles, without believing them, as legal qualifications for preferment only, and join with the Athanafian creed

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