Annotations upon the Holy Bible

Effigies Reverendi ad modum Viri Matthaei Poli, qui huic seculo non minus ^esiderabilis interyt quam ob scripta sua Critica et casuistica posteris charus futurus est. Flere et meminisfe relictum est. Printed for T. Parkhurst. D. Newman. I. Robinson. B. Aylmer. T. Cockrill. B. Alsop. ANNOTATIONS UPON THE HOLY BIBLE. WHEREIN The Sacred Text is Inserted, and various Readings Annexed, together with the Parallel Scriptures, the more difficult Terms in each Verse are Explained, seeming Contradictions Reconciled, Questions and Doubts Resolved, and the whole Text opened. VOL. I. By the Late Reverend and Learned Divine Mr. MATTHEW POOLE. NEHEM. 8. Verse 8. They Read in the Book in the Law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the Reading. ACTS 8. Verse 30, 31. -- -- Understandest thou what thou Read? How can I except some man shall Guide me? -- -LONDON, Printed by John Richardson, for Thomas Parkhurst, Dorman Newman, Jonathan Robinson, Brabazon Ailmer, Thomas Cockeril, and Benjamin Alsop, M. DC. LXXXIII.

The Authors of the ensuing Annotations (supplemental to Mr. Poole) present to the Reader an Historical account of the Translation of the Scriptures into our English Tongue the mighty workings of Divine Providence, conducive to it, and the several Notes or Annotations which have been published, and a particular Account of the Reverend Mr. Pooles and their present undertaking with the Reasons of it. THE same Reason which teaches us to conclude, That there is a first Being, and must be a first Cause and Mover (whom we call God) That it is he who has made us, and not we ourselves, and that we are his people and the Sheep of his Pasture, will also oblige us To enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his Courts with praise, and to be thankful unto him, by fulfilling his will. Which we cannot do, without some Revelation of it, to us. God therefore having ceased to speak to men face to face as to Abraham and Moses, etc. (which he never ordinarily did but to some particular Favorites) we are by reason enforced to conclude that there are some Books in the World in which this Revelation is to be found. The Church of God (the Mother of us all) has constantly held forth the Books of the Old and New Testament, (which we have in our Bibles) for this sacred Revelation, which has justly obliged all her children to look upon them, as hung out to them for that use, upon that Noble pillar the Church; looking into them upon the Churches notice (as the child does upon the Mothers telling it That is the Sun) every reasonable man finds them of so venerable Antiquity, and discerns in them such stamps of Divinity. In the majesty of their style, the purity of the matter, the sublimeness and spirituality of the propositions contained in them, the self-denial of the Penmen, the heavenliness of the scope, and end of those sacred writings, the harmony of the parts, the seal of miracles, and principally in the mighty power and efficacy of them upon the souls, and consciences of multitudes, both for conviction and for support, and consolation that he easily concludes, This is the voice of God and not of man, and looks back upon his mother the Church (as a child upon his nurse) thanking her for showing him such a treasure and saying as the Samaritanes to their Countrey-woman John 4. 42. Now we believe these Books are the word of God, not because of thy saying so, but because we have looked into them our selves, and find them of a different style, nature, and matter, and to have a different scope, end, power and efficacy upon the souls of men, from what any other Writings in the World have. Though the truth is, that until a man comes to be fully persuaded of the truth of them from the same spirit that dictated them, every soul will be as apt to waver in his faith as to them to be the Word of God, as he in Tully, who only believed the Immortality of the Soul from the reading of Platoes Book, which (if I remember right) the Roman Orator expresses in words to this sense. I have read over Platoes book again and again: but I know not how it comes to pass, so long as I am reading I agree it, but no sooner is the book out of my hands, but de immortalitate animae dubitare coepi, but I begin to doubt whether the soul be immortal yea or no. But how ever, in one degree or other every Christian makes that the Principle of his Religion That the Holy Scriptures of the Old, and New Testament are the Word of God. Some believe it more faintly and incertainly; some more fixedly and firmly; and accordingly the faith of persons as to them, is more or less operative.

This Revelation of the Divine Will was made perfect gradually, (as it pleased God in succeeding times to reveal what was his secret will before, but hid from ages.) So as (if Chronologers compute right) there were more then 1500 years passed betwixt the writing of the first book of Genesis by Moses, and the Revelation (which was the last) by John, and Divines generally judge that he sealed up the Book, by those words Revelations 22. 18, 19. So that as to things to be believed or done, we are to expect no further Revelation. When the mighty God even the Lord had thus spoken, and God had thus shined out of Sion the perfection of beauty, it was but reasonable that his people should come to the knowledge of what he had said that they might answer the end of the Revelation both by believing and obeying. …