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An APPENDIX or COLLECTION of some more Memorials of the Life of the Excellent Dr. John Lightfoot, most of them taken from Original Letters, or MSS. of his own.
I. Concerning the Occasion, Reason and Method of his undertakings in Harmonizing the NEW TESTAMENT.
THE Original cause of those Books of Harmony, that this excellent Man pub∣lished at several times, was an ardent Love of the Holy Scriptures; which put him upon an earnest search into them, that, if possible, he might at length arrive to a true and sure understanding of them. This account he gives of himself. * 1.1 It was neither arrogance nor rashness, that made me employ my self in these obscu∣rities, but a studious mind, breathing after the knowledge of the Scriptures, and something restless, when in difficult places it knew not where to fix. And that he might read the Scriptures with the better advantage, this was his constant course in his private use of them, to take the Bible before him, and to read it according to the proper Order of its Times and Stories: always carefully observing where the method of it is direct, and where transposed, and how and where to place those transpositions. This, as he some∣where tells us, he proposed to himself, and practised many years together. By which he gathered no little help for the apprehending the right sense of those Holy Pages. This encouraged him not only to proceed still in that method himself, but seriously to recom∣mend it unto others: And for the helping and furthering all pious Students of Holy Scriptures, he resolved to communicate this his Course by publishing an Harmony for the use of all. And now he bends all his Study and Thoughts to do this fully and exactly, so as it might answer the Religious and good ends he intended it for: Vast and long pains it cost him: for the Course of his Studies was employed in elaborating (to use his own most true expression) the Harmony of the four Evangelists. And both Nature and Providence assisted him in this noble intended Work. For he was naturally of a stronge and hail con∣stituion, and his lot fell to be seated in a private Country Living, free from noise and secu∣lar business, and importunate Visits. Here in his beloved Study, built by himself in the midst of a Garden, he plods hard at it night and day, and for divers years allowed him∣self but some few hours in the night for sleep.
And the Scheme he drew out and propounded to himself for the method of this great and useful work was,
- I. * 1.2 To lay the Texts in that Order, that the nature and progress of the Story doth require.
- II. To give his reasons for his so disposing them.
- III. To give some account of the difficulties of the Language in the Original, as he should meet with them.
- IV. To clear and open the sense all along. The way that he took in prosecuting these two last, was to examine Translations in divers Languages, to alledge the various Expo∣sitions, and Opinions of Commentators both Antient and Modern, and also of others, who spake to such and such places occasionally: and then lastly, to pass his own con∣jecture of the probability or improbability of them. Which seemed to be the same course that the Learned Doctor Pocock afterwards took in his late admirable Commen∣tary upon Micah and Malachi.
To all this he designed a large Preface: which should contain Prolegomena of divers things fit to be known, introductory to such a Work. Where he purposed to treat large∣ly and freely upon these five things. (Oh! that it had pleased God so to have disposed his future occasions and opportunities, that he might have accomplished these his useful and brave Designs!)
- I. To fix the certain year of our Saviours birth.
- II. To dispose in their proper places all the dislocations of Texts and Stories in the Old Testament: which are exceeding many. That such dislocations in the New Testa∣ment might be thought the less strange.
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