the word from its place. I observe first, that, both here and
elsewhere, the accusation is specifically confined to the Jews; such an offence
is never even hinted against the Christians. These are, indeed, accused of
" forgetting a part of that whereby they were admonished"; and it must
be confessed that there was in that age, as there has been in every age, too
much ground for the imputation. Just so, it might be said to many Mussulmans of
the present day that, in making Tâzeeahs, praying to Peers and Murshids, paying
vows to them, &c., "they have forgotten a part of that whereby they
were admonished" in the Corân. But there is neither here, nor elsewhere,
any imputation against Christians, of "dislocating words from their
places," or even of misinterpreting Scripture and perverting its sense. It
does not therefore (for our present object) much concern us to justify the
Jews from such reproaches; because it is notorious that, from the earliest
times, the entire Jewish Scriptures were possessed by the Christians as well as
by the Jews, and were held by them to be inspired equally with the New
Testament, and like it were regularly read in their Churches. Whatever
liberties, therefore, the Jews might have been inclined to take with their own
sacred books, such attempts could not extend to the copies carefully preserved
by the Christians throughout the world.
Again, the Jews had nothing whatever to do with the New Testament. The
"misinterpretations," "perversions," and
"dislocations," therefore, whatever they may have been, which are
attributed to the Jews, can have no possible reference to the Gospel.
