where it can be applied to different things, fo that there might be Danger of confounding the things, is fometimes deflected with various Terminations, or, &c.

ראשון when applied to Time, is ראש as

when 'tis chief, of what the Text is treating of, as below, 'tis &c. and it will appear, that thefe Deflections are diftinct from any grammatical Variation of this, or any other Word. The shortest way is, (without regard to Truth) to vary the fame Sentence; fo that the fame three Letters may be Verb Active Præterit, and Noun ; because a Verb præterit, by affirming an Agent, then with a Name of another Root, performed an Action, gives the Agent a new Name, by a Noun of the Root, or Letters of that Verb; fo of paffive: fo there need not Noun and Verb, but where the Noun affirms one thing, and the Verb another. So to prove if there be any Action, Condition, or, &c. which is continual, or fo long, that the Acting or &c. may denominate the Agent, or, &c. and make it a Name; fo, whether the Letters of fuch Noun and Participle prefent be varied; fo to prove whether there be any other Part or Parts of Speech expreffed by the fame Letters, or diftinguished by loose Particles; fo to fhew how the fame two or three Letters, with one

or

or two Letters or Vowels, prefixed, or poft-fixed, or one Vowel interpofed may be any other Part of Speech; and a Letter or two poft-fixed, or, &c. may deflect the Root into any peculiar Senfe, as above. So we fuppofe the Hebrew has a Word differently writ, or with a difference in Letters, from the fame Root, for every Alteration, or Variation in its Grammar, except the Verb præterit and the Noun, or as above, or which the Context, or loofe Particles determine; the Verb preterit and Noun, the Participles, and a few Deflections, are all I want for the prefent: fo I leave the reft to be confidered as above.

The Roots are not properly divided in the Concordances, but moftly, as the Apoftates forted them, to ferve their Turns; till that be rectified, 'tis impoffible that the Words, which are fo misplaced, should each conjugate regularly, or take its place in the Word 'tis with, or make the Text Senfe. This has kept Men subject to the Out-Rules, or Rules made for Irregulars, by the Jews, &c. which are most of them falfe.

The Rules, as they term it, in regimine, and the Out Rules, which are true, fuch as of dropping, inferting, tranfpofing, or changing, a Letter, or Particle, come by Obfer

4

Obfervation; and the Reafons will appear to any one, who ftudies it thus, before he has made any great Proficiency in the Language; and the understanding of them will only be of use to him, when he is a Critick; and then he will find, that most of thofe Variations, nay, Omiffions, as Udal. p. 155. fuch as wanting between, and joining the Words witha Makkaph in or between 7 the Secret one to be revealed, the Effence exercifing Powers, which is fpoken, as O the King, the red Earth; which is, as the reft are, Perfections in the Language, which the Grammarians did not, or would not understand; because they did not understand the Ideas in the Objects treated of, or were inferted defignedly to mislead us.

The Jews divide the whole into opus Berefbith, and opus Marquevah.

As this History begins with the first Beings and Things, we fuppofe the Effence of fome Perfons exifted, that is, were poffeffed of Power to act; we must shew them poffeffed of that Effence and Power, and eadeavour to fhew how they came by their Names; they were Rubbim before they were Aleim.

R. Abba, Pug. Fid. p. 333. And, Synagoga Ifraelis in Buxt. Arc. Fed. p. 138.

X

p. 138. cited above, fays, Satan faw a Throne in Heaven, and was informed (perhaps emblematically by what he saw on and above that Throne) that it was refolved that this System, and Man, should be created, &c. and that he saw, what he calls the Light below the Throne; which, what was upon the Throne, called the Meffiah, (both which, Mofes, when the Representation of this was exhibited upon Earth, calls Rubbim) and that Satan refolved to oppose the Defign of the Rubbim, the Happiness of Man; and declared his Resolution to attempt to feduce Man, and overcome that Light, the Meffiah. That, what was upon the Throne, (to which this Rabbi, and their Great Synagogue, make the Devil give a fingular Name) entered into Covenant with this Light, the Meffiah; that if he would wage War with Satan, by withstanding his Temptations, and by Suffering, which he was exhibiting at the foot of the Throne; the World fhould be created ; and if Man fell, what was exhibited there, one Man's being taken into the Effence of the Light, and Suffering, fhould redeem Man from the Grave, and Satan, and Hell; and Satan fhould be deftroyed for this Oppofition, and those Attempts.

Though

;

Though, as far as I can fee into the Writings of the apoftate Jews, there is not one Story, or one Application; but, if you take it together, it is defigned to destroy fome Article of the Chriftian Faith; nay, even those which appear to be Conceffions, and feem to allow confiderable Articles in it, fhew plainly, that they were formed to delude us and deprive us of the pofitive Evidence contained in the Word, Text, or Subject they are treating of; and wherever, the eldeft Writers have made fuch Conceffions, and they have been urged a-part by Chriftian Writers, the later Jews have used their utmoft Efforts to evade or apply them to their own Purposes. So, though thefe Writings may give fome Light to Chriftians, nothing is to be done with the Jews, that way, but by the Method I have undertaken, which they did not understand, so could not fence against it. I fhall cite a few of their Rules, which will spoil many of their Stories. Tela ignea Satana, Carm. Lip. Confut. p. 406.

"It is a no lefs true than common Rule among the Jews, that no Word in Scripture lofes its literal natural Senfe entirely." Pug. Fidei, p. 290. "All the Names of God, which occur in the Scriptures, are derived as is plain from his Works, except

X 2

only