among those Thieves the wild Arabs, and learn their Language, to learn to fearch the Scripture, to prove me Chrift, and confirm you in the Faith, &c. And after the Antichrift Mahomet arifes, and he and his Followers form Characters, and write a Law directly oppofite to my Terms of Salvation, and my Rules of Living; let my Followers ftudy the Alcoran, their Books and Writings, to the fame End.

But to look back to the Beginning, tho' it would make a Man more wicked than the Devil, to fuggeft that there is any Ambiguity in the Hebrew Words made Use of in the Covenant between the Aleim, in Favour of Man, or in the Publication of the Conditions; I must observe, if there had been any Pretence to have fuggefted that, the Devil must appear very ignorant, who did not lay Hold of that Pretence, but was forced to use several groundless Affertions, to feduce a Woman.

If we view the late Times, what a pitiful Cafe is it, that this Treasure in the Alcoran, &c. was not difcover'd fooner? How filly must the old Doctors and Schoolmen look, who fpent their Time in difputing about the Significations of Words in Tranflations, &c. What Difficulty is there now about Tranfubftantiation, &c.

there be fuch Liberties in the Original ? TreaIt would border too near upon fon, to propose this Ufage of Words among Men, in Covenants, Treaties, Oaths, &c. I fhall only mention the poor, filly, fumbling Excufes People have been forc'd to ufe, fuch as Convenience, the Intereft of the People or State, the Good of the Catholic Church, the Spirit of à Treaty, Equivocations, mental Reservations, &c.

I have, in my other Writings, chosen the propereft Words I could find, and explain'd every Affertion to avoid Ambiguity or Uncertainty: I have avoided that Trouble in this, and only driven at the Points. We can no more be cenfured about the Meaning of Words, till it be determin'd whether each, in the infpired Languages, has the most or the feweft; till the grand Point be fettled, whether the Original, and what depends on it, which are the only Writings I value, be writ infallibly, or with the Liberties affign'd. They who affert those Liberties, have no Right nor Pretence to make any fuch Objections; and if they do, I fhall avoid anfwering any of that Kind. If the Words relating to one Covenant there can be proved to have fo many different Significations, 'tist VOL. IV.

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no Matter to me what becomes of all other Words or Things.

But to the Time to come: Would not admitting this Liberty in the Hebrew, admit it in Words of all Languages which are used for Hebrew Words? Are not the Thirty Nine Articles, the Creeds, Confeffions and Laws, in English and Latin, ambiguous enough? Do not Pleadings, Informations, Indiments, Impeachments, &c. fufficiently fhew, each of many Words admit of various Senfes ? Would it not be a glorious Improvement for Libertines, Malefactors, &c. to introduce the Ufage of the Arabic, or Liberties from it, where each Word might be conftrued in feveral Scores, many in Hundreds of Senfes ? If there could be any Affurance befides these Conjectures, this Affertion, and the Faith of Mahomet and Mahometans, that the Laws of God are to be thus conftrued, or any tolerable Proof that the final Indictments would be drawn up in Hebrew, to be explain'd by Arabic; and that Pleadings in thofe Languages, with those Liberties, would be allowed at the last great Affize; it would be well worth While for fome Divines, and many Lawyers, who efcape here, to ftudy them in all their Latitudes; but till that Evidence appear,

appear, 'tis better to ftudy the Hebrew to other Purposes.

But if any one please to endeavour to reform the mifconftrued or mifufed Paffages or Words in the Arabic, to those in the Original, I am for it; but if he offer to make the Original bend to the Alcoran, he is qualified to be a Muffulman, and I wish he were reformed, or among them.

As the true Confeflion was to be preferved without Intermiffion, or falling away, and restoring; as that was done more immediately in the Family of Abraham, before Writing, fo was it to be preferved by the Language of Abraham's Pofterity, the Hebrew, after Writing, and in no other. Pfal. cxlvii. 19. He fheweth his Words unto Jacob, his Statutes and his Judgments unto Ifrael: He hath not dealt fo with any Nation; and as for his Judgments, they have not known them. St. Paul calls them, Rom. i. 2. Holy Scriptures; ib. iii. 1, What Advantage hath the Jew? Much every Way, chiefly, because that unto them was committed the Oracles of God. Notwithstanding all the Fallings away, God had ftill Confeffors there, in the Tabernacle and firft Temple, while they fubfifted; and afterwards, not only there, but in the Captivity, the Prophets, or &c. and

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and after in the second Temple, by thofe who preferved the Knowledge of the chief Points in the Hebrew Tongue, wherein they could only be properly expreffed, tilk the coming of Chrift, when another Confeffion fucceeded, and was engrafted upon it: So the falfe Confeffion was to be confounded, because Christianity could not be planted, nor cannot grow, till these Sorts of Judaism and Heathenifm were, or be destroy'd. And as that Language preferv'd the Knowledge of that Confeffion till it had brought forth the Fruit, fo the Evidence of the Root, Stem, &c. of that engrafted Creed, was to be preferved to all Pofterity, in that Language; and without preferving the Knowledge of that Language, we cannot preferve the Confeffion of that Faith. By what other Means, or in what other Method God could have preferved it, he, by his infinite Knowledge, may fee; but I cannot fee the leaft Poffibility how it could have been preserved any other Way.

It was never intended that this Faith should be transcribed into Greek, so Chrift fays, John v. 46, For bad ye believed Mofes, ye would bave believed me, for he wrote of me: Not only as our Notes in the Margin,