Writers to make for them, under each respective Name or Attribute, or at the End of each Clafs in those Words, or Words which comprehend them; whereby the Occafion and Reason for many feemingly irregular, incoherent, and strange Expreffions, Declamations, and Exhortations in the facred Writings, will appear not only to be neceffary and useful, but fublime, beyond Conception. There are not only many Expreflions in Scripture which refer to thefe Names or Attributes of their Aleim, but also many which refer to their Representations, Services, Cuftoms; nay, even to their Imaginations or Dreams in this Worship; and not only as reclaimed, but as defcriptive in the Prophecies, which might eafily be digested.

There are feveral Places in Scripture which have been fuppofed to affert, that the Heathens worshipped Images of Gold, Silver, &c. which they formed or made. I am to obferve, that this is only for want of taking in the whole Speech, and understanding the Method of Speaking, and the Subjects which are spoken of: As all thefe Images were Emblems of the Names, or of the Powers in them, after the divine Writer has enumerated the Images, &c. he in effect fays, they

have no other Objects of Worship, but those which they have made, because Jehovah, Aleim, created, made, formed, &c. the Names; as Exod. xx. 11. 2 Kings xix. 15. 1 Chron. xvi. 26. Ifa. xl. 20. So it concludes, Pfal. cxv. 15. The Names of the Names are to Jehovah. To fhew the Emblems of these Powers would alfo contribute vaftly to explain many Paffages in Scripture, which are accommodated to them; but that would fwell this too much; for Reasons often mentioned, I fhall not be too tedious; and because somebody will hereafter make a Collection of all the reft of the Texts in Scripture, and digest them under each, and so take in what I have omitted.

If one were to examine the (Hebrew Scriptures) Letters between a careful, loving Father, and his only hopeful Son, while the Father himself was Tutor; fee what Directions he gave him at home and abroad, how he enquired into his Conduct, how he reprimanded him, or ordered him to make Acknowledgments, or be chaf tifed for every Crime, and fo every Crime,

c. to be recorded in thofe Letters; and Letters from the fame Father to another Son who had deferted him, and fee how feldom, or how few of his Crimes he takes

notice of, (the Prophecies against the Hea thens) which, as Ifa. xlvii. 6. Obad. v. 10, & al. were moftly for their Barbarity to their elder Brother, when under his Father's Difpleasure, and in Diftrefs: One might think the Deferter had fewer Crimes than the other; but the Complaints against the Deferter, and against any Crime of that Kind in his Favourite Son, are comprehended in Sentences which were not understood, and are innumerable, and are fhewed by fhewing what the Crimes

were.

Tho' the Three Names are diftinguished by their Condition, and though many of the Attributes are immediately performed by One or Two of the Three conditional Names; yet as the whole Substance acts jointly, or all the Three Names join in the Action of each, or in an Action which we call an Attribute, they take in the Three, and call not only One of the Three, or a general Name of Power, Rule, or, &c. but every defcriptive Attri bute, their Aleim, as the Prophets did by the Aleim of the Effence exifting. This, and feveral other Things, fhew, that the Heathens, for a long Time, retained fome of the true Epithets, and a Mixture of the true Religion; and that they, by De

grees,

grees, not only loft the Knowledge of the firft Causes, but of the second Causes; and at laft only paid Service to they knew not what. Hof. xiii. 2, Dana, In their Intelligence, Understanding, Reasoning s they did this, as all who err do.

We are not to imagine, that the People of each Place, who gave the Name of One of the Three, or a Name of Rule or Dominion, or the respective Attribute, to the Temple, did not there pray for every Thing they wanted, under every other Name or Attribute which is mentioned elsewhere, or which they thought the Names had Power to grant; but, as we have but the Hiftory of that one Country, it feems as if there were a Hand of Providence in the Naming of them, that we might know what the People attributed to them, and know the Reason why the Aleim of the Effence exifting, who has all the material Powers, befides the fpiritual Powers, attributed to them, had but one Temple. Whether the People of other Diftricts, which belonged to other Temples, flocked to the Temple where fuch a Power was attributed, to pray for what fuch Attribute expreffed, as fome do now, is likely, though it does not appear.

As fome of the Names of Attribute are compounded, and the Tranflators never intended to let us understand the Conftruction of them; and as we have not yet fettled Rules for that Part, nor for the moveable or changeable Vowels in them; and as a very few of these attributory Names might be formed among the Heathens, after their refpective Languages had undergone fome Alteration, where a Name of Attribute is capable of being compounded of different Words, or fuch a Name feems to be altered from the Hebrew, and is liable to be conftrued two different Ways, I fhall infert it in two Places.

The Conftruction which People put upon the Promises and Performances of God to, and the Threatnings and Executions against the Ifraelites, are perverted, and the Sense of thofe and all the Expreffions of Claim, to the prefent Age, have been loft. The Conteft was not whether they fhould have more Land than they needed, or the Land should bring forth fuch Abundance as to afford them Plenty, or Means of Luxury, fo as to hire them to be good, for filling their Bellies; or whether others fhould take away Part of the Lands they had, or the Fruits of it fhould

be