IF

PREFACE.

any one should chance to be defirous of becoming acquainted with the contents of this Volume, who yet is not much conversant with the Greek Language; it may be very fatisfactory to him, to be previously informed, that the whole Book is written in fuch a Manner, that the Obfervations, contained therein, may be fully comprehended, without the Reader's having any recourse to the Greek Text at all;-only, in that case, giving credit to the Tranflations here offered.

For the Greck Text is every where added with fuch minute exactnefs, chiefly for the fake of fhewing that those Translations are fair and juft; although many of them are very different from the Verfion in common ufe ;—and that they are fuch as fully convey the true meaning of the Original.

It is added also, that, if by accident there should be any real mistakes in any part, fuch mistakes may inftantly be rectified by the Learned;

Learned; and may not be fuffered to become the causes of any lafting error.

The citations from the Septuagint, are taken from the copy of the Alexandrian Manufcript, published by Dr. Grabe, with his Supplementary Additions; and have all been compared with the copy of the Vatican Manufcript, printed by Field, at Cambridge, in 1665 and the difference between them is mentioned wherever it is of any confequence.

And the citations from the Greek Teftament, are taken from the edition published by Mr. Bowyer; who availed himself of all the Erudition of Wetstein and Bengelius, joined to his own great learning and experience.

The feveral paffages have alfo been compared with the Text, as published by Dr. Mill; and, moreover, with the exact copy of the Alexandrian Manuscript, published with so much care and labour by the learned Dr. Weide, Librarian to the British Museum.

And it ought to be still further mentioned; that in the Translations of the several Paffages referred to in this Work, I have generally, and almost uniformly, endeavoured to give to the Greek Words, as far as was poffible, the precife meaning indicated even by the Accents.

But

But as it may be observed, by those most accurately acquainted with the language, that in fome few inftances I have departed very from this Rule, I venture here to premise, that I think myself most fully authorized to make thefe exceptions to the Rule; because, it being a fact that the Alexandrian Manufcript, and the most ancient Copies really have no Accents at all, the Accents can only have been introduced by thofe Editors, or Transcribers, or Printers of the Text, who have given us fubSequent Copies and Editions.

They undoubtedly added them with the utmoft judgement and skill in their power; but yet the meaning conveyed by the Accents cannot poffibly have any greater authority than a mere Tranflation: and indeed is no more fit to command an implicit compliance with its intendment, than any the most modern English Verfion. Wherever, therefore, the Context, or the uniform information from other parts of Scripture, requires that we should venture to doubt of the Authority of fuch Accents, I cannot scruple to give such sense as the plain fimple Word, without the direction of any accent, will admit of; being af

fured

fured that fuch direction was nothing more than the apprehenfion of fome editor of a copy.

The citations in this work, from the Scriptures of the Old Teftament, may be obferved to be made every where from the Septuagint; -and they are the rather made from that excellent Verfion, both because it gives, in many places, a different, and oftentimes a much more fublime turn to many expreffions, than that which we meet with in our tranflation from the Hebrew; and indeed almost always a clearer; and also because this version is unquestionably of the greatest authority, (as has been fully fhewn by Dr. Owen, in his learned Enquiry :) and it has even received the highest fanction, from that well-known circumstance, that our Bleffed Lord Himself, and his Apoftles, almoft continually made use of it, in their references to the words of Mofes, and the Prophets; or at least cited the Scriptures of the Old Teftament, in fuch a manner, that they must be supposed to have referred to that Copy, rather than to any other that we are acquainted with.

I am fully aware, however, that the cau

tion fo judiciously given by Dr. Owen, deserves the utmost attention; and that, after all the weight that can be allowed to the tranflation of the LXX, we nevertheless should not venture to deduce conclufions of high import from the reading of any one fingle Verfe, in any one particular cory of the Septuagint. And therefore, although I verily believe the two copies conjointly, which I have referred to, to be of fufficient authority to support the interpretation of any particular Text;-(and especially in thofe paffages where the expreffions in both are uniformly the fame;)-yet I have not prefumed to draw any inferences of importance from any one fingle paffage in Scripture whatever;-but have deduced the Conclufions in these Sheets, merely from the coinciding and concurrent Testimony of a Variety of moft unquestionably authentic Expreffions and Declarations in the Word of God, as we read it in the Verfion of the LXX; confirmed by the concurrent still Voice and Language of all Nature, and by fuch Phænomena as we have been made acquainted with, in Confequence of most accurate philofophical Experiments, and Enquiries. Nothing is more truly astonishing, in the

world;