Chapter 4

CHAP. 4.

1. The original of the Points proposed to consideration in particular. 2. The importance of the points to the right understanding of the Scripture; the testimony of Morinus, Junius, Johannes Isaac, Cevallerius, and others. 3. The use made by the Papists of the opinion of the Novelty of the Points. 4. The importance of the Points further manifested. The extreme danger of making the Hebrew Punctuation Arbitrary. 5. That danger evinced by Instance. 6. No relief against that Danger, on the grounds of the opinion considered. 7. The Authors of the Hebrew Punctuation according to the Prolegomena: who and what. Morinus's folly. The improbability of this pretence. 8. The state of the Jews, the supposed inventors of the Points after the destruction of the Temple. 9. Two attempts made by them to restore their Religion. The former under Bar Kokhba with its issue. 10. The second under Rabbi Juda, with its issue. 11. The rise and foundation of the Talmuds. 12. The state of the Jews upon, and after the writing of the Talmuds. 13. Their rancor against Christ. 14. Who the Tiberian Massorites were, that are the supposed Authors of the Hebrew Punctuation: their description. 15. That figment rejected. 16. The late Testimony of Doctor Lightfoot to this purpose. 17. The rise of the opinion of the Novelty of the Points. Of Elias Levita. The value of his Testimony in this case. 18. Of the Validity of the Testimony of the Jewish Rabbins. 19. Some considerations about the antiquity of the Points; the first from the nature of the Punctuation itself, in reference unto Grammatical Rules. 20. From the Chaldee Paraphrase, and integrity of the Scripture as now pointed.

This being in my Apprehension the state of things amongst us, I hope I may without offense proceed to the consideration of the particulars before mentioned, from whence it is feared that Objections may arise against the purity and self-evidencing power of the Scriptures pleaded for in the foregoing Treatise. That which in the first place was mentioned, is the Assertion of the Points, or vowels and Accents to be a novel invention of some Rabbins of Tiberias in Palestine. This the learned Author of the Prolegomena defends with Capellus's Arguments, and such other Additions as he was pleased to make use of. To clear up the concernments of our Truth in this Particular, it will be necessary to consider, first, what influence into the right understanding of the Text these points have, and necessarily must have. Secondly, What is their Original, or who their Invention is ascribed unto in these Prolegomena. As to the assertive part of this controversy, or the vindication of their true sacred Original, some other occasion may call for additions to what is now (by the way) insisted on. And as I shall not oppose them who maintain that they are Coeval with the letters, which are not a few of the most learned Jews and Christians; so I no ways doubt, but that as we now enjoy them, we shall yet manifest that they were completed by the men of the great Synagogue, Ezra and his Companions, guided therein by the infallible direction of the spirit of God.

Section 2. That we may not seem [Greek], or to contend de lana caprina, the importance of these points as to the right understanding of the Word of God, is first to be considered, and that from Testimony and the nature of the thing itself. Marinus in his preface to his Hebrew Lexicon, tells us that without the points, no certain truth can be learned from the Scriptures in that Language, seeing all things may be read diverse ways, so that there will be more confusion in that one tongue, than was amongst all those at Babylon. (Nulla igitur certa doctrina poterit tradi de hac lingua, cum omnia possint diversimodo legi, ut futura sit major confusio unicae hujus linguae, quam illa Babylonis). Morinus plainly affirms that it is so indeed: instancing in the word [Hebrew], which as it may be variously pointed, has at least eight several significations, and some of them as distant from one another, as heaven and earth. And to make evident the uncertainty of the language on this account, he gives the like Instance in c. r. s. in Latin. Junius in the close of his Animadversions on Bellarmine de verbo Dei book 2 chapter 2, Commends that saying of Johannes Isaac against Lindanus: he that reads the Scriptures without points, is like a man that rides a horse, without a bridle; he may be carried he knows not whither. Radulphus Cevallerius goes further, Rudiments of the Hebrew Language chapter 4. Quod superest de vocalium and Accentuum antiquitate, eorum sententiae subscribo, qui linguam Hebraeam tanquam omnium aliarum [Greek] absolutissimum plane ab initio scriptam confirmant: quandoquidem qui contra sentiunt, non modo authoritatem sacrae scripturae dubiam efficiunt, sed radicitus (meo quidem judicio) convellunt, quod absque vocalibus and distinctionum notis, nihil certi firmique habeat. As for the antiquity of the vowels and Accents (saith he) I am of their opinion, who maintain the Hebrew language as the exact pattern of all others, to have been plainly written (with them) from the beginning: seeing that they who are otherwise minded, do not only make doubtful the Authority of the Scriptures, but in my judgment wholly pluck it up by the roots. For without those vowels and notes of distinction, it has nothing firm and certain.

In this man's judgment, (which also is my own) it is evident to all, how obnoxious to the opinion now opposed the Truth is that I am contending for.

To these also may be added the Great Buxtorfs, father and son. Gerard Glassius, Voetius. Flacius Illyricus, Polanus, Whitaker, Hassret, Wolthius.

Section 3. It is well known what use the Papists make of this conceit. Bellarmine maintains that there are errors crept into the original by this addition of the points. De Verbo Dei book 2 chapter 2. Hisce duabus sententiis refutatis restat tertia quam ego verissimam puto, quae est, scripturas Hebraicas non esse in universum depravatas opera and malitia Judaeorum, nec tamen omnino esse integras and puras, sed habere suos errores quosdam, qui partim irrepserint negligentia and ignorantia librariorum, etc: partim ignorantia Rabbinorum qui puncta addiderunt: itaque possumus si volumus puncta detrahere, and aliter legere. These two opinions being confuted, the third remains which I suppose to be most true, which is that the Hebrew scriptures are not universally corrupted by the malicious work of the Jews, nor yet are wholly pure or entire, but that they have errors, which have crept in partly by the negligence and ignorance of the transcribers, partly by the ignorance of the Rabbins who added the points: whence we may if we please reject the points and read otherwise.

In the voluminous opposition to the Truth made by that learned man, I know nothing more perniciously spoken: nor do yet know how his inference can be avoided, on the hypothesis in Question. To what purpose this insinuation is made by him is well known, and his Companions in design exactly declare it. That their Hebrew Text be corrected by the Vulgar Latin, is the express desire of Gregory de Valentia, Volume 1 disputation 5 question 3: and that because the Church has approved that Translation, it being corrected (says Huntly) by Jerome before the invention of points. But this is put out of doubt by Morinus, who from hence argues the Hebrew tongue to be a very nose of wax, to be turned by men which way they please: and to be so given of God on purpose, that men might subject their consciences to their infallible Church: Exercitationes book 1, exercitation 1 chapter 2. Great has been the endeavor of this sort of men, wherein they have left no stone unturned, to decry the originals. Some of them cry out that the old Testament is corrupted by the Jews, as 1. Leo Castrius, 2. Gordonius Huntlaeus, 3. Melchior Canus; 4. Petrus Galatinus, Morinus, Salmeron, Pintus; Mersennus, Animadversions in Problemata Georgii Venet, etc. page 233: that many corruptions have crept into it, by negligence, and the carelessness of Scribes, so 7 Bellarmine, 8 Genebrard, 9 Sixtus Sinensis with most of the rest of them; In these things indeed they have been opposed by the most learned of their own side; as 10 Arias Montanus; 11 Johannes Isaac: 12 Pineda, 13 Masius, 14 Ferrarius, 15 Andradius and sundry others who speak honorably of the Originals; But in nothing do they so pride themselves, as in this conceit of the Novelty of the Hebrew punctuation; whereby they hope with Abimelech's servants utterly to stop the wells or fountains, from whence we should draw our souls' refreshment.

Section 4. This may serve for a short view of the Opinions of the parties at variance, and their several interests in these Opinions. The importance of the points is on all hands acknowledged, whether aiming at the Honor, or dishonor of the Originals. Vowels are the life of words; Consonants without them are dead and immovable, by them are they carried to any sense, and may be to diverse. It is true that men who have come to acquaintance with the scriptures by the help of the Vowels and Accents, being in possession of an habitual notion and apprehension of that sense and meaning which arises from them, may possibly think that it were a facile thing to find out and fix upon the same sense by the help of the matres lectionis, and the Consideration of Antecedents and Consequents with such like Assistances. But let them be all taken out of the way (as I shall manifest it is fit they should be, if they have the original assigned to them by the Prolegomena) and let men lay aside that Advantage they have received from them, and it will quickly appear into what devious ways all sorts of such Persons will run. Scarce a Chapter, it may be a verse, or a Word, in a short time would be left free from perplexing contradicting conjectures. The Words are altogether innumerable whose significations may be varied, by an arbitrary supplying of the points. And when the Regulation of the punctuation shall be left to every single Person's conjectures upon Antecedents and Consequents (for who shall give a rule to the rest) what end shall we have of fruitless contests? What various, what pernicious senses shall we have to contend about? Suppose that men sober, modest, humble, pious, might be preserved from such miscarriages, and be brought to some agreement about these things, (which yet in these days upon many accounts is not to be looked for; yea from the nature of the thing itself seems impossible) yet this gives us but a human fallible persuasion that the readings fixed on by them, is according to the mind of God; But to expect such an agreement is fond and foolish. Besides who shall secure us against the luxuriant Atheistical Wits and spirits of these days who are bold upon all advantages, and to break in upon every thing that is holy and sacred; that they will not by their huckstering, utterly corrupt the Word of God? How easy is it to foresee the dangerous consequents of contending for various readings, though not false nor pernicious, by men pertinaciously adhering to their own conjectures? The Word of God, as to its literal sense, or Reading of the words of it, has hitherto been [Greek], and the acknowledged touchstone of all Expositions; Render this now a [Greek], and what have we remaining firm and unshaken?

Section 5. Let men with all their confidence as to the knowledge of the sense and meaning of the Scriptures which they have already received by such helps and means as are all of them resolved into the present punctuation of the Bible, (For all Grammars, all Lexicons, the whole Masora, all helps to this language, new and old in the world, are built on this foundation) reduce themselves to such an indifference, as some of late have fancied as a meet rise for knowledge; and fall seriously to the Reading of some of the Prophets whose matter is sublime and Mystical, and their Style elliptical and abstruse, without the help of points and Accents: Let them fix them, or any figures to answer their sounds arbitrarily, merely on their judgment in the Language, and conjectures at the sense of the place, without any advantage from what they have been instructed in, and let us see whether they will agree as they fabulously report of the seventy Translators? Whatever may be the issue of their industry, we need not fear quickly to find as learned as they, that would lay their work level with the ground. I confess considering the days we live in, wherein the bold and curious wits of men, under pretense of critical observations, alluring and enticing with a show of Learning have ventured to question almost every word in the Scripture, I cannot but tremble to think, what would be the issue of this supposition, that the Points, Vowels and Accents are no better guides unto us, than may be expected from those who are pretended to be their Authors. The Lord I hope will safeguard his own, from the poison of such Attempts; The least of its evil, is yet thoroughly considered. So that whereas saving to myself the liberty of my Judgment, as to sundry particulars both in the impression itself and in sundry Translations, I acknowledge the great usefulness of this work, and am thankful for it, which I here publicly testify; yet I must needs say, I had rather that it, and all works of the like kind, were out of the world, than that this one opinion should be received, with the Consequences that unavoidably attend it,

Section 6. But this trial needs not be feared. Grant the points to have the Original pretended, yet they deserve all regard, and are of singular use for the right understanding of the scripture: so that it is not lawful to depart from them, without urgent necessity, and Evidences of a better lection to be substituted in the room of that refused. But as this relieves us not, but still leaves us within the sphere of rational conjectures. So whether it can honestly be pretended and pleaded in this case, comes next to be discovered by the consideration of the supposed Authors of this Invention.

Section 7. The founders of this story of the Invention of the Hebrew points, tell us, that it was the Work of some Rabbis, living at Tiberias a City in Galilee, about the year of Christ 500, or in the next Century, after the death of Jerome, and the finishing of the Babylonian Talmud; The improbability of this story or Legend, I am not now to insist upon. Morinus makes the lie louder. He tells us that the Babylonian Talmud was finished but a little before the year 700, Exercise 2, Chapter 3, latter part: that the Masoretes (to whom he ascribes the invention of the points) wrote a long time after the finishing of the Talmud, and the year 700 page 5, chapter 3; this long time cannot denote less than some hundreds of years. And yet the same man in his preface to his Samaritica Opuscula; boasting of his finding Rabbi Juda Chiug manifests that he was acquainted with the present punctuation, and wrote about it. Now this Rabbi was a Grammarian; which kind of learning among the Jews succeeded that of the Masoretes. And he lived about the year 1030; so that no room at all seems to be left for this work. That there was formerly a School of the Jews, and learned men famous at Tiberias is granted. Jerome tells us that he hired a learned Jew from thence for his assistance, Epistle to Chromatius: Among others, Doctor Lightfoot hath well traced the shadow of their Sanhedrin with their presidents in it, in some kind of succession to that place. That they continued there in any esteem, number or Reputation, unto the time designed by our Authors for this Work, is not made to appear from any History or record of Jews or Christians; yea it is certain, that about the time mentioned the chiefest flourishing of the Jewish Doctors was at Babylon, with some other Cities in the East, where they had newly completed their Talmud, the great Pandect of Jewish Laws and constitutions as themselves everywhere witness and declare. That any persons considerably learned were then in Tiberias is a mere conjecture. And it is most improbable, considering what destruction had been made of them at Diocaesarea and Tiberias, about the year of Christ 352, by Gallus at the command of Constantius. That there should be such a collection of them, so learned, so Authorized; as to invent this Work, and impose it on all the world, no man once taking notice that any such persons ever were, is beyond all belief. Notwithstanding any entanglements that men by their conjectures may put upon the persuasion of the Antiquity of the points, I can as soon believe the most incredible figment in the whole Talmud, as this fable. But this is not my business; Let it be granted, that such Persons there were; on the supposition under consideration, I am only enquiring what is the state and condition of the present Hebrew pointing, and what weight is to be laid thereon. That the Reader then may a little consider what sort of men they were, who are assigned in these Prolegomena as the Inventors of this Artifice of punctuation, I shall take a brief view of the state of the Jews after the destruction of the Temple down to the days enquired after.

Section 8. That the Judaical Church state continued, not only de facto, but in the merciful forbearance of God so far, that the many thousands of Believers that constantly adhered to the Mosaic worship, were accepted with God, until the destruction of the Temple; that, that destruction was the ending of the world that then was by fire, and the beginning of setting up solemnly the new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness, I have at large elsewhere declared, and may God assisting yet farther manifest in my thoughts on the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. The time between the beginning of Christ's preaching, to the utter desolation of the City and Temple, an open visible rejection of that Church, as such was made. Thereon an utter separation of the true Israel from it ensued; and the hardened residue became [Greek text] and [Greek text] a people not in Covenant or Delight, but of curse and indignation. What their state was for a season, onwards both civil and Religious many have declared. I shall only insist on the heads of things. In general then, they were most remote from accepting of the punishment of their sin, or considering that God was revenging upon them the quarrel of his Covenant to the utmost, having broken both his staves, Beauty and Bands. So far were they from owning their sin in selling of their Messiah, that seeing an End put to all their former worship thereupon, there is nothing recorded of them but these two things, which they wholly in direct opposition unto God gave themselves up unto. (1) They increased in rage and madness against all the followers of Christ, stirring up persecution against them all the world over. Hereunto they were provoked by a great number of Apostates, who when they could no longer retain their Mosaic rites with the profession of Christ; being rejected by the Churches, fell back again to Judaism or semi-Judaism. Secondly. A filthy lusting and desire after their former worship now become abominable, and a badge of infidelity, that so their table might become a snare unto them, and what had been for their safety, might now become the means of their utter ruin and hardening. Of the former, or their stirring up of Persecution, all stories are full of Examples and Instances. The latter, or their desires and attempts for the Restoration of their worship, as conducing to our present business, must be farther considered.

Section 9. For the Accomplishment of a design to restore their old Religion, or to furnish themselves with a new, they made two desperate Attempts. The first of these was by Arms under their Pseudo-Messiah Bar Kokhba, in the days of Hadrian. Under the conduct and influencings of this man, to whom one of the chief Rabbis, (Akiva) was armor bearer; in the pursuit of a design to restore their Temple and Worship, they fell into Rebellion against the Romans all the World over. In this work, after they had committed unheard of outrages, Massacres, unparalleled murders spoils and cruelties, and had shaken the whole Empire, they were themselves in all parts of the World, especially in the City Betar, where was the head of their Rebellion, ruined with a destruction, seeming equal to that which befell them at Jerusalem, in the days of Vespasian and Titus.

That the Rise of this war was upon the twofold cause mentioned, namely their desire to retain their former worship, and to destroy the Christian is evident. For the first it is expressed by Dio Cassius, History of Rome book 69 in the life of Hadrian [Greek text]. It was the defiling of the soil whereon the temple stood, which God suffered on set purpose, to manifest their utter rejection, and that the time was come wherein he would be no more worshipped in that place in the old manner, that put them in arms, as that Author declares at large. And for the latter, Justin Martyr, who lived at that time informs us of it, Apology 2 to Antoninus Pius: [Greek text]. His fury was in an especial manner against the Christians, whom he commanded to be tortured and slain, unless they would deny and blaspheme Jesus Christ. See Eusebius Chronicle at the year of Christ 136. And this war they managed with such fury, and for a while success, that after Hadrian had called together against them the most experienced soldiers in the world, particularly Julius Severus out of England, and had slain of them five hundred and eighty thousand in battle, with an infinite number besides as the Historian speaks by famine, sickness and fire were consumed, He found himself to have sustained so much loss by them, that he began not his letter to the Senate in the wonted manner; [Greek text]; He could not assure them, that it was well with him and his army.

By this second desolation they were very low, made weak and contemptible, and driven into obscurity all the world over. In this state they wandered up and down for some season in all manner of Uncertainty. They had not only lost the place of their solemn worship, seeing it wholly defiled, the name of Jerusalem changed into Aelia, and themselves forbid to look towards it upon pain of death, but also being now unspeakably diminished in their number, all hopes of contriving themselves into any condition of observing their old rites and worship was utterly lost.

Section 10. Here they sat down amazed for a season; being at their wits end, as was threatened to them in the Curse. But they will not rest so. Considering therefore that their old Religion could not be continued without a Jerusalem and a Temple, they began a nefarious attempt against God, equal to that of the old world in building Babel, even to set up a new Religion, that might abide with them wherever they were, and give them countenance in their Infidelity, and opposition to the Gospel unto the utmost. The head of this new Apostasy was one Rabbi Jehuda, whom we may not unfitly call the Mahomet of the Jews. They term him Hannasi, the Prince, and Hakkadosh, the holy. The whole story of him and his companions, as reported by the Jews, is well collected by Joseph de Voisin, observations in proem to Pugio Fidei pages 26, 27. The sum of the whole concerning this work is laid down by Maimonides, in his preface in Seder Zeraiim, pages 36, 37, of the edition of Mister Pococke, wherein also a sufficient account is given of the whole Mishnah, with the name of the Rabbins, either employed in it, or occasionally mentioned. This man about the year of Christ 190, or 200, when the Temple had now lain waste almost three times as long as it did in the Babylonish Captivity, being countenanced as some of themselves report, by Antoninus Pius, compiled the Jewish Alcoran, or the Mishnah, as a Rule of their worship and ways for the future. Only whereas Mahomet afterwards pretended to have received his figments by Revelation, (though indeed he had much of his Abominations from the Talmud) this man pleaded the receiving of his by Tradition; the two main Engines that have been set up against the Word of God. Out of such Pharisaical Traditions as were indeed preserved amongst them, and such Observances as they had learned and taken up from Apostate Christians, as Aquila and others, with such figments as were invented by himself and his predecessors, since the time of their being publicly rejected and cursed by God, This man compiled the Mishnaioth, which is the Text of their Talmud, and the foundation of their present Religion, under the name of the old oral Law. That sundry Christian Ceremonies and institutions vilely corrupted were taken up by the Jews of those days, many of them being Apostates, as were also some of Mahomet's Assistants in compiling of the Alcoran, I shall (God assisting) elsewhere endeavor to evince and manifest. That any Gospel observances were taken from the Jews, as being in practice amongst them, before their institution by Christ will appear in the issue to be a bold and groundless fancy.

Section 11. The foundation mentioned being laid in a Collection of Traditions, and new invention of Abominations under the name of old Traditions by this Rabbi the following Talmuds are an improvement of the same attempt, of setting up a Religion under the Curse, and against the mind and Will of God; that being rejected by him, and left without King, without Prince, without sacrifice, without image, without an Ephod, and without a Teraphim, and kind of worship, true or false, they might have something to give them countenance in their unbelief. The Talmud of Jerusalem, so called, (for it is the product of many comments on the Mishnah in the city of Tiberias, where Rabbi Juda lived) because it was compiled in the land of Canaan, whose metropolis was Jerusalem, was published about the year of Christ 230, so it is commonly received; though I find Doctor Lightfoot of late, on supposition of finding in it the name of Diocletianus the Emperor, to give it a later date. But I confess I see no just ground for the alteration of his judgment, from what he delivered in another Treatise before. The Doclet mentioned by the Rabbins was beaten by the Children of Rabbi Jehuda Princeps (as himself observes) who lived in the days of one of the Antoninus's, an hundred years before Diocletian. Neither was ever Diocletian in a Low condition in the East, being a Sarmatian born, and living in the Western parts; only he went with Numerianus that Expedition into Persia, wherein he was made Emperor at his return: but this is nothing to my purpose. See Lightfoot Chronographia chapter 81 page 144. The Babylonian Talmud so called, because compiled in the land of Babylon, in the cities of Nahardea, Sora, and Pumbeditha, where the Jews had their Synagogues and schools, was finished about the year 506 or 510. In this greater work was the mystery of their iniquity finished, and the Engine of their own Invention for their further obduration perfectly completed. These are now the Rule of their faith, the measure of their Exposition of Scriptures, the directory of their worship, the ground of their hope and Expectation.

Section 12. All this while the Jews enjoyed the Letter of the Scriptures, as they do to this day, yea they receive it sometimes with the honor and Veneration due to God alone. God preserved it amongst them for our present use, their further condemnation, and means of their future conversion. But after the destruction of the Temple, and rejection of their whole Church-state, the Word was no longer committed to them of God, nor were they intrusted with it, nor are to this day. They have it not by promise, or Covenant, as they had of old. Isaiah 59:21. Their possession of it is not accompanied with the Administration of the spirit, without which, as we see in the instance of themselves, the Word is a dead letter, of no efficacy for the Good of souls. They have the letter amongst them, as sometimes they had the Ark in the battle against the Philistines, for their greater ruin.

Section 13. In this state and condition they every where discover their rancor and malice against Christ, calling him in contempt and reproach [Hebrew], who is [Hebrew] relating monstrous figments concerning him, and their dealing with him, under the name of Jesus the son of Pandira. Some deny that by Jesus the son of Pandira and Stada in the Talmud the blessed Messias is intended. So did Galatinus Arcanum Religionis Catholicae book 1 chapter 7 and Reuchlins Cabala book 1 page 636. Gulielmus Schickard in Proem Tarich page 83. The contrary is asserted by Reynoldus praelectiones in book Apocalypse praelectiones 103 pages 405, 406. Buxtorfius lexicon Rabbinical word [Hebrew] and also in [Hebrew]; Vorstius notes to Tzemach David page 264. And in truth the Reason pleaded by Galatinus and others, to prove that they did not intend our Savior doth upon due consideration evince the contrary. The Jesus (say they) who is mentioned in the Talmud, lived in the days of the Maccabees, being slain in the time of Hyrcanus or of Aristobulus, an 100 years before the death of the true Messias: so that it cannot be he who is by them intended. But this is invented by the cursed wretches, that it should not appear that their Temple was so soon destroyed after their wicked defection from God, in killing of his son. This is most manifest from what is cited by Genebrard from Abraham Levita in his Cabala historiae, where he says, that Christians invented this story that Jesus was crucified in the life of Herod, (that is the Tetrarch) that it might appear that their Temple was destroyed immediately thereupon: when (saith he) it is evident from the Mishnah, and Talmud, that he lived in the time of Alexander, and was crucified in the days of Aristobulus. So discovering the true ground why they perverted the whole story of his Time: namely lest all the world should see their sin and punishment standing so near together. But it is well, that the time of our Savior's suffering and death was affirmed even by the Heathens, before either their Mishnah or Talmud were born or thought of. Abolendo rumori (he speaks of Nero of his firing Rome) subdidit reos; & quaesitissimis poenis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat. Author nominis ejus Christus, qui Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat. Tacitus Annales book 15. To return to our Jews: universally in all their old Writings, they have carried on a design of impugning him in his Gospel. For as we need not their testimony, nor any thing but the Scripture for their Conviction and [Greek], so to acknowledge the truth, the places cited out of their Talmuds and Gemara, from the Cabalists and other Rabbins, by Martinus Raymundus, Porchetus, Galatinus, Reuchlinus, and others,) setting aside Galatinus his Gale Rezeia which must be set aside) seem to be wrested the most of them besides their intentions, as things obscurely, Metaphorically, and Mystically written, are easily dealt withal. Their disputes about the Messiah, when they speak of him of set purpose, as in book sanhedrin, are foolish contradictious triflings, wherein they leave all things as uncertain, as if they were wrangling in their wonted manner, de lana Caprina. So that for my part, I am not much removed from the opinion of Hulsius (book 1 part 2 dic: sup. de Tempore Messiae) that Aesop's fables are of as much use in Christian Religion, as the Judaical Talmud. Whilst they keep the Scripture, we shall never want Weapons out of their own armory for their destruction. Like the Philistine, they carry the weapon that will serve to cut off their own Heads. Now the Tiberian Masoretes, the supposed Inventors of the points, vowels and Accents, which we now use, were men living after the finishing the last Talmud, whose whole Religion was built thereon.

Section 14. Let us then a little, without prejudice or passion, consider who, or what these men were, who are the supposed Authors of this work. 1. Men they were (if any such were) who had not the Word of God committed to them in a peculiar manner, as their forefathers had of old, being no part of his Church or People, but were only outwardly possessors of the Letter, without just Right or Title to it; utterly uninterested in the promise of the communication of the Spirit, which is the great Charter of the Churches preservation of truth: Isaiah 59:21. 2. Men so remote from a right understanding of the Word, or the Mind and Will of God therein, that they were desperately engaged to oppose his Truth in the Books which themselves enjoyed in all matters of importance unto the Glory of God, or the Good of their own souls, from the beginning to the ending. The foundation of whose Religion, was infidelity, and one of their chief fundamentals an opposition to the Gospel. 3. Men under the special Curse of God, and his vengeance, upon the Account of the Blood of his dear Son. 4. Men all their days feeding themselves with vain fables, and mischievous devices against the Gospel, laboring to set up a new Religion under the name of the old, in despite of God, so striving to wrestle it out with his curse to the utmost. 5. Men of a profound ignorance in all manner of Learning and knowledge, but only what concerned their own dunghill Traditions; as appears in their stories, wherein they make Pirrhus King of Epirus, help Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem; with innumerable the like fopperies. 6. Men so addicted to such monstrous figments, as appears in their Talmuds, as their successors of after ages are ashamed of, and seek to palliate, what they are able; yea for the most part Idolaters and Magicians, as I shall evince. Now I dare leave it to the judgment of any godly prudent person, not addicted to parties and names of men, who is at all acquainted with the importance of the Hebrew vowels and Accents unto the right understanding of the Scripture, with what influence their present fixation hath into the literal sense we embrace, whether we need not very clear evidence and Testimony, yea undeniable and unquestionable, to cast the rise and spring of them upon the invention of this sort of men.

Section 15. Of all the fables that are in the Talmud, I know none more incredible than this story: that men, who cannot by any story or other record, be made to appear, that they ever were in rerum natura: such men, as we have described, obscure, unobserved, not taken notice of by any Learned man, Jew or Christian, should in a time of deep ignorance in the place where they lived, amongst a people wholly addicted to monstrous fables, themselves blinded under the Curse of God, find out so great, so excellent a work, of such unspeakable usefulness, not once advising with the men of their own profession and Religion, who then flourished in great abundance at Babylon, and the places adjacent, and impose it on all the World (that receive the Scriptures) and have every Tittle of their work received, without any opposition or question, from any person or persons, of any principle whatever; yea so, as to have their Invention made the constant Rule of all following Expositions, Comments, and Interpretations: Credat Apella.

To draw then to the close of this discourse; I must crave liberty to profess, that if I could be thoroughly convinced, that the present Hebrew punctuation were the figment and invention of these men, I should labour to the utmost to have it utterly taken away out of the Bible, nor should (in its present station) make use of it any more. What use such an Invention might be of under catholic rules in a way of Grammar, I shall not dispute; but to have it placed in the Bible, as so great a part of the Word of God, is not tolerable. But blessed be God, things are not as yet come to that pass. I shall only add, that whereas some of the most eminently learned and exercised persons in all the learning and Antiquity of the Jews, that these latter ages have produced, have appeared in the confutation of this fancy of the Invention of the points by some Post-Talmudical Masoretes, I am sorry their respect to the Rabbis hath kept them from the management of this consideration, which is to me of so great Importance.

Section 16. To what I have spoken, I shall add the words of learned Doctor Lightfoot in his late Centuria Chorographia which came to my hands since the finishing of this discourse, chapter 81 page 146. sunt qui punctata Biblia credunt à sapientibus Tiberiensibus; (he means Elias only, for other Jews of this opinion there are none) Ego impudentiam Judaeorum, qui fabulam invenerunt non miror: Christianorum credulitatem miror, qui applaudunt. Recognosce (quaeso) nomina Tiberiensium, à sita illic primum Academia ad eam expirantem: et quidnam tandem invenies, nisi genus hominum, prae Pharisaismo insaniens, traditionibus fascinans et fascinatum, coecum, vafrum, delirum; ignoscant, si dicam Magicum, et monstrosum? ad opus tam divinum homines quàm ineptos, quàm stolidos! Perlege Talmud Hierosolymitanum, et nota qualiter illic se habeant Rabbi Juda, Rabbi Chamnath, Z. Judan, Rabbi Hoshaia, Rabbi Chaija Rubba, Rabbi Chaija bar Ba, Rabbi Jochanan, reliquique inter Tiberienses grandissimi doctores, quàm seriò nihil agunt, quàm pueriliter seria, quanta in ipsorum disputationibus vafrities, spuma, venenum, fumus, nihil: et si punctata fuisse Biblia in istiusmodi Schola potes credere, crede et omnia Talmudica. Opus spiritûs sancti sapit punctatio Bibliorum, non opus hominum perditorum, excaecatorum, amentium. In the words of this learned person there is the sum of what I am pleading for. Saith he, I do not admire the Jews Impudence, who found out that fable; I** admire Christians credulity who applaud it. Recount I pray the names of the Tiberians from the first foundation of an University there to the expiring thereof, and what do you find, but a sort of men being mad with (or above) the Pharisees, bewitching and bewitched with traditions, blind, crafty, raging; pardon me if I say Magical, and monstrous? what fools, what Sots as to such a divine work? Read over the Talmud of Jerusalem, consider how Rabbi Juda, Rabbi Chanina, Rabbi Chajia Bar Ba, Rabbi Jochanan, Rabbi Jonathan, and the rest of the great Doctors among the Tiberians do behave themselves? how seriously they do of nothing? how childish they are in serious things, how much deceitfulness, froth, venom, smoke, nothing, in their disputations: and if you can believe the points of the bible to proceed from such a school, believe also all their Talmuds; the pointing of the Bible savours of the work of the holy spirit, not of wicked, blind, and mad men.

Section 17. The Jews generally believe these points to have been from Mount Sinai, and so downward by Moses and the Prophets; at least from Ezra and his companions, the men of the great synagogue, not denying that the use and knowledge of them received a great reviving by the Gemarists and Masoretes, when they had been much disused; so Rabbi Azarias at large; Imre Binah. chapter 59.

Had it been otherwise, surely men stupendously superstitious in inquiring after the Traditions of their Fathers would have found some footsteps of their Rise and progress. It is true, there is not only the opinion, but there are the Arguments of one of them to the contrary, namely Elias Levita; This Elias lived in Germany about the beginning of the Reformation, and was the most learned Grammarian of the Jews in that age. Sundry of the first Reformers had acquaintance with him; The task not only of reforming Religion, but also of restoring good literature being incumbent on them, they made use of such assistances as were to be obtained then to that purpose. This man (which Thuanus takes notice of) lived with Paulus Fagius, and assisted him in his noble promotion of the Hebrew tongue. Hence happily it is that some of those worthies, unwarily Embraced his novel opinion, being either over borne with his Authority, or not having leisure to search farther after the Truth. That the Testimony of this one Elias should be able to outweigh the constant Attestation of all other learned Jews to the contrary, as Capellus affirms and pleads, and as is insinuated in our Prolegomena, is fond to imagine; and the premises of that learned man fight against his own conclusion. It is known saith he, that the Jews are prone to insist on every thing that makes for the honour of their people and Language, and therefore their testimony, to the Divine original of the present punctuation being in their own case, is not to be admitted. Only Elias who in this speaks against the common interest of his people is presumed to speak upon conviction of truth. But the whole evidence in this cause is on the other side. Let us grant that all the Jews are zealous of the honour and reputation of their Nation and Language; as they are: let us grant that they greedily close with every thing, that may seem to have a tendency thereunto? what will be the issue, or natural inference from these Premises? Why as nothing could be spoken more honourably of the Jews, whilst they were the Church and people of God, than that of Paul, that to them were committed the oracles of God, so nothing can be imagined or fixed on, more to their honour, since their divorce from God, than that their Doctors and Masters should make such an addition to the scripture, so generally acknowledged to be unspeakably useful. And to this purpose Elias who was the Father of this Opinion, was far from making such deductions thence as some do now adays; namely, that it is lawful for us to change the Vowels and Accents at our pleasure; But ties all men as strictly to them as if they had been the work of Ezra; It is Elias then that speaks in his own case; whose Testimony is therefore not to be admitted. What was done of old, and in the days of Ezra is ours, who succeed into the privileges of that Church; what hath been done since the destruction of the Temple, is properly and peculiarly theirs.

Section 18. It may perhaps be thought that by the account given of the Rabbis, their state and condition of old and of late, I might have weakened one great Argument which learned men make use of, to confirm the sacred Antiquity of the present Hebrew punctuation, taken from the universal consent and testimony of the Jewish Doctors, Ancient and modern, this one Elias, excepted. Who can think such persons are in any thing to be believed. But indeed the case is quite otherwise. Though we account them wholly unmeet for the work that is ascribed unto them, and on supposition that it is theirs, affirm that it had need undergo another manner of trial than as yet out of Reverence to its generally received Antiquity, it hath met withal; yet they were men still, who were full-well able to declare what de facto they found to be so, and what they found otherwise. It cannot, I think, be reasonably supposed, that so many men living in so many several Ages, at such vast distances from one another, who some of them it may be, never heard of the names of other some of them, should conspire to cozen themselves and all the world besides, in a matter of fact not at all to their Advantage. However for my part, whatever can be proved against them, I shall willingly admit. But to be driven out of such a rich possession, as is the present Hebrew punctuation, upon mere surmises and conjectures, I cannot willingly give way or consent.

Section 19. It is not my design to give in Arguments for the Divine original of the present Hebrew punctuation; neither do I Judge it necessary for any one so to do, whilst the learned Buxtorfius discourse de origine and antiquitate punctorum, lies unanswered. I shall therefore only add one or two considerations, which to me are of weight, and not as I remember mentioned by him, or his Father in his Tiberias, or any other that I know of in their disputes to this purpose.

1. If the points; or vowels and Accents, be coeval with the rest of the Letters, or have an original before all Grammar of that Language (as indeed languages are not made by Grammar, but Grammars are made by Languages) then the Grammar of it and them, must be collected from the observation of their use, as they were found in all their variety before any such art, was invented or used; and Rules must be suited thereunto; The drawing into Rules all the Instances that being uniform would fall under such Rules, and the distinct observation of Anomalous words, either singly, or in Exceptions comprehending many under one head, that would not be so reduced, was the work of Grammar. But on the other side, if the Vowels and Accents were invented by themselves, and added to the Letters, then the Rule and Art of disposing, transposing, and changing of them, must be constituted and fixed before the disposition of them; for they were placed after the Rules made, and according to them. A middle way that I know of, cannot be fixed on. Either they are of the Original writing of the Language, and have had Rules made by their station therein, or they have been supplied unto it according to Rules of Art. Things are not thus come to pass by chance; nor was this world created by a casual concurrence of these atoms. Now if the Grammar or Art was the ground and foundation, not the product of their use, as I am confident I shall never see a tolerable answer given to that enquiry of Buxtorfius the elder in his Tiberias, why the Inventors of them left so many words Anomalous and pointed otherwise than according to Rule, or the constant course of the Language, precisely reckoning them up when they had so done, and how often they are so used, as " and ⸪ for ˜: and " for τ and the like, when they might, if they had so pleased, have made them all regular, to their own great ease, advantage of their Language, and facilitating the learning of it to all posterity, the thing they seem to have aimed at; so I cannot be satisfied why in that long operous and curious work of the Masoretes, wherein they have reckoned up every word in the Scripture, and have observed the irregularity of every tittle and letter, that they never once attempt to give us out those Catholic Rules whereby they, or their masters proceeded in affixing the points; or whence it came to pass, that no learned Jew for hundreds of years after, should be able to acquaint us with that way, but in all their Grammatical Instructions, should merely collect Observations, and inculcate them an 100 times over, according as they present themselves to them by particular Instances. Assuredly had this wonderful Art of pointing, which for the most part may be reduced to catholic Rules, and might have wholly been so, if it were an arbitrary Invention limited to no pre-existing writing, been found out first, and established as the norma and canon of affixing the vowels, some footsteps of it would have remained in the Masora, or among some of the Jews, who spent all their time and days in the consideration of it.

Section 20. 2 In the days of the Chaldee Paraphrast when the Prophecies of the Humiliation and death of their Messiah were only not understood by them, yet we see into how many several ways and senses they are wrested by that Paraphrast to affix some tolerable meaning to them. Take an instance on Isaiah the 53: Jonathan there acknowledges the whole prophecy to be intended of Christ, as knowing it to be the common faith of the Church; but not understanding the state of humiliation which the Messiah was to undergo, he wrests the words into all forms, to make that which is spoken passively of Christ, or to his suffering from others, to signify actively, as to his doing and exercising judgment upon others. But now more than 500 years after, when these points are supposed to be invented, when the Rabbis were awake, and knew full well what use was made of those places against them, as also that the Prophets (especially Isaiah) are the most obscure part of the whole Scripture, as to the Grammatical sense of their words in their coherence without points and Accents, and how facile it were, to invert the whole sense of many periods by small alterations, in these Rules of reading; yet as they are pointed, they make out incomparably more clearly the Christian faith, than any ancient Translations of those places whatever. Johannes Isaac, a converted Jew, book 1 to Lindanus tells us that above 200 Testimonies about Christ may be brought out of the Original Hebrew, that appear not in the Vulgar Latin, or any other Translation. And Raymundus Martinus; noverint quae ejusmodi sunt (that is, those who blamed him for translating things immediately out of the Hebrew, not following the Vulgar Latin) in plurimis valde sacrae scripturae locis veritatem multo planius atque perfectius pro fide Christiana haberi in litera hebraica quam in translatione nostra: Proem to Pugio Fidei section 14. Let any man consider those two racks of the Rabbis, and swords of Judaical unbelief, Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9; as they are now pointed and accented, in our Bibles, and compare them with the translation of the Seventy: and this will quickly appear unto him. Especially hath this been evidenced, since the Socinians as well as the Jews, have driven the dispute about the satisfaction of Christ to the utmost Scrutiny, and Examination of every word in that fifty-third of Isaiah. But yet as the text stands now pointed, and accented, neither Jews nor Socinians (notwithstanding the relief contributed to them by Grotius, wresting that whole blessed Prophecy to make Application of it unto Jeremiah, thinking therein to outdo the late or modern Jews, Abarbinel, and others applying it to Josiah, the whole people of the Jews, Messiah Ben Joseph and I know not whom) have been able, or ever shall be able to relieve themselves, from the sword of the truth therein. Were such Exercitations on the Word of God allowable, I could easily manifest, how by changing the distinctive accents, and vowels, much darkness and perplexity might be cast on the contexture of that glorious Prophecy. It is known also, that the Jews commonly plead, that one Reason why they keep the Copy of the Law in their Synagogues without points is, that the Text may not be restrained to one certain sense; but that they may have liberty to draw out various, and as they speak more eminent senses.

Chapter 4.

1. The origin of the points, proposed for particular consideration. 2. The importance of the points for the right understanding of Scripture; the testimony of Morinus, Junius, Johannes Isaac, Cevallerius, and others. 3. The use made by the Papists of the opinion that the points are a recent invention. 4. The importance of the points further demonstrated. The extreme danger of making the Hebrew punctuation arbitrary. 5. That danger proven by example. 6. No relief against that danger, on the grounds of the opinion considered. 7. The authors of the Hebrew punctuation according to the Prolegomena: who and what. Morinus's folly. The improbability of this claim. 8. The state of the Jews, the supposed inventors of the points, after the destruction of the Temple. 9. Two attempts made by them to restore their religion. The former under Bar Kokhba, with its outcome. 10. The second under Rabbi Juda, with its outcome. 11. The rise and foundation of the Talmuds. 12. The state of the Jews during and after the writing of the Talmuds. 13. Their hostility against Christ. 14. Who the Tiberian Masoretes were, the supposed authors of the Hebrew punctuation: their description. 15. That fiction rejected. 16. The recent testimony of Doctor Lightfoot on this subject. 17. The origin of the opinion that the points are a recent invention. Of Elias Levita. The value of his testimony in this case. 18. Of the validity of the testimony of the Jewish rabbis. 19. Some considerations about the antiquity of the points; the first from the nature of the punctuation itself, in relation to grammatical rules. 20. From the Chaldee Paraphrase and the integrity of Scripture as now pointed.

Since this is how things stand among us, as I understand it, I hope I may proceed without offense to examine the specific matters mentioned above, from which it is feared that objections may arise against the purity and self-evidencing power of the Scriptures argued for in the preceding treatise. The first point mentioned is the claim that the points (the vowels and accents) are a recent invention of certain rabbis of Tiberias in Palestine. The learned author of the Prolegomena defends this claim with Capellus's arguments, along with whatever additions he chose to use. To clarify the bearing of this issue on our truth, it will be necessary to consider two things. First, what influence these points have and necessarily must have on the correct understanding of the text. Second, what is their origin, or to whom their invention is attributed in these Prolegomena. As for the positive side of this controversy — that is, the defense of their true sacred origin — some other occasion may call for additions to what is now briefly touched on. While I will not oppose those who maintain that the points are as old as the letters themselves (and many of the most learned Jews and Christians hold this view), I have no doubt that as we now have them, it can be shown that they were completed by the men of the Great Synagogue — Ezra and his companions — guided in this by the infallible direction of the Spirit of God.

Section 2. So that we do not appear to be arguing over nothing, the importance of these points for the correct understanding of the Word of God must first be considered, both from testimony and from the nature of the thing itself. Morinus, in his preface to his Hebrew Lexicon, tells us that without the points, no certain truth can be drawn from the Scriptures in that language, since everything may be read in different ways, resulting in greater confusion in that one language than there was among all those at Babylon. (Nulla igitur certa doctrina poterit tradi de hac lingua, cum omnia possint diversimodo legi, ut futura sit major confusio unicae hujus linguae, quam illa Babylonis). Morinus plainly states that this is indeed the case, giving the example of a certain Hebrew word which, depending on how it is pointed, has at least eight different meanings, some of them as far apart from one another as heaven is from earth. And to make the uncertainty of the language on this account clear, he gives a similar example using c. r. s. in Latin. Junius, at the close of his Animadversions on Bellarmine de verbo Dei book 2 chapter 2, commends the saying of Johannes Isaac against Lindanus: the person who reads the Scriptures without points is like a man riding a horse without a bridle; he may be carried he knows not where. Radulphus Cevallerius goes even further (Rudiments of the Hebrew Language, chapter 4). Quod superest de vocalium and Accentuum antiquitate, eorum sententiae subscribo, qui linguam Hebraeam tanquam omnium aliarum absolutissimum plane ab initio scriptam confirmant: quandoquidem qui contra sentiunt, non modo authoritatem sacrae scripturae dubiam efficiunt, sed radicitus (meo quidem judicio) convellunt, quod absque vocalibus and distinctionum notis, nihil certi firmique habeat. As for the antiquity of the vowels and accents (he says), I hold the view of those who maintain that the Hebrew language, as the exact pattern of all others, was plainly written (with them) from the beginning. For those who think otherwise not only make the authority of Scripture doubtful, but in my judgment completely uproot it. For without those vowels and marks of distinction, it has nothing firm and certain.

In this man's judgment (which is also my own), it is clear to all how vulnerable to the opinion I am opposing is the truth I am contending for.

To these may also be added the great Buxtorfs, father and son. Gerard Glassius, Voetius. Flacius Illyricus, Polanus, Whitaker, Hassret, Wolthius.

Section 3. It is well known what use the Papists make of this idea. Bellarmine argues that errors have crept into the original through this addition of the points. De Verbo Dei book 2 chapter 2. Hisce duabus sententiis refutatis restat tertia quam ego verissimam puto, quae est, scripturas Hebraicas non esse in universum depravatas opera and malitia Judaeorum, nec tamen omnino esse integras and puras, sed habere suos errores quosdam, qui partim irrepserint negligentia and ignorantia librariorum, etc: partim ignorantia Rabbinorum qui puncta addiderunt: itaque possumus si volumus puncta detrahere, and aliter legere. These two opinions being refuted, the third remains which I consider most true: that the Hebrew Scriptures are not universally corrupted by the deliberate work of the Jews, nor yet are they entirely pure or complete, but they have certain errors which have crept in partly through the negligence and ignorance of the copyists, and partly through the ignorance of the rabbis who added the points. Therefore we may, if we choose, reject the points and read differently.

In all the extensive opposition to the truth made by that learned man, I know nothing more dangerously said. Nor do I yet see how his conclusion can be avoided on the hypothesis in question. The purpose behind his argument is well known, and his allies in this cause make it perfectly clear. That the Hebrew text should be corrected by the Vulgar Latin is the explicit desire of Gregory de Valentia (Volume 1, disputation 5, question 3), and this because the Church has approved that translation, it having been corrected (says Huntly) by Jerome before the invention of points. But this is put beyond doubt by Morinus, who argues from this that the Hebrew language is a mere piece of wax to be shaped by people however they please, and that God deliberately made it so, in order that people might submit their consciences to their infallible Church (Exercitationes book 1, exercitation 1, chapter 2). Great has been the effort of this type of people, who have left no stone unturned to discredit the originals. Some of them insist that the Old Testament was corrupted by the Jews, such as: (1) Leo Castrius, (2) Gordonius Huntlaeus, (3) Melchior Canus, (4) Petrus Galatinus, Morinus, Salmeron, Pintus, Mersennus (Animadversions in Problemata Georgii Venet, etc., page 233). Others claim that many corruptions have crept in through negligence and carelessness of scribes: (7) Bellarmine, (8) Genebrard, (9) Sixtus Sinensis, along with most of the rest. In this, indeed, they have been opposed by the most learned scholars on their own side, such as (10) Arias Montanus, (11) Johannes Isaac, (12) Pineda, (13) Masius, (14) Ferrarius, (15) Andradius, and various others who speak honorably of the originals. But in nothing do they take more pride than in this idea of the recent origin of the Hebrew punctuation, by which they hope, like Abimelech's servants, to completely block the wells or fountains from which we should draw refreshment for our souls.

Section 4. This may serve as a brief overview of the opinions of the parties in conflict and their various interests in these opinions. The importance of the points is acknowledged on all sides, whether the goal is the honor or the discredit of the originals. Vowels are the life of words. Consonants without them are dead and immovable. By vowels, consonants are carried to any meaning, and may be carried to several different meanings. It is true that people who have come to an understanding of the Scriptures through the help of the vowels and accents — already possessing a habitual grasp of the meaning that arises from them — may think it would be an easy thing to find and settle on the same meaning using only the matres lectionis and the consideration of context and similar helps. But let all of those aids be taken away (as I will show they should be, if the points have the origin assigned to them by the Prolegomena), and let people set aside the advantage they have gained from them, and it will quickly become clear what confused directions all kinds of such people will wander off into. Hardly a chapter — perhaps not even a verse or a word — would long remain free from perplexing, contradictory guesses. The words whose meanings can be changed by an arbitrary supplying of the points are entirely countless. And when the regulation of the punctuation is left to every individual's guesses based on context (for who would set a standard for everyone else?), where will the endless, fruitless debates end? What varied, what destructive interpretations will we have to argue about? Suppose that people who are sober, modest, humble, and pious could be preserved from such errors and brought to some agreement about these things (which in these days, for many reasons, is not to be expected — indeed, from the nature of the thing itself, it seems impossible). Even then, this gives us only a human, fallible confidence that the readings they settle on are in line with the mind of God. But to expect such an agreement is naive and foolish. Besides, who will protect us against the reckless, atheistic minds and spirits of these days, who are bold in seizing every advantage and ready to trample on everything holy and sacred? Who will guarantee that they will not, by their meddling, utterly corrupt the Word of God? How easy it is to foresee the dangerous consequences of people stubbornly clinging to their own guesses and arguing for variant readings, even ones that are not false or destructive! The Word of God, as to its literal sense and the reading of its words, has until now been an undisputed standard and the acknowledged touchstone of all interpretations. Make it now a matter of debate, and what do we have left that is firm and unshaken?

Section 5. Let people, with all their confidence about the meaning and sense of the Scriptures that they have already received through the helps and tools that are all ultimately rooted in the present punctuation of the Bible (for all grammars, all lexicons, the whole Masora, and every aid to this language, old and new in the world, are built on this foundation) — let them reduce themselves to the kind of blank-slate objectivity that some have recently imagined as a proper starting point for knowledge. Let them seriously begin reading some of the prophets whose content is lofty and mystical, and whose style is compressed and obscure, without the help of points and accents. Let them assign vowels or any symbols to represent their sounds at will, relying solely on their judgment of the language and their guesses at the meaning of the passage, without any advantage from what they have been taught. And let us see whether they will agree, as they fabulously report the Seventy translators did. Whatever the result of their efforts, we need not wait long to find scholars equally learned who would tear their work to the ground. I confess that considering the days we live in — when the bold and inquisitive minds of people, under the pretense of critical observations that attract and entice with a show of learning, have dared to question almost every word in Scripture — I cannot help but tremble at what would come from this assumption that the points, vowels, and accents are no better guides than can be expected from those who are claimed to be their authors. I trust the Lord will protect His own from the poison of such attempts. The least of its harm has not yet been fully considered. So while I reserve to myself the freedom of my own judgment on various specific matters both in the printed text itself and in several translations, I acknowledge the great usefulness of this work and am thankful for it — which I here publicly declare. Yet I must say plainly that I would rather it and all works of similar kind were removed from the world than that this one opinion should be accepted along with the consequences that inevitably follow from it.

Section 6. But this trial need not be feared. Granted that the original texts have the credentials claimed for them, they still deserve full respect and are of singular value for understanding Scripture correctly. It is not lawful to depart from them without pressing necessity and clear evidence that a better reading should be substituted in place of the one rejected. But this offers us no relief — it still leaves us within the realm of rational conjecture. Whether this can honestly be pleaded in the present case depends on who the supposed authors of this invention actually were — and that is what we must now examine.

Section 7. The founders of this story about the invention of the Hebrew points tell us that it was the work of certain rabbis living at Tiberias, a city in Galilee, around the year AD 500, or in the following century, after the death of Jerome and the completion of the Babylonian Talmud. I will not pause here to dwell on how improbable this story is. Morinus makes the lie even louder. He tells us that the Babylonian Talmud was completed just before the year 700 (Exercise 2, Chapter 3, latter part), and that the Masoretes — to whom he attributes the invention of the points — wrote long after the Talmud was finished, well past the year 700 (page 5, chapter 3). This "long time" must mean at least several hundred years. And yet the same man, in his preface to his Samaritica Opuscula, boasts of discovering Rabbi Juda Chiug and shows that this rabbi was familiar with the present system of punctuation and wrote about it. Now this rabbi was a grammarian, and among the Jews, grammatical learning came after the work of the Masoretes. He lived around the year 1030, so there seems to be no room at all for this theory. It is granted that there was once a school of Jews and learned men of some reputation at Tiberias. Jerome tells us that he hired a learned Jew from there to assist him (Epistle to Chromatius). Among others, Dr. Lightfoot has carefully traced the shadow of their Sanhedrin, with its presidents, in some kind of succession to that place. But that they continued there in any significant number, esteem, or reputation down to the time our authors have designated for this work — that is not established by any historical record, Jewish or Christian. In fact, it is certain that around the time mentioned, the leading Jewish scholars were flourishing at Babylon and several other cities in the East, where they had just completed their Talmud, the great compendium of Jewish laws and institutions, as they themselves everywhere testify. That any notably learned people were then at Tiberias is a mere conjecture. It is especially improbable given the destruction that had fallen on the Jewish community at Diocaesarea and Tiberias around AD 352, carried out by Gallus at the command of Constantius. That there should then have been such a gathering of learned and authorized men — capable of inventing this system and imposing it on the entire world, with no one ever noticing that such people existed — is beyond all belief. Despite all the entanglements that conjectures may create around the belief in the antiquity of the points, I could sooner believe the most unbelievable fable in the entire Talmud than believe this legend. But this is not my main concern here. Let it be granted that such persons existed. Working within the assumption under consideration, I am only asking: what is the present condition of the Hebrew pointing, and what weight should be given to it? So that the reader may consider what kind of men are assigned in these Prolegomena as the inventors of this art of punctuation, I will take a brief look at the state of the Jews from the destruction of the Temple down to the period in question.

Section 8. I have elsewhere discussed at length how the Jewish church-state continued — not only in practice but by God's merciful forbearance — such that the many thousands of believers who steadfastly followed the Mosaic worship were accepted by God until the destruction of the Temple. I argued there that this destruction was the end of the world that then was by fire, and the beginning of the solemn establishment of the new heaven and new earth wherein righteousness dwells. I hope, God willing, to develop these thoughts further in my work on the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. The period from the beginning of Christ's preaching to the utter desolation of the city and Temple was the time of an open and visible rejection of that church as such. From that point, a complete separation of the true Israel from it followed, and the hardened remnant became a people no longer in covenant or in God's favor, but under curse and indignation. Many have described what their condition was for a time afterward, both civil and religious. I will only touch on the main points. In general, they were utterly unwilling to accept the punishment for their sin or to acknowledge that God was visiting on them the full penalty of breaking His covenant — having broken both His staves, Beauty and Bands. So far were they from owning their sin in handing their Messiah over to death that, seeing an end put to all their former worship, the record shows only two things to which they gave themselves over in direct opposition to God. First, they grew in rage and madness against all followers of Christ, stirring up persecution against them throughout the world. They were provoked to this by a large number of apostates who, when they could no longer hold their Mosaic rites alongside a profession of Christ and were rejected by the churches, fell back into Judaism or semi-Judaism. Second, there was a corrupt longing for their former worship, which had now become an abomination and a mark of unbelief — so that their table might become a snare to them, and what had once been for their safety might now become the means of their utter ruin and hardening. Of the first — their stirring up of persecution — all historical records are full of examples and instances. The latter — their desire and attempts to restore their worship — must be examined further, as it is relevant to the matter at hand.

Section 9. In their effort to restore their old religion or to furnish themselves with a new one, the Jews made two desperate attempts. The first was by force of arms under their false Messiah Bar Kokhba, in the days of Hadrian. Under the leadership and influence of this man — whose armor-bearer was one of the chief rabbis, Akiva — they pursued a plan to restore their Temple and worship and launched a rebellion against the Romans throughout the entire world. In this campaign, after committing unheard-of outrages, massacres, unparalleled murders, plundering, and cruelties, and having shaken the whole empire, they were themselves destroyed in every part of the world — especially at the city of Betar, where the heart of their rebellion was — with a destruction that seemed to equal what had befallen them at Jerusalem in the days of Vespasian and Titus.

That this war arose from the two causes mentioned — their desire to retain their former worship and to destroy Christians — is evident. For the first, it is stated by Dio Cassius, History of Rome, book 69, in the life of Hadrian. It was the defilement of the soil on which the Temple had stood — which God permitted deliberately to demonstrate their utter rejection and that the time had come when He would no longer be worshipped there in the old manner — that drove them to arms, as that author explains at length. As for the latter cause, Justin Martyr, who lived at that time, informs us of it in Apology 2, to Antoninus Pius. Bar Kokhba's fury was directed especially against the Christians, whom he commanded to be tortured and killed unless they would deny and blaspheme Jesus Christ. See Eusebius, Chronicle, at the year of Christ 136. They waged this war with such fury, and for a time with success, that after Hadrian had assembled against them the most experienced soldiers in the world — including Julius Severus, brought from Britain — and had slain five hundred and eighty thousand of them in battle, with an infinite number more consumed by famine, sickness, and fire as the historian reports, Hadrian found that he had sustained such great losses that he could not begin his letter to the Senate in the customary manner: he could not assure them that it was well with him and his army.

By this second desolation they were brought very low — weakened, made contemptible, and driven into obscurity throughout the world. In this condition they wandered for a time in complete uncertainty. They had not only lost the place of their solemn worship, seeing it wholly defiled, the name of Jerusalem changed to Aelia, and themselves forbidden on pain of death even to look toward it — but also, now so dramatically reduced in number, all hope of organizing themselves so as to observe their old rites and worship was utterly gone.

Section 10. They sat down in stunned bewilderment for a season, as the curse had threatened they would. But they would not remain still. Recognizing that their old religion could not continue without a Jerusalem and a Temple, they began a wicked attempt against God — comparable to the ancient world's building of Babel — namely, to establish a new religion that could survive wherever they were, and that would give them cover in their unbelief and opposition to the Gospel to the very end. The head of this new apostasy was one Rabbi Jehuda, whom we may aptly call the Mahomet of the Jews. They call him Hannasi, meaning the Prince, and Hakkadosh, meaning the Holy. The full account of him and his companions, as reported by the Jews, is well collected by Joseph de Voisin, Observations in the Proem to Pugio Fidei, pages 26 and 27. A summary of his entire work is laid out by Maimonides in his preface to Seder Zeraiim, pages 36 and 37 of Mr. Pococke's edition, which also gives a sufficient account of the whole Mishnah, with the names of the rabbis either employed in it or occasionally mentioned. This man, around the year AD 190 or 200 — when the Temple had now lain waste almost three times as long as it had during the Babylonian captivity — being encouraged by Antoninus Pius as some of their own writers report, compiled the Jewish Alcoran, that is the Mishnah, as a rule of worship and conduct for the future. Only whereas Mahomet afterwards claimed to have received his inventions by revelation — though in truth he drew much of his abominations from the Talmud — this man claimed to receive his by tradition: the two chief weapons that have been set up against the Word of God. Out of such Pharisaical traditions as were genuinely preserved among them, out of practices they had learned and adopted from apostate Christians such as Aquila and others, and out of fictions invented by himself and his predecessors since the time of their public rejection and cursing by God, this man compiled the Mishnaioth — which is the text of their Talmud and the foundation of their present religion — under the title of the ancient oral law. That a number of Christian ceremonies and institutions, vilely corrupted, were taken up by the Jews of those days — many of whom were apostates, as were also some of Mahomet's assistants in compiling the Alcoran — I shall endeavor, God willing, to demonstrate elsewhere. That any Gospel observances were borrowed from the Jews as having been practiced among them before their institution by Christ will prove, in the end, to be a bold and groundless idea.

Section 11. With that foundation laid — a collection of traditions and new inventions of abominations passed off as ancient traditions by this rabbi — the Talmuds that followed represent an escalation of the same attempt: to set up a religion under the curse and against the mind and will of God. Having been rejected by Him and left without king, without prince, without sacrifice, without image, without an ephod, without a teraphim, and without any kind of worship whether true or false, they wanted something to give them cover in their unbelief. The Talmud of Jerusalem — so called because it was compiled in the land of Canaan, whose chief city was Jerusalem, though it is actually the product of many commentaries on the Mishnah produced in the city of Tiberias, where Rabbi Juda lived — was published around AD 230, as is commonly received. Though I find that Dr. Lightfoot, in a later work, assigned it a later date based on what he believed to be a mention of the Emperor Diocletian in it. But I confess I see no good reason for departing from the judgment he expressed in an earlier treatise on the subject. The Doclet mentioned by the rabbis was beaten by the sons of Rabbi Jehuda Princeps — as Lightfoot himself observes — who lived in the days of one of the Antonines, a hundred years before Diocletian. Nor was Diocletian ever in a lowly position in the East: he was born in Sarmatia and lived in the Western parts, going only with Numerianus on the expedition into Persia, in the course of which he was made emperor on his return. But this is beside my point. See Lightfoot, Chronographia, chapter 81, page 144. The Babylonian Talmud — so called because it was compiled in Babylon, in the cities of Nahardea, Sora, and Pumbeditha, where the Jews had their synagogues and schools — was completed around the year 506 or 510. In this greater work, the mystery of their iniquity was fully developed, and the instrument of their own invention for their further hardening was perfectly completed. These works now serve as the rule of their faith, the measure of their interpretation of Scripture, the guide of their worship, and the ground of their hope and expectation.

Section 12. All this while the Jews had the text of Scripture in their hands, as they do to this day — and at times they receive it with the honor and reverence due to God alone. God preserved it among them for our present use, for their further condemnation, and as a means of their future conversion. But after the destruction of the Temple and the rejection of their entire church-state, the Word was no longer committed to them by God, nor were they entrusted with it, nor are they to this day. They do not possess it by promise or covenant, as they once did. Isaiah 59:21. Their possession of it is not accompanied by the ministry of the Spirit — and without the Spirit, as their own example shows, the Word is a dead letter with no power for the good of souls. They have the letter among them as they once had the ark in the battle against the Philistines — to their greater ruin.

Section 13. In this condition they everywhere display their hatred and malice against Christ, calling Him by a contemptuous Hebrew title and relating monstrous fables about Him and His treatment under the name of Jesus the son of Pandira. Some deny that by Jesus the son of Pandira and Stada in the Talmud, the blessed Messiah is intended. So argued Galatinus, Arcanum Religionis Catholicae, book 1, chapter 7, and Reuchlin's Cabala, book 1, page 636. Gulielmus Schickard, in Proem Tarich, page 83, held the same. The contrary is asserted by Reynoldus, Praelectiones in the book of Revelation, praelectiones 103, pages 405 and 406. Buxtorfius, in his Lexicon Rabbinicum, and also Vorstius, in his Notes to Tzemach David, page 264, argue against it. And in truth, the argument Galatinus and others use to prove that they did not intend our Savior actually proves the opposite upon careful reflection. They say the Jesus mentioned in the Talmud lived in the days of the Maccabees, being killed in the time of Hyrcanus or Aristobulus, a hundred years before the death of the true Messiah — and therefore it cannot be Him who is intended. But this has been invented by these wretched men so that it should not appear that their Temple was destroyed so soon after their wicked rejection of God by killing His Son. This is most clearly shown by what is cited by Genebrard from Abraham Levita in his Cabala Historiae, where Abraham says that Christians invented the story that Jesus was crucified during the life of Herod the Tetrarch, in order to make it appear that the Temple was destroyed immediately afterward — whereas, he claims, it is evident from the Mishnah and Talmud that Jesus lived in the time of Alexander and was crucified in the days of Aristobulus. This reveals the true reason they distorted the whole chronology of His life: to prevent the world from seeing how closely their sin and their punishment stood together. It is fortunate, then, that the time of our Savior's suffering and death was affirmed even by the pagans, before either their Mishnah or Talmud were born or thought of. To quash the rumor — he speaks of Nero and his burning of Rome — he produced guilty parties and punished with the most exquisite tortures those who were hated for their crimes and called Christians by the people. The author of that name was Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius was executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate. Tacitus, Annales, book 15. To return to the Jews: in all their ancient writings they have systematically worked to undermine Him and His Gospel. We need none of their testimony — nor anything beyond Scripture — for their conviction. To be honest, the places cited from their Talmuds and Gemara, from the Kabbalists and other rabbis, by Martinus Raymundus, Porchetus, Galatinus, Reuchlinus, and others — setting aside Galatinus's Gale Rezeia, which must be set aside — seem for the most part to be forced beyond their original intent, as is easy to do with things written obscurely, metaphorically, and mystically. Their debates about the Messiah, when they address the subject directly as in the tractate Sanhedrin, are foolish, contradictory triflings that leave everything as uncertain as if they were squabbling in their customary manner over trifles. For my part, I am not far from the opinion of Hulsius (book 1, part 2, discussion on the time of the Messiah) that Aesop's fables are as useful for the Christian religion as the Jewish Talmud. As long as they keep the Scripture, we will never lack weapons from their own armory to use against them. Like the Philistine, they carry the very weapon that will serve to cut off their own heads. Now the Tiberian Masoretes, the supposed inventors of the points, vowels, and accents we now use, were men who lived after the completion of the last Talmud — men whose entire religion was built upon it.

Section 14. Let us then, without prejudice or passion, consider who or what these men actually were — the supposed authors of this work. First, they were men (if any such existed) to whom the Word of God had not been entrusted in any special way, as it had been to their forefathers of old. They were no part of God's church or people, but merely outward possessors of the text without any rightful claim to it. They had no share whatsoever in the promise of the communication of the Spirit, which is the great charter of the church's preservation of truth: Isaiah 59:21. Second, they were men so far removed from a right understanding of the Word, or of the mind and will of God in it, that they were desperately committed to opposing His truth in the very books they possessed — in everything that mattered for the glory of God or the good of their own souls, from beginning to end. The foundation of their religion was unbelief, and one of their chief principles was opposition to the Gospel. Third, they were men under the special curse of God and His judgment, on account of the blood of His dear Son. Fourth, they were men who spent their days feeding on empty fables and wicked schemes against the Gospel, laboring to establish a new religion under the name of the old — striving to wrestle it out against God's curse to the very end. Fifth, they were men of profound ignorance in all learning and knowledge except what concerned their own dunghill traditions — as appears in their writings, where they make Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, an ally of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, along with countless other such absurdities. Sixth, they were men so given over to the monstrous fictions found in their Talmuds that their own successors in later ages were ashamed of them and tried to cover them up as best they could — and were, for the most part, idolaters and sorcerers, as I shall demonstrate. Now I dare leave it to the judgment of any godly and prudent person — one not captivated by parties and famous names — who is at all acquainted with the importance of the Hebrew vowels and accents for understanding Scripture rightly, and with how much the present system bears on the literal sense we embrace: does such a person not require very clear evidence and testimony — indeed undeniable and unquestionable proof — before assigning the origin and authorship of these vowels and accents to men of this sort?

Section 15. Of all the fables in the Talmud, I know none more incredible than this one: that men who cannot be shown from any historical record ever to have actually existed — men of the kind we have just described, obscure and unnoticed, overlooked by every learned Jew and Christian — should in a time of deep ignorance, in the place where they lived, among a people wholly given over to monstrous fables and themselves blinded under the curse of God, have discovered so great and excellent a work, of such unspeakable usefulness. And all this without consulting the men of their own faith and religion, who were then flourishing in great numbers at Babylon and the surrounding regions. They then supposedly imposed this work on the entire world — on all who receive the Scriptures — and had every detail of their work accepted without opposition or question from any person of any persuasion whatsoever. And so thoroughly accepted, that their invention became the fixed rule for all subsequent expositions, commentaries, and interpretations. Let a fool believe it.

To draw toward the close of this discussion, I must request the liberty to state plainly that if I could be fully convinced that the present Hebrew punctuation were the fiction and invention of these men, I would labor to the utmost to have it entirely removed from the Bible and would myself make no more use of it in its present form. What use such an invention might have under general grammatical rules I will not debate; but to have it placed in the Bible as so great a part of the Word of God is not tolerable. But blessed be God, things have not yet come to that pass. I will only add that among those most eminently learned in Jewish learning and antiquity that recent ages have produced, several have come forward to refute the notion that the points were invented by some post-Talmudic Masoretes. I am sorry that their respect for the rabbis has kept them from pressing the argument I have been developing here, which seems to me of the greatest importance.

Section 16. To what I have spoken, I will add the words of the learned Dr. Lightfoot in his recent Centuria Chorographia, which came to my hands after this discourse was finished, chapter 81, page 146. He writes: "There are those who believe the Bible was pointed by the wise men of Tiberias" — he means Elias alone, for there are no other Jews of this opinion — "I do not marvel at the impudence of the Jews who invented this fable; I marvel at the credulity of Christians who applaud it. Recount, I pray, the names of the Tiberians from the founding of the first academy there to its expiration: and what do you find but a sort of men raving beyond the Pharisees, bewitching and bewitched with traditions, blind, crafty, raging — pardon me if I say magical and monstrous? What fools, what dunces, for so divine a work! Read through the Talmud of Jerusalem and observe how Rabbi Juda, Rabbi Chanina, Rabbi Hoshaia, Rabbi Chaija Rubba, Rabbi Chaija Bar Ba, Rabbi Jochanan, and the rest of the great doctors among the Tiberians conduct themselves — how seriously they do nothing, how childishly they treat serious things, how much deceit, froth, venom, smoke, and emptiness is in their disputations. And if you can believe the pointing of the Bible to have come from such a school, believe also everything in the Talmud. The pointing of the Bible bears the marks of the work of the Holy Spirit, not the work of wicked, blinded, and deluded men." In the words of this learned man is the sum of what I have been arguing for.

Section 17. The Jews generally believe these points to have existed from Mount Sinai and downward, through Moses and the Prophets — or at least from Ezra and his companions, the men of the great synagogue — while acknowledging that their use and knowledge received a great revival by the Gemarists and Masoretes after they had fallen into disuse. So Rabbi Azarias argues at length in Imre Binah, chapter 59.

Had it been otherwise, men so extraordinarily devoted to inquiring after the traditions of their fathers would surely have found some trace of how the points arose and developed. It is true that there is not only the opinion but also the arguments of one man to the contrary — namely Elias Levita. This Elias lived in Germany around the beginning of the Reformation and was the most learned grammarian among the Jews of that age. Several of the first Reformers were acquainted with him. Since the task of both reforming religion and restoring good learning fell to them, they made use of whatever assistance was available for that purpose. This man — as Thuanus notes — lived with Paulus Fagius and assisted him in his distinguished promotion of the Hebrew language. This may explain why some of those worthies unwarily embraced his novel opinion, being either overawed by his authority or lacking the leisure to search more carefully after the truth. That the testimony of this one man, Elias, should outweigh the consistent attestation of all other learned Jews to the contrary — as Capellus affirms and argues, and as is suggested in our Prolegomena — is foolish to imagine. Moreover, the premises of that learned man argue against his own conclusion. He himself says it is well known that the Jews are inclined to champion everything that honors their people and language — and therefore their testimony in favor of the divine origin of the present punctuation, being testimony in their own cause, ought not to be admitted. Only Elias, who in this matter speaks against the common interest of his people, is presumed to speak from conviction of truth. But the whole weight of evidence is on the other side. Let us grant that all Jews are zealous for the honor and reputation of their nation and language, as they are. Let us grant that they eagerly embrace everything that seems to tend in that direction. What then follows from these premises? Just as nothing could be spoken more honorably of the Jews while they were the church and people of God than what Paul says — that to them were committed the oracles of God — so nothing can be imagined or fixed upon more to their honor, since their divorce from God, than that their doctors and masters should have made such an addition to Scripture, one so universally acknowledged to be of unspeakable value. And to that point, Elias — who was the father of this opinion — was far from drawing the same conclusions from it as some do today, namely that it is lawful for us to change the vowels and accents at will. Rather, he binds all men as strictly to them as if they had been the work of Ezra. It is Elias, then, who speaks in his own interest — and his testimony is therefore not to be admitted. What was done in ancient times and in the days of Ezra belongs to us, who have inherited the privileges of that church. What has been done since the destruction of the Temple belongs properly and peculiarly to the Jews.

Section 18. It may perhaps be thought that my account of the rabbis — their historical state and condition, both ancient and recent — might have weakened one of the great arguments learned men use to confirm the sacred antiquity of the present Hebrew punctuation, namely the universal consent and testimony of Jewish scholars, ancient and modern, with only this one Elias as the exception. One might ask: who can think such people are to be believed in anything? But in fact the case is quite the opposite. Though we regard them as entirely unfit for the work attributed to them, and say that if it were their work it would need to undergo a more rigorous examination than its generally received antiquity has so far shielded it from — yet they were still men, fully capable of reporting what they found to be the case, and what they found to be otherwise. It cannot reasonably be supposed that so many men living in so many different ages, at such great distances from one another — some of whom may never have heard each other's names — should conspire to deceive themselves and all the rest of the world in a plain matter of fact that was not to their advantage at all. However that may be, I will willingly admit whatever can be proved against them. But to be driven out of so rich a possession as the present Hebrew punctuation on the basis of mere surmises and conjectures — that I cannot willingly grant.

Section 19. It is not my purpose to present arguments for the divine origin of the present Hebrew punctuation. Nor do I think it necessary for anyone to do so while the learned Buxtorfius's discourse on the origin and antiquity of the points remains unanswered. I will therefore only add one or two considerations that carry weight with me and that I do not recall being mentioned by him, or by his father in his Tiberias, or by any other writer I know of in their debates on this subject.

First consideration: if the points — that is, the vowels and accents — are as old as the rest of the letters, or have an origin prior to all grammar of the language (for languages are not made by grammars; grammars are made by languages), then the grammar of both must be gathered from observing how they were found in all their variety before any such art was invented or used. Rules must be derived from that observation. The task of grammar was to draw into rules all the uniform instances that would fall under such rules, and to separately record the anomalous words — either individually or grouped under exception headings — that could not be so reduced. On the other hand, if the vowels and accents were invented independently and added to the letters, then the rules and art for placing, transposing, and changing them must have been established before they were actually placed, since they were positioned according to pre-existing rules. There is no middle position I can see. Either they are original to the writing of the language and rules were derived from how they stood in it, or they were supplied to it according to the rules of art. These things do not happen by chance, any more than this world was created by a random collision of atoms. Now if grammar or art was the foundation rather than the product of the vowels' use — and I am confident no tolerable answer will ever be given to the inquiry of Buxtorfius the elder in his Tiberias: why did the inventors leave so many words anomalously pointed, differently from the regular course of the language, carefully counting them up when they did so and recording how often they occur (for example, certain vowel substitutions of this and that kind), when they could, had they chosen, have made all the words regular, to their own great ease, to the advantage of the language, and to the benefit of all future learners — that being precisely what they seemed to aim at — then neither can I be satisfied why, in the long and painstaking work of the Masoretes, wherein they counted every word in Scripture and noted every irregularity of every letter and tittle, they never once attempted to set out for us the general rules by which they or their masters proceeded in affixing the points. Nor why no learned Jew for hundreds of years afterward was able to tell us what those rules were, but in all their grammatical instructions merely collected individual observations and repeated them a hundred times over, drawing on particular instances as they came up. Surely if this wonderful art of pointing — which for the most part can be reduced to general rules, and could have been reduced entirely to such rules if it had been an arbitrary invention unconstrained by any pre-existing text — had been devised first and established as the standard for affixing vowels, some trace of it would have remained in the Masora or among some of those Jews who spent their entire lives in study of it.

Section 20. Second consideration: in the days of the Chaldee Paraphrast, the prophecies of the humiliation and death of the Messiah were not understood by them. And yet we see how many different directions and senses the Paraphrast twists them to, in order to extract some tolerable meaning from them. Take as an example Isaiah 53. Jonathan there acknowledges that the whole prophecy is intended of Christ, knowing it to be the common faith of the church. But not understanding the state of humiliation the Messiah was to undergo, he twists the words into every possible form to make what is said passively of Christ — or spoken of what others do to Him in His suffering — appear to mean what He does actively in judging and exercising authority over others. But now more than five hundred years later, when these points are supposed to have been invented, the rabbis were wide awake and knew full well what use was being made of those passages against them. They also knew that the Prophets — especially Isaiah — are the most obscure part of all Scripture as regards the grammatical sense of the words in their context, when read without points and accents. They knew how easy it would be to invert the whole sense of many passages by small alterations in how the text is read. And yet as the text stands pointed, it makes the Christian faith incomparably clearer than any ancient translation of those passages whatever. Johannes Isaac, a converted Jew, tells us in book 1 to Lindanus that over two hundred testimonies about Christ can be drawn from the original Hebrew that do not appear in the Latin Vulgate or any other translation. And Raymundus Martinus writes: "Let those who blamed me for translating directly from the Hebrew instead of following the Vulgate know that in a great many places in sacred Scripture, the truth in support of the Christian faith is held far more plainly and perfectly in the Hebrew text than in our translation" (Proem to Pugio Fidei, section 14). Let any man consider those two great challenges to the rabbis — those weapons against Jewish unbelief — Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9, as they are now pointed and accented in our Bibles, and compare them with the translation of the Seventy. This will quickly become evident to him. This has been demonstrated with particular force since the Socinians, as well as the Jews, have pressed the debate about the satisfaction of Christ to the utmost scrutiny and examination of every word in Isaiah 53. And yet as the text now stands, pointed and accented, neither Jews nor Socinians — despite the assistance given to them by Grotius, who twisted that entire blessed prophecy to apply it to Jeremiah, thinking thereby to outdo the modern Jews such as Abarbanel and others who applied it to Josiah, to the whole Jewish people, to Messiah Ben Joseph, and to I know not whom — have been able, nor ever shall be able, to free themselves from the sword of the truth therein. Were such exercises upon the Word of God permissible, I could easily show how, by changing the distinctive accents and vowels, much darkness and confusion might be cast over the structure of that glorious prophecy. It is also well known that the Jews commonly argue that one reason they keep the copy of the Law in their synagogues without points is so that the text will not be restricted to one certain sense, giving them freedom to draw out various — and as they say, more elevated — senses.