tremble and are aftonished at his Reproof. In Justice and Judgment? Pfalm 97. 2. Juftice and Judgment are the habitation of his throne. In Bounty and Mercy are proved in Pfalm 25 and 6. Remember, O Lord, thy Mercies and thy Bounties, which have been ever of old, &c. &c. Their Cabala is diftinguished into nominal and real; the firft is occupied in an obscure manner, about the matter or fubject-the latter, in the myftic ufe of letters, names and numbers; finding myfteries in the names of God, in the letters, fyllables, and diction of the facred text. The nominal is diftinguished into three forts, called Gematria, Notarikon, Themura. Ramban, on the firft of Genefis, fays, "that whatever were communicated to Mofes thro' the gates of the understanding, are contained in the divine laws, either in a literal or allegorical fenfe, by geometrical forms and tranfmutations of letters, that by such means Solomon acquired a fuperabundance of wisdom above all the Oriental world. Rabbi Ben Chaim, in his preface to the Bomberg edition of the Bible, fays, "that when he beheld the confufion and disordered ftate ftate of the Mafora, he ftruck his breaft.Quoniam ifti libri in quibus Mafora fuit circumferipta, non fuit Mafora fcripta fecundum ordinem verfuum, qui fuerunt in Columna; multi eorum fuerunt confcripti per nodos, & figuras, adeo ut non fuerit poffibile intelligere per eos ullam rem. For the tranfcribers had worked up the marginal lines of their Mafora into all forts of fanciful devices; fuch as triangles, circles, knots of various kinds, birds, beasts, &c. they changed, inferted, or omitted words at pleasure. From fuch fort of proceedings originated the doctrine of Sephiroth, and of the Four Worlds. The Caballistica Sephiroth is faid to be contained chiefly in the following ten words, which are to be mysteriously transposed into various forms, fometimes circular, fometimes in the human likenefs, or as follows: En decem Nomina! aut voces quas Sephiroth appellant Cabalistæ, fed quæ notio, qui fenfus fubeft fingulis parum conflat, fays Burnet; and indeed it would be impoffible to find any rational meaning couched under fuch words. The four Cabaliftical worlds are called Aziluth, Briah, Jetzirah, and Athia, which are tranflated the Worlds of Emanation, of Creation, of Formation, and of the Builder or Maker. I know not what to compare fuch jargon jargon to, unless the reveries of a Jacob Boehman, or the flights of a Zinzindorf; the Aurora of the firft being the blackness of darkness; and the fpiritual extacy of the latter, being madness volatilized. Thus it is when reafon abdicates her throne, and piety forfakes the heart, that wild imaginations poffefs the one, and fatal delufion fascinates the other-a ftate indeed truly deplorable and wretched. But, tell it not in Gath, publish it not in Afkelon, tell it not among the enemies of christianity, publish it not among modern deifts, that profeffing teachers of the gofpel have, to the discredit even of common fenfe, endeavoured to build ideal theories on the bafis of revelation ; but as the example of fuffering fuch things to pass unnoticed, might prove injurious to the cause of religion, by influencing the minds of ignorant people, or by encouraging defigning perfons, who, for interested motives, arc ever ambitious of becoming the founders' of new fects, I fhall trouble the reader with a few remarks on fome writers, among whom I am forry to name gentlemen whose good difpofitions and fincere attachment to religion, deserve the highest applaufe; whilst at the fame time their writings, having a tendency |