DEDICATION.

**

...rites and Ministries of the Christian Church original: "sacris & Ministeriis Ecclesiae Christianae". Even if I had very much wished to abandon this pledge original: "vadimonium"; a legal term for a guarantee or obligation to appear in court, here used metaphorically for his scholarly commitment, toward which my mind was inclined, I judged that it was not permitted after a certain Learned Man likely referring to a contemporary critic of the author’s work on Hebrew antiquities initiated a dispute against me regarding the principal hypotheses I had embraced in that book of mine, and which I had applied to illustrate the affairs of the Early Church from the model of the Synagogue. From this dispute—though otherwise most annoying—I gathered this fruit: I found it necessary to apply myself more diligently to investigating certain sacred rites of the Synagogues. First, I did not want this fruit of my labor to perish; and then, I also reflected that the necessary care for my reputation original: "existimationis meae"—not for the sake of increasing it (an immoderate desire for which is called Ambition), but for defending it, both among the men of this age and among posterity, whose judgment no prudent man despises—demanded this of me. It required that I explain those opinions I hold concerning the Conformity of the Government and Ministries of the Synagogue and the Church (which that Learned Man had rendered suspicious and had condemned) both more clearly and with greater effort and industry, and also that I assert and support them more strongly. I have done this while changing or omitting those things in that first Dissertation original: "Dissertatione" which were displeasing to me. I judged this to pertain to the glory of God, to whom all our works ought to be dedicated,