The PREFACE.

For all the following chapters, both of this, and of the second and third books—so much only excepted as is historical—Nature has been, in a manner, my only book, which I have read and copied as exactly as I could. In doing of which, I purposely avoided the perusal of some works of much esteem, that this copy of mine might be nowhere interlined, nor my thoughts diverted from their own proper motion and compass.

When I came, in the fourth book, to discourse of the Holy Scriptures, I saw it necessary to understand the nature of the Hebrew tongue: the first occasion I ever had to meddle with it. And the reader may be assured, I have taken care, as not to mislead him in that moderate use I have made of it, so likewise, to fully comprehend the authors I was obliged to consult; especially for the first chapter, Of the Integrity of the Hebrew Code.

The rest of this book, and all the last, which further prove the integrity, and herewith the truth and excellency, both of the Old and New Testament—avoiding as much as I could to repeat what has been already very well said by others—I have composed chiefly out of my own small reading and observation, to the end I might be both another witness, and also be able to bring further evidence in the case.

One particular I have advisedly omitted, and that is the description of Solomon’s Temple; the learned Villalpandus having saved me the labour. But I have taken some pains for that of the Tabernacle, which, I think, has hitherto been wanting.

I have made no quotations in proof of any assertion or opinion, but only in point of fact. And I have seldom troubled the reader, or myself, in answering objections. For if the things I have written are true, as no authority can make them truer, so a thousand objections cannot make them false.