the Coming of Shiloh, to have been firft applied to the Meffiah by the Cabbalists in the time of the Maccabres, and not to have been expounded of David's Line, till the Reign of Herod at least not generally; for here he is not fo pofitive, as a Man might have been in a thing purely of his own Invention. But doth he bring any Proof or Probability for what he fays? No, it is meer Conjecture, contrary to all the most ancient Expofitions of the Jewish Writers. But the Jews had a Cabbala, and the Pharifees hated Herod, and the Herodians flattered him, and Jofephus flattered Vefpafian; and therefore from fome Circumftances fuperficially framed and put together, he will needs gather the Uncertainty of this Prophecy, and conclude, that it is contradicted by others, without any confideration had to what so many have said to reconcile them. In the fame place, he fays, that the Jews reckon the Book of Danier gat. ad O Daniel among their Hagiographa or Sacred, but not Canonical Books. Father Simon, to whofe Writings I fuppofe this Gentleman was no Stranger, might undeceive him in this matter; (i) Cafti- his words are these, (i) Novi quidem pufc. Ifaaci Judæos de germana vocis illius (cetuvim) fignificatione inter fe non convenire; etfi omnes fentiant Cetuvim, fen Hagiographos non minùs divinos effe & canonicos, quàm reliquos veteris inftrumenti libros and he plainly proves his Affertion. Voffii, P. 238. (k) Oracl. of Reafon, : The fame Gentleman (k) tells us, P. 221. that Jofephus confeffes, That he durft not prefume to compare the Nation of the Jews with the Antiquity of the moft ancient and infallible Writings of the Egyptians, Chaldeans and Phoenicians. For which he refers his fofephus contra Apion. lib. 1.. Where he will find the quite contrary; for Jofephus makes it his bufinefs to confute" the Heathen Hiftorians, and to vindicate the Jewish Antiquities against r to them, Mundi, them, and to fhew how they contradict themselves and one another, in what they relate of the Jews, different from the Scriptures. (1) And (Anima yet this notorious Miftake is again re- p. 25 peated by our Author; which any one may confute, that will but look into Jofephus. The Defign of his First Book against Apion, is, to prove the Truth of the Jewish Antiquities against the Greeks, from the Writings of the Egyptians, Phoenicians and Chaldeans. Jofephus fays, He wonders at those, who think that the Greeks alone ought to be regarded in Matters of Antiquity3 whereas there was nothing to be found among them of Ancient Date: their Cities, their Arts, their Laws, were but of late Original, and their Hiftothe Greeks themfelves confefs, that there were very ancient Accounts of former Times among the Ægyptians, the Chaldeans, (y *E~ and the Phoenicians; (m) For I omit, fays he, for the prefent, to put our own your curre ries later than all these. Br C 2 Nation τυλίγει. (n) Oracl. of Reason, Nation into the number with them. This is far enough from faying, that he durft not prefume to enter into a Comparifon; for he doth fhew foon after, that the Jews had taken as much care in the writing and preferving their Antiquities, as these Nations, or any other, could poffibly do. But it had not been to his purpose to mention the Jews in that place with the reft; because he brings his Argument from the confeffion of Foreign Hiftorians, who were acknowledged by the Greeks to be of much greater Authority in things of this nature, than they could pretend to themselves. (1) A little before, having tranflaP. 218. ted fomething out of Ocellus Lucanus, to prove the World Eternal, this Gentleman thus fubjoins, Now it is very much, that this Author, Ocellus Lucanus, (who, for his Antiquity, is held to be almoft Contemporary with Mofes, (if not before him) should have so different a fentiment of the World's Beginning from that, 4 that, which Mofes had: methinks, if then |