Conjectura cabbalistica

(as Saint Jude original: "S. Jude" calls them) that at several distances play about him, and yet all of them in some measure or other, not only pretending to him, but whether they pretend or not, really receiving something from him. For of this First, is all, both Wisdom, Pleasure, and Power. But it is enough to have but hinted these things briefly and enigmatically, the wrath and ignorance of all Ages receiving the most generous Truths, with the greatest offence.

But for my own part, I know no reason but that all well-willers to Truth and Godliness, should heartily thank me for my present Cabbalistical Enterprise, I having so plainly therein vindicated the holy Mystery of the Trinity from being (as a very bold Sect would have it) a mere Pagan invention. For it is plainly shown here, that it is from Moses originally, not from Pythagoras, or Plato. And seeing that Christ is nothing but Moses unveiled, I think it was a special act of Providence that this hidden Cabbala came so seasonably to the know-

ledge of the Gentiles, that it might beforehand fit them for the easier entertainment of the whole Mystery of Christianity, when in the fullness of time it should be more clearly revealed unto the world.

Besides this, we have also shown, That according to Moses his Philosophy, the soul is secure both from death, and from sleep after death, which those drowsy Nodders over the letter of the Scripture have very drowsily original: "oscitantly" collected, and yet as boldly afterwards maintained, pretending that the contrary, is more Platonical, than Christian, or Scriptural.

Wherefore my design being so pious as it proves, I could do nothing more fit then to make choice of so true a lover of Piety as your self for a Patron of my present Labours. Especially you being so well able to do the most proper office of a Patron, to defend the truth that is presented to you in them, and to make up out of your rich Treasury of Learning, what our Penury could not reach to, or Inadvertency