New Testament with the Old.  “I was the more grieved, because, (says this honest and well meaning man) I knew not how to apply a remedy to this evil.”  But the matter being of great importance, he discoursed with several learned men about it, and read the books of others, being persuaded that the authors of the books of the New Testament had written nothing but what was suited to the time wherein they lived, and that Christ and his apostles had constantly followed the method of their ancestors.  After he had long revolved this hypothesis in his mind, at last he met with a Rabbi well skilled in the Talmud, the Cabbala, and the allegorical books of the Jews.  This Rabbi had once embraced the Christian religion, but was again relapsed to Judaism on account of the idolatry of the Papists, yet not perfectly disbelieving the integrity of the New Testament.  Surenhusius asked him, what he thought of the passages of the Old Testament quoted in the New, whether they were rightly quoted or not, and whether the Jews had any just reason to cavil at them, and at the same time proposed to him two or three passages, which had very much exercised the most learned Christian commentators.

The Rabbi having admirably explained those passages, to the great surprise of Surenhusius, and confirming his explications by several places of the Talmud, and other writings of the Jewish commentators, and allegorical writers, Surenhusius asked him what would be the best method to write a treatise in order to vindicate the passages of the Old Testament quoted in the New?  The Rabbi answered, that he “thought the best way of succeeding in such an undertaking would be to peruse a great part of the Talmud, and the allegorical and literal commentators; to observe their several ways of quoting and interpreting scripture, and to collect as many materials of that kind, as would be sufficient for that purpose.”

Surenhusius took the hint immediately:  he read such books as were recommended, observed every thing that might be subservient to his design, and made a book upon the subject.  And in the third part of that book he gives us the rules so long sought after, viz., the ten ways# used, he says, by the Jewish doctors in citing scripture.  And here they are:—­

1.  The first rule is—­“reading the words of the Hebrew bible, not according to the points placed under them, but according to other points substituted in their stead,” as is done by Peter, Acts iii. 3; by Stephen, Acts vii. 43, and by Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 54; 2 Cor. viii. 16, and Heb. iii. 10; ix. 21; xii. 6.

2.  The second rule is—­“changing the letters, whether those letters be of the same organ (as the Hebrew grammarians speak,) or not,” as is done by Paul, Rom. ix. 33; 1 Cor. xi. 9; Heb. viii. 9, and x. 6; and by Stephen, Acts vii. 43.

3.  The third is—­“changing both letters and points,” as is done by Paul, Acts xiii. 41, and 2 Cor. viii. 15.

4.  The fourth is—­“adding some letters, and taking away others.”