You and the Fathers of your Church are certainly in the right on't, to make it as old as _Moses_, agreeably to the Opinion, that we cabalistical _Jews_[390] at this Day entertain of it. If it was of later Date and original, your Adversaries are oblig'd to assign the Time _when_, and the Occasion _how_, such a surprising and extraordinary Method of Interpretation was introduced into the Jewish Nation. If our Ancestors in the Days of God's inspired Prophet, _Moses_, heard of none but literal Senses of the Law, and if neither he nor God himself ever intended they should run into the allegorical Strain, I ask when and what was _that Incident_ which turn'd the Heads of our ancient Nation so religiously and devoutly to it? I can easily conceive how it came to pass, that the Sect of the _Caraites_ amongst us _Jews_, who now adhere to the Letter, deserted mystical Interpretations; and why your _Ministers_ of the _Letter_ have forsaken them; and that was because they don't relish nor apprehend those divine Mysteries, which _your_ and _our_ ancient Allegorists so much talk'd of, as veil'd and latent under the Law of _Moses_. But if this be a good Reason, why they have forsaken the allegorical Method, it is a much better Reason, why our Ancestors, of themselves should never have taken it up. And therefore it is plain to me, that God and _Moses_ upon the Institution of the Law, at the same Time imparted the allegorical Method; or it could never afterwards, _by chance_, have enter'd into the Heads of Men, who have hitherto discern'd so little Use and Fruits of it. The Reason why God by _Moses_ communicated to the _Israelites_, and by his Providence since has kept up the allegorical Way of Interpretation of the Scriptures, was to prepare the World for the Reception of the _Messiah_, who was to be the Accomplisher of them in an allegorical Sense; and our Ancestors accordingly so much excercised their Thoughts in divine and mystical Contemplations on the Law; because, they fancied, they could thereby, as through _a Glass darkly_, attain to some glimmering Foresight of the Kingdom of the _Messiah_: For you must know, that our old Cabalists[391] held (what your _Jesus_ undertook to fulfil) that all Things that were written in the Law and the Prophets, were, _to a Tittle_, Type and Prophecy of the _Messiah_, who would be so far the clear Fulfiller and Illustrater of them, as that Men would then see God _Face to Face_: And, to be particular, they expected, in the first Place, that the _Messiah_ would work the Redemption of his Church after the same manner, and by the like Signs and Wonders that _Moses_ wrought the Deliverance of the _Israelites_ out of _Egypt_.