The use made by some well-meaning Christians of the above-named Kabbalistic canons of interpretation, in controversies with Jews, to prove that the doctrines of Christianity are concealed under the letter of the Old Testament, will now be deprecated by every one who has any regard for the laws of language. As a literary curiosity, however, we shall give one or two specimens. No less a person than the celebrated Reuchlin would have it that the doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. He submits, if the Hebrew word ‏ברא‎, which is translated created, be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word, we obtain the expressions ‏בן רוח אב‎ Son, Spirit, Father, according to Rule 2 (p. 131). Upon the same principle this erudite scholar deduces the first two persons in the Trinity from the words—“the stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner” (Ps. cxviii, 22), by dividing the three letters composing the word ‏אבן‎ stone, into ‏אב בן‎ Father, Son (Comp. De Verbo Mirifico, Basel, 1494). In more recent times we find it maintained that the ‘righteousness’ spoken of in Daniel ix, 24, means the Anointed of Jehovah, because the original phrase, ‏צדק עלמים‎ is by Gematria, = numerical value, (which is Rule 1, given above, p. 131), the same as ‏משיח יהוה‎. So pleased is the author with this discovery, that he takes great care to remark—“It is a proof which I believe has hitherto escaped the notice of interpreters.” Such proofs, however, of the Messiaship of Christ bring no honour to our religion; and in the present day argue badly both against him who adduces them and against him who is convinced by them. II. We now proceed to trace the date and origin of the Kabbalah. Taking the ex parte statement for what it is worth, viz., that this secret doctrine is of a pre-Adamite date, and that God himself propounded it to the angels in Paradise, we shall have to examine the age of the oldest documents which embody its tenets, and compare these doctrines with other systems, in order to ascertain the real date and origin of this theosophy. But before this is done, it will be necessary to summarize, as briefly as possible, those doctrines which are peculiar to the Kabbalah, or which it expounds and elaborates in an especial manner, and which constitute it a separate system within the precincts of Judaism. The doctrines are as follow:— 1. God is boundless in his nature. He has neither will, intention, desire, thought, language, nor action. He cannot be grasped and depicted; and, for this reason, is called En Soph, and as such he is in a certain sense not existent. 2. He is not the direct creator of the universe, since he could not will the creation; and since a creation proceeding directly from him would have to be as boundless and as perfect as he is himself.