e surprised when we hear him declaring: "We are sure, from the
names of persons and places mentioned in Scripture before the Deluge,
not to insist upon other arguments, that the Hebrew was the primitive
language of mankind, and that it continued pure above three thousand
years until the captivity in Babylon." The power of the theologic bias,
when properly stimulated with ecclesiastical preferment, could hardly
be more perfectly exemplified than in such a captivity of such a man as
Bentley.

Yet here two important exceptions should be noted. In England, Prideaux,
whose biblical studies gave him much authority, opposed the dominant
opinion; and in America, Cotton Mather, who in taking his Master's
degree at Harvard had supported the doctrine that the Hebrew vowel
points were of divine origin, bravely recanted and declared for the
better view.(416)

(416) The quotation from Guichard is from L'Harmonie Etymologique des
Langues,... dans laquelle par plusiers Antiquites et Etymologies
de toute sorte, je demonstre evidemment que toutes les langues sont
descendues de l'Hebraique; par M. Estienne Guichard, Paris, 1631. The
first edition appeared in 1606. For Willett, see his Hexapla, London,
1608, pp. 125-128. For the Address of L'Empereur, see his publication,
Leyden, 1627. The quotation from Lightfoot, beginning "Other
commendations," etc., is taken from his Erubhin, or Miscellanies,
edition of 1629; see also his works, vol. iv, pp. 46, 47, London, 1822.
For Bishop Brian Walton, see the Cambridge edition of his works, 1828,
Prolegomena S 1 and 3. As to Walton's giving up the rabbinical points,
he mentions in one of the latest editions of his works the fact that
Isaac Casabon, Joseph Scaliger, Isaac Vossius, Grotius, Beza, Luther,
Zwingli, Brentz, Oecolampadius, Calvin, and even some of the Popes were
with him in this. For Sennert, see his Dissertation de Ebraicae S. S.
Linguae Origine, etc., Wittenberg, 1657; also his Grammitica Orientalis,
Wittenberg, 1666. For Buxtorf, see the preface to his Thesaurus
Grammaticus Linguae Sanctae Hebraeae, sixth edition, 1663. For Gale,
see his Court of the Gentiles, Oxford, 1672. For Morinus, see his
Exercitationes de Lingua Primaeva, Utrecht, 1697. For Thomassin, see
his Glossarium Universale Hebraicum, Paris, 1697. For John Eliot's
utterance, see Mather's Magnalia, book iii, p. 184. For Meric Casaubon,
see his De Lingua Anglia Vet., p. 160, cited by Massey, p. 16 of Origin
and Pro