1716. MR THOMAS BOSTON. 255 of the death of a mother of four fmall children, who I am told has not been well thefe twenty days, but never lay ; was better yefterday, but carried offat night by a ficknefs, fo far as I could underftand, not above two hours long. Alas ! we have provok- ed our God. By the awful voice of Providencecontinuing, I was led to Zech. xii. 12. And the land fhall mourn, every family apart," &c. on which I dwelt from March 11. till May 20. ; and for force time after, on Pfal. cxxvi. 5. " They that fow in tears, Mall reap in joy`." Upon the former of thefe I preffed the duty of perfonal and family fatting, among other things. And this was not without fruit. I knew that foine were engaged in. thefe duties ; particularly James Biggar's family, on which the hand of the Lord lay long and heavy, and carried off feveral of them ; in their death, as in their life, comfortable to me, as a- bove faid., Immediately after the family-faft of Jan. 23. I purfued my refolution of putting in writ what I thought I had reached of the accentuation ; the which I reckoned, when I began it, I might, comprife in two or three leaves: but even what I defigned for introduction thereto, fweiled to about fix íheets ; and was not finifhed till March 23. ; the bread, by the divine bleffing, in- creafing in the breaking. Reading the Hebrew Bible, I was molt pleafurably, beyond what one can readily without feeling imagine, furprifed with difcoveries of the Lord's mind in his word ; by means of that intrinfic light I perceived it to be illu- minated with, by its own accentuation. Thus I came to be ,fully perfuaded, as of what I faw with my eyes, that the accents are the true key to the genuine verflon and fenfe of the Hebrew text ; and that they are divine. As from time to time, in that happy. ftudy, I met with new difcoveries of that nature ; 1 often thought with myfelf, What a trifle my digging up gold in force Mite I might have fallen upon in Peru or elfewhere, would have been, in comparifon of this, which 1 found in my accentuated Hebrew Bible ! Juft on the morrow after my finilbing of what I defigned for introduction, and have now fo intitled, came to my hand Waf- muth's Inflitutio accentuationis Hebrcece ; the which L took for a token for good. Having glanced it the week following, I found it miring, and perceived that it wanted the tables often therein. mentioned. So I was fet anew to turn my eyes towards the Lord, from whommy help behoved to come ; and to depend on him for that effect. And here I cannot but admire and adore the conduét of fovereign wifdom towards me in that matter. I had no character of Wáfi nuth aforehand, to prepoffefs me ; . The author afterwards tranfcribed his notes on Zech. xii. 12. and they were pub- lilhed in 1734, under the title of A memorial concerningperfonal and family failing, an- nexed to his View, of the covenant of grace; and the fermons n Pfal. cxxv. 5. word publilhed in 1772; in a WW1 lJ colledtion, with'fome other o'! hisfernitons. No. U. I i 1
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