256 MEMOIRS OF PERIOD X. and before his book came to my hand, 'I was fet a-feeking the knowledge of the accentuation, by the ftudy of the facred He- brew text itfelf, confidering the, fame as it ftood accentuated. And I found lb many turnings and windings, and heaps of irre- gulars, in that learned man's account of the accentuation, that I faw nothing therein to remove me from the method of inquiry I had been led unto, to the ftudy thereof inftead of it. Upon the account of the defe& above mentioned, that copy of Waf- muth's book was returned ; and fome time after, I got another copy thereof having the tables, the which is yet among my books. . About this time I received letters from Edinburgh, moving the reprinting of the Everlafting Efpoufals, becaufe of the conti- nued demand forr the fame : the which, after being laid before the Lord, and confidered, was ordered to be done. So in a Mort time after, there was a fecond edition of that fermon. March 26. An old temptation recurred but I beefs God the edge of it is now much blunted, in comparifon of what it has been. But my heart bleeds afrefh for my dear child Katharine. On March 29. I began to make collections on the accents themfelves ; encouraged, and more fitted thereto, by what had fallen out, in the cafe of the aforefaid introdu&ion, which is in retentis.- Reading the facred text, I ftudioufly gathered what I could obferve. And, what was of great ufe to me, as my pole- ¡tar in-this ftudy, was a notion, which by the difcoveries afore- faid I was confirmed in ; namely, That the true conftru&ion of the words of the text, was to be determined by their accentua- tion, as the rule thereof to us'; and not the power or value of the-accents, by what feemed to us the conftrta&ion of the words. This natural, and moft rational point was, I think, originally awing to my reading fomewhere in CrofS's Taghmical Art, that the verbs of the firft hemiftich, Pfal. ii. 2. were to be repeated in the following one. I very well remember, that that had a particular light with it to me. And accordingly, confidering other texts at this rate, and thereby obtaining convincingdifco- veries of their true fenfe, I was fixed in that point : fo Waf- muth's notion of the Ambulatory value of the accents, could not take with me. April 25. This day I kept a fecret fait, 1. To feek light in the matter of a tranfportation to Legertwood, propofed to me when at the fynod, in the matter of adding to the elderfhiphere,' n{ry wife'sjourney to Fife, the determining about the celebration of the facrament, and the difpofing of the,MS. on the Fourfold State of Man., 2. To feek the Lord's pretence and help in my ftudy of the accentuation, and his blefling on the fecond edition of the fermon, now, I fuppofe, in the prefs. 3. On the account of the afflidtion of my wife and children, and of James Biggar's family, Mr Borthwick, Lev-Muir. 4. The cafe of the church, the parifh, and the vacancy of Simprin. Thefe things I laid
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