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Excerpt from Lingua Sacra: In Three Parts In the catalogue of thof'e who have exhibited this charge againft the Hebrew Language, maybe reckoned M. De Voltaire, who, in his Phi lofophical Dietionary, Philol'ophy of Hiftory, Toleration, fie. Has en deavoured to imprefs on his Readers, the idea of the barrenefs of the Hebrew Language. The authority of (0 celebrated and illuftrious a writer, muft certainly have had great weight with the generality of rea ders, and might polhbly have done much mif chief, in regard to the He brew Language, as the means of deterring fuch who otherwife might have been inclined to acquire a knowledge of the Hebrew tongue, had it not been for an antidote applied to the poifon, by the letters of certain jews l] in which they have abundantly confuted what the illuftrious writer hath advanced, and clearly ibewn, that his knowledge of the Oriental languages, and the Hebrew in particular, was very fuperfi cial; and that a writer, who prefumes to decide with fuch authori ty on languages, ought to have, at leaft, a decent knowledge of them. For (peaking of the infurmountable difficulties under which the He brew language labours, he lays, The Hebrew: never had but two moods for the verbs, the prefent and the future: The other moods are guefs work. [toleration] Now, as the Authors of the j'owr Letters have obferved, A real Grammarian would have {aid two reefer for the prefent and the future are tenfes, not moods. To which may be added, that the Hebrew has a prefent tenfe alfo, which is the participle of the prefent, called igwg, bemmz', intermedi ate; i. E. Between the paft and the future. But, as the above-mention ed Authors facetiouy obferve, we mutt forgive fuch little grammati cal ips in a great man, who is taken up with twenty fciences at once That this has been the precife cafe of feveral other writers, with re gard to the Hebrew, may be fully evinced, by any perfon that hath a thorough knowledge, and tafite of the Sacred Language. About t