Of the Church.
The Introduction.

When Manasses1 set up a carved image in the house of the
Lord & built altars in the two courts of the house to all the Host of heaven
& used inchantments & witchcraft & familiar spirits & for his great wick-
edness was invaded by the army of Assarhadon king of Assyria & carried cap-
tive to Babylon, the book of the law was lost till the eighteenth year of his
grandson Iosiah. Then Hilkiah2 the high Priest upon repairing the Temple
found it there, & the King lamented that their fathers had not done after
the words of the book & commanded that it should be read to the people
& caused the people to renew the holy covenant with God. This is the
book of the law now extant.

When Sesak3 came out of Egypt & spoiled the temple & brought
Iudea into subjection to the monarchy of Egypt (w^ch was in fift year
of Rehoboam,) the Iews continued under great troubles for about twenty
years; being without the true God & without a teaching Priest &
without the law; & in those times there was no peace to him that
went out nor to him that came in, b [illeg] |u|t great vexations were upon
all the inhabitants of the countri [illeg] |e|s, & nation was destroyed of nation,
& city of city, for God did vex them with all adversity. But when
Sesak4 was dead & Egypt fell into troubles, Iudea had quiet ten years
& in that time Asa built fenced cities in Iudea & got up an army of
[4] |5|80000 men w^th w^ch in the 15^th year of his reign he met & overcame
Zerah the Ethiopian who had conquered Egypt & Libya & Troglodytica &
came out w^th an army of 1000000 Egyptians & Libyans & Troglodytes
& Ethiopians to recover the counties [sic] formerly conquered by Sesak. And
after this victory Asa dethroned his mother for idolatry, \& he renewed the altar & brought new vessels of gold & silver into the Temple5 ,/ & he & the
people entered into a new covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers
upon pain of death to those who worshipped other Gods; & his son Iehosa-
phat took away the high places & in the third year of his reign
sent some of his princes & of the priests & levites to teach in the cities
of Iudah, & they had the book of the law with them, & went about
throughout all the cities of Iudah, & taught the people. This is that book
of the law w^ch was afterwards lost in the reign of Manasses & found
again in the reign of Iosiah, & therefore it was written before the
third year of Iehosaphat.

The same book of the law was preserved & handed down to posterity
by the Sam [u] |a|ritans in another character & therefore was received by the
ten tribes before their captivity. For when the ten tribes were captivated6 , a
Priest of the captivity was sent back to Bethel by order of the king of
Assyria to instruct the new inhabitants of Samaria in the manner of the
God of the land, & the Samaritans persisted had the Pentateuch from this
Prist |es|t as conteining the law or manner of the God of the land w^ch he
was to teach them. For they persevered in the religion w^ch he taught them7
joyning \ accepting that they joyned / /joyning\ with it the worship of their own Gods, & by persevering in what they
had been taught they preserved this book of their law in the original character
of the Hebrews, while the two tribes after their return from Babylon
changed the character to that of the Chaldees w^ch they had learned at
Babylon.

And while the Pentateuch was received as the book of the law both by the