fir 



examine into the authority and evidence of the grounds on 

 which they have been supported. This, perhaps, will have the 

 fiirther advantage, of impressing more deeply on the mind of 

 the reader, the vast importance which has been, in all ages of 

 the church, attached by the learned, to the solution of the 

 question; and, at least a view of the objections under which 

 these hypotheses severally labour, will prepare the mind for 

 the reception, of a theory simplified from their obscurities, and 

 freed from their errors, and objections. In this indeed I have 

 only the drudgery of transcription to deprecate, or the diffi- 

 culty of analysis and selection to surmount. Each seems more 

 anxious, as well as more successful, in his attempts to destroy, 

 than to rebuild ; to overthrow, than to restore ; and the arena 

 seems sufficiently open to rencAved competition, as far as the 

 mutual hostility of the combatants could have cleared it for 

 their successors. In eifect, the arguments which have in- 

 duced me to reject the systems already proposed, will be 

 stated generally in the words of the adversaries who have 

 noticed them; each exposing the errors he has discovered in 

 the hypothesis he attacks; to be himself successively repre- 

 hended for a neglect of the same reasoning, or a commission 

 of the same faults, he had originally reproved in others. 

 Thus, it is, that even the most obscure, or trivial subject 

 of enquiry, may be made useful in the cultivation of mind, 

 and thus, in the language applied to much more interesting 

 and important discussions, multi pertramibunt, augebiiur 

 scientia. 



The 



