OF THE LAST CENTURY. €$ 



abhor the understanding as fomething by nature cor- 

 rupt, are cried up as the only porTeffors of divine il- 

 lumination. 



Indeed they are perpetually talking of their bound- 

 lefs admiration of the myfteries they pretend to have 

 found in the facred writings. But, on inveftigating 

 their doctrines, I find them to be no more than the 

 dregs of the depraved fchools of Ariftotle and Plato ; 

 which, left they fhould be called the copiers of the 

 heathens, they forcibly adapt to fome text from the 

 bible. 



Now, the more they are aftonifhed at thefe myfte- 

 ries, fo much the more do they evince, that the faith 

 they pretend to repofe in the fcriptures, is far' more 

 feigned than felt. And this is ftill farther confirmed 

 from hence, that the generality of them adopt the per- 

 fect infallibility and divinity of the facred books of the 

 Hebrews for the main ground of their way of expofi- 

 tion ; and of courfe directly take for granted without 

 any evidence, what can only be proved by a fevere 

 examination and a thorough knowledge of thofe books 

 themfelves. 



Thefe and fimilar confederations induced me to re- 

 folve to examine the bible afrefh, and with a free and 

 unbiaffed mind, and to adopt no doctrine as emaning 

 from it, which I fhould find with a luminous certainty 

 not to be contained in it. 



In this defign, I began to inveftigate what fort of 

 a tendency the prophecies had, and how the feers 

 (the teachers of religion among the Hebrews) could 

 have acquired the particular favour of God : whe- 

 ther by the exalted ideas they had of God and na- 

 i ture, 



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