6% APHORISMS FROM AN AUTHOR 



ture, or by their piety alone. Having once fatisfied 

 myfelf on this particular, I found my conviction ealily 

 follow, that the refpect for the prophets could only be 

 valid fo far as they inculcated wifdom of life and real 

 virtue; and that, on every thing elfe, their private 

 opinions might be very indifferent to us. 



This point being once decided ; I afked myfelf far- 

 ther : Why the Hebrews were denominated the chofen 

 people of God ? And, on finding this could only be 

 becaufe God had affigned them a certain dinrict for 

 their abode : it prefented itfelf to me likewife, that the 

 ritual which God revealed to Mofes was nothing elfe 

 but a code of pofitive regimen and political conltitu- 

 tion for the Hebrews ; and that confequently it could 

 not be binding on any other nation in the world, nor 

 even on the Hebrews themfelves fubfequent to the de- 

 molition of their form of government. 



I thereupon proceeded to examine, whether it was 

 deducible from the bible, that the human underftand- 

 ing was naturally corrupt. I conceived nothing more 

 was necefTary to this purpofe, than to convince myfelf, 

 whether general religion, or the divine law, as revealed 

 by the prophets and apoftles to the whole human race, 

 was diltinct from that which is difcoverable by the na- 

 tural light of reafon ? 



But, lince among all the matters exprefily taught us 

 by the fcriptures, I abfolutely found nothing that was 

 not in perfect agreement with reafon, much lefs that 

 was in direct oppoiition to it* lince, even in the pro- 

 phets themfelves, I could difcover no more than a lim- 

 ple doctrine, which all men in their times might ealily 

 comprehend, and which moreover was always cloathed 



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