THE INSPECTOR. SPICILEGIA ANTIBIBLICA, ANTIPHILOSOPHICA, ET ANTICRITICA. P. QUICQUID AGUNT HOMINES:-Pharmacopolæ, A. Tunc, cum ad canitiem et noftrum illud vivere trifte "Beware of FALSE PROPHETS ; Juv. HOR. PERS. Who come unto you in fheep's cloathing, "For, as there were False Prophets among the people [of Ifrael], Even fo, fhall there be Falfe Teachers among you;" "Who fhall foift in Herefies of Perdition :". "Falfe Apofiles, Deceitful Workers, transforming Themselves into CHRIST'S Apoftles :-and by fine Words, and fair Speeches, perverting the Heart Of the Simple:" "BY THEIR ERUITS fhall ye INTIMATELY KNOW them.” JESUS CHRIST, PETER, PAUL. IN every age of the Patriarchal and Evangelical Church, or-General Af sembly of the wife and good upon earth— 66 who, "who, in EVERY NATION, do fear GOD and work righteousness," Acts x. 35. -the grand batteries of Falfe Philofophy and Falfe Religion have been variously and unremittingly levelled, both open and masked, against the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Teftament, which compofe that precious repofitory of truth and right-THE BIBLE-that impregnable fortrefs of Patriarchal and Evangelical faith and practice :-malicioufly or wantonly aiming to overthrow or undermine their authority, either in the whole or in part, because they obftinately militate against their own favourite pofitions and paradoxes; and more especially, in the prefent boasted AGE OF REASON, but declining Age of Faith; so abfurdly rejecting the gracious boon of DIVINE RevelaTION; when “ the Venders of Literary Poifon"-i.e. Bookfellers; and "Witlings," Methodists," and "Hypercritics" among authors of no fmall celebrity, unanimously confpire, however at variance with each other, "to crush CHRISTIANITY," and fap fap the foundations of TRUE RELIGION and SOUND PHILOSOPHY. The French School, with Voltaire at their head, would gladly fweep away the whole BIBLE, root and branch, from off the face of the earth; leaving nothing behind, but the Book of Nature, or visible works of Creation-and the reveries of unaffifted Reason, for the regulation of our faith and morals :-of this School, the lowest, but not least mischievous retainer is Paine. The German School, ranking under the celebrated Michaelis, Eichhorn, Dathe, &c. are fatisfied to lop off fome of the main branches, of the Old Teftament principally; and to methodize the remainder, by all the vagaries of hypercriticism. The English School, under Priestley, Wakefield, &c. wifh to curtail fuch parts of the New Teftament, and methodize others, as militate against their favourite but jarring tenets, falfely denominated Unitarian; though fome over "ftrenuous" Unitarians, indeed, would go nearly as far as as Paine and the French School; as Evan→ fon, &c. This Part fhall be appropriated to the inspection of a few of the most glaring "idle affertions" refpecting the authenticity or genuinenefs, the credibility or internal evidence, and the integrity or freedom from adulteration, either by mutilation or interpolation of material parts and paffages of Holy Writ, culled from "the works" of the three Philofophizing Schools, according to the original plan of this publication. I. GEDDES, that various linguift, in his faithful [Erfe] Tranflation" of the Hebrew Scriptures; of which he has hitherto published the Pentateuch, and Hiftorical Books, in two volumes; has undertaken, in the curious Cofmogony, prefixed, Pref. p. v. to rectify the Mofaical divifion of time. By ordinary commentators, "the evening and morning," which compofed the civil" day," of twenty-four hours, are generally understood to denote the natural 7 |