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Therfore of right challenges be,
To have the Superiority.

PHYSICK prefcribes recepts for health,
Which men preferr before their wealth':
Therfore of right challenges be,
To have the Superiority.

Then ftrait fteps up the PRIEST demure,
Who of men's Souls takes care and cure:
Therfore of right challenges he,

To have the Superiority.

If JUDGES end this TRIPLE PLEA,
The LAWYERS fhall bear all the fway.
If EMPIRICS their verdict give,

PHYSICIANS best of all will thrive.
If BISHOPS arbitrate the cafe,

The PRIESTS must have the highest place.
If HONEST, SOBER, WISE MEN judge,
Then ALL THE THREE away may trudge.
For let men live in peace and love,

The LAWYERS tricks they need not prove.
Let them forbear excefs and riot,

They need not feed on DOCTOR's diet.
Let them attend what GOD does teach,
They need not care what PARSONS preach.
But if men FOOLS and KNAVES will be,
They'll be affe-ridden by ALL THREE.

I fhall add no more, but that having intended to print the fubftance of the fourth Differtation above a year fince, together with the Treatife of Tradition, which laft upon fecond thoughts is delay'd for fome months; I judg'd the other wou'd come time enough, at the end of the three Differtations which I now fend into the world. With relation to the whole work, I have in the inner margin inferted the originals of all the citations of the first and last pieces; which, as to the fecond and third, cou'd not be done, without making the Notes near as large as the Text. But the places where they occurr in the books, out of which I have extracted them, are fo diftinctly mark'd; that they will be readily found by any, who has a mind to verify them.

From under an Elm in Bensbury (or CNEBEN's camp) on the Warren at the fouth end of Wimbledon Common. MDCC.XX.

OR, THE

Pillar of Cloud and Fire,

THAT

Guided the ISRAELITES in the Wilderness, not Miraculous:

BUT A

Thing equally practis'd by other nations, and in those places not only useful but necessary.

PERTICAM, quae undique confpici poffet, fupra PRAETORIUM ftatuit, ex qua SIGNUM eminebat pariter omnibus confpicuum. Obfervabatur IGNIS noctu, FUMUS interdiu. QUINT. CURT. lib. 5. cap. 2.

LONDON, Printed in the Year 1720.

1

1

HODEGUS:

1.

OR,

The Pillar of Cloud and Fire not Miraculous.

HAVE often wonder'd why many perfons, defervedly famous for their literature and politeness, have in a manner exprefly neglected the Hiftory of the most antient and famous nation of the Jews; while they bestow'd abundance of

pains, and show'd no lefs difcernment, in their inquiries concerning the Greec, the Roman, and other Antiquities. The reafon at first I thought to have been the fmall extent of the Jewish territories, the fterility of their warlike exploits (in comparison of thofe nations I have mention'd) with their ignorance of arts and useful inventions: ungrateful fubjects for pleasure or inftruction. But how juft foever this cenfure

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may be of the Jews in certain particulars, yet their affairs were at all times intimately link'd, either with those of the Egyptians, or the Affyrians, or the Perfians, or the Phenicians, or the Arabians; which were Nations, wherof fome yielded not to the Greecs for Learning, but rather exceded them in that as well as in Commerce, others of 'em equall'd the Romans in feats of Arms no less than in the arts of Government, and all of 'em went farr beyond both the Greecs and the Romans in point of Antiquity: not to fay that the Jews in process of time had, as every one knows, matters of the greatest concern to tranfact with these fame Greecs and Romans, to whom they were likewife fubjects or tributaries in their turns. Strange therfore they fhou'd be so much neglected!

II. BUT Experience taught me at last, that the true reason why Judea has lain thus uncultivated by the Laity, is the Clergy's wholly ingroffing that province for a long time to themfelves, on the improvement of which they laid out neither fufficient labor nor expense. This has made a foil appear very barren, that is otherwife fruitful enough, and capable to reward the industry of a judicious Critic. Now as fome nations, the better to preserve their Mines to themfelves, reported they were haunted by frightful dragons, or infefted with noxious vapors: fo thofe Clergymen proceded with no lefs art, and they often us'd violence, to deterr others from the ftudy of the antient Jewish books. They made it facrilege fo much as to peep into them, without their licence. They gave out that the reading of them wou'd turn men's heads, and fill them with ftrange fancies. Nay we all know, that at length they quite and clean extorted them out of the

hands

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