THE COMPARATIVE COINCIDENCE OF REASON AND SCRIPTURE. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: J. HATCHARD AND SON, 187, PICCADILLY. 1832. PREFACE. THE manuscript of which the contents of the following work is a very faithful copy, has lain for a long series of years concealed from public view. It was written by a person, who at an early age was instructed to keep the mind in an unprejudiced state; and carefully to avoid the imbibing the belief of any religious doctrines to which the reason could not fully assent; to diligently search the Scriptures, and where the assertions therein contained appeared to the investigator rational, to receive them--where they did not appear so, reject them; a research which occupied the unceasing attention of the Author for the long space of fifty years. The result of this inquiry was generally committed to writing in a desultory manner, but without any intention whatever of submitting the inferences and conclusions thereby produced to the inspection of |