Types and Ceremonies of the Law, which were a Picture drawn at large of Chrift, and what he was to be, to do, to fuffer, to receive, to obtain for us, they have made a Puppet-shew of. The Inftitutions of Religion from Adam to Mofes, tho' the fame for Form with those which he renewed in Writing, they have made a Nothing of; and their Religion, which was the fame in Subftance exactly with what we now profefs, they have made Gueffes, Imagination, Natural Religion, or Religion of Nature, which is in reality no more Religion than brute Creatures have. The great and extenfive Knowledge they received from God, they make dark Hints, Ignorance, Simplicity of antient Times; and the divers Manners in which God Spoke to them by Prophets, are resolved · into one, which they are not allowed to have understood, and which we really

really do not. The Prophecies are made Riddles; the Language formed by God, a loose, vague, unmeaning Jargon; without Grammar, Confiftency, Propriety, or Certainty; and this Sort of Stuff is daily retailed out in Converfation, Coffee-houses, from the Prefs, nay, from (would to God it were a Scandal in us to charge it upon) the Pulpit; by Men of all Ranks, and before all Audiences, on all Occafions; who prepofterously, and to the Destruction of all Religion, think they do God Service, in abufing his People, his Law, his Revelation for the firft four thousand Years of the World, and reprefenting his People, as the moft ignorant, hardened, ftiffnecked People in the World; as if God had chofen the Scum and Refuse of Mankind, or they became fuch as foon as they became his Difciples; or it were to the Honour of God, and b 4

the

the Service of Chriflianity, to make the Prophets, who delivered the lively Oracles of God to Men, and those Men who received them, the voideft of common Senfe of all Men: But it is to be hoped that they, who affert fuch Paradoxes for the future, will be esteemed what they truly are, and what they have laboured to make the Prophets appear. These Writings prefent the Bible and Religion to you in quite another Drefs; Chriftianity is here proved to have been the first and only Religion ever revealed to Men; the Plan of it, the only Plan Man can be faved upon. They prefent you with a View of the great Deviations from Christianity;. the Schemes Apoftates proceeded upon before the Flood, and fince; the Methods Providence took to confound fuch Schemes, and thereby lay before you a Display of the Wisdom and

great

great Goodness of God to Men; the Reasons and Motives of the great Revolutions; and of the Punifhments, particular Interpofitions of Providence, and occafional Revelations, to Believers; and at the fame time, the Sentiments, Knowledge, and Learning of the reft of the World. The Blots in the Translation are removed, the fecret Places are opened, and the dark Corners enlightened; and the Bible appears the only Book that has any real Learning in it; the only Book worthy the Study of Men of Parts and Abilities; the only Comment upon all the Books preferved out of the Wreck of Human Learning.

Complaints have been made, by some, of the Obfcurity of Mr Hutchinfon's Stile; the Difficulty of understanding him, and, what they are pleafed to call, an unpolifhed Way of Writing. He was not writing a Romance, or had any Design to amufe

his Readers with foft-flowing, unmeaning Words, but was laying Things before them; giving them Ideas they had not before; opening the Secrets of Antiquity, Philofophy, and Divinity; he was defcribing the Earth beneath, and the Heavens above; and he had Abundance of Rubbish to remove out of his Way; Words to conftrue, never before explained; Objections that had been, or might be, made to answer and obviate; a great Part of his Works may be called a Dictionary, and nobody expects the Stile of a Dictionary to run in that of a Declamation: He has qualified others to harangue, and opened a Treafure of Ideas to enliven and embellish the Difcourfes of those who have Abilities and Time to fpend in playing the Orator. Strong, nervous, mafculine Language, exact Description, and the most proper Choice of Words, are to be met with in great Abun

dance