OR

A RATIONAL ACCOUNT

OF THE GROUNDS OF

NATURAL AND REVEALED: RELIGION

TO WHICH IS ADDED

PART OF ANOTHER BOOK UPON THE SAME SUBJECT,

LEFT UNFINISHED BY THE AUTHOR.

TOGETHER WITH

A LETTER TO A DEIST.

BY

THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD

EDWARD STILLINGFLEET, D. D.

LATE LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER.

A NEW EDITION, IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

OXFORD,

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

MDCCCXXXVI.

IT

was the early felicity of Moses, when exposed in an ark of Nilotic papyre, to be adopted into the favour of so great a personage as the daughter of Pharaoh : such another ark is this vindication of the writings of that divine and excellent person exposed to the world in; and the greatest ambition of the author of it is, to have it received into your patronage and protection. But although the contexture and frame of this treatise be far below the excellency and worth of the subject, (as you know the ark in which Moses was put, was of bulrushes daubed with slime and pitch,) yet, when you please to cast your eye on the matter contained in it, you will not think it beneath your favour, and unworthy your protection. For if truth be the greatest present which God could bestow, or man receive, (according to that of Plutarch, Ὡς οὐθὲν ἀνθρώπῳ λαβεῖν Plutarch. μεῖζον, ἢ χαρίζεσθαι Θεῷ σεμνότερον ἀληθείας,) then certainly Osir. those truths deserve our most ready acceptance, which are in themselves of greatest importance, and have the

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de Isid. et