OR THE FIRST PART OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS COMPARED WITH THE REMAINS OF ANCIENT RELIGIONS. BY OSMOND DE BEAUVOIR PRIAULX. Μὴ νῦν ἓν ἦθος μοῦνον ἐν σαυτῷ φόρει, SOPHOCLES. Second Edition, corrected and enlarged. LONDON: JOHN CHAPMAN, 142, STRAND. MDCCCLIV. PREFACE. COMMENTATORS on the Bible-and their name is legion—are Orthodox or Infidel or Rationalist. As Orthodox, or belonging to some one of the great sects into which Christianity is divided, they reverence in the Bible an inspired book, the Book of Truth; but as their age has also its truths, and truths which only here and there some unhappy thinker ventures to doubt, to these truths they struggle to fashion their text: and with Scripture consequently they now confirm error, and with Scripture now oppose and now ratify the new deductions of science; in their hands the Bible has as many meanings as man has opinions.-As Infidel, they despise the religion of which the Bible is the symbol; they see the present and the present only; they have eyes but for themselves and their own wants; into the spirit of the ancient world they never seek to penetrate, it is not their spirit: and the forms of old religion are for them therefore but the cunning devices of priestcraft to ensnare men's |