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is philosophy of revealed religion is contained in his _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_.(343) This work was called forth by the disputes of the age, and had the political object of defending liberty of thought as necessary to the safety both of the state and of religion. The question of predestination had rent the Dutch church shortly before this time; and when the victory remained with the Calvinistic party, the opinions of the liberal Remonstrants were treated as crimes. Spinoza proposed in this work a plan, perhaps suggested by the perusal of Hobbes, for curing these dissensions. The book is a critical essay, in which he surveys the Jewish and Christian religions, and ends in the conclusion that certainty on the subject of a revelation is impossible; accordingly that the remedy for theological acrimony must be sought in a return to what he regards to be the simple doctrine which Christ taught, the love of God and one's neighbour; that philosophy and theology ought to be severed; the one aiming at truth and resting on universal ideas, the other at obedience and piety and resting on historic authority and special revelation. Hence, while uniformity of religious worship and practice was to be prescribed, he claimed that unlimited liberty of speculation ought to be tolerated.(344) It is in the survey of Judaism and Christianity in the earlier part of this work that he exhibits the views in which he has anticipated many of the speculations of rationalism. He examines first into the grounds which Revelation puts forward for its claim to authority, viz. prophecy, the Jewish polity, and miracles;(345) next the principles of interpretation, and the canon of the two Testaments;(346) lastly, the nature of the divine teaching(347) endeavouring to show that the fundamental articles of faith are given in natural religion. In this way he exhibits his views on those branches which are now denominated the evidences, exegesis, and doctrines. In the discussion of prophecy he analyses the nature of prophetic foresight into vividness of imagination; and exhibits the human feeling and sentiment intertwined with it.(348) He regards the Hebrew idea of election as merely the theocratic mode of representing their own good success in that region of circumstances which was not in human power.(349) His explanation of miracles has been already stated: the course of nature seems to him to be fixed and immutable; and he argues that interference wi
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