th its course is not a greater proof of Providence than a perpetual
unchanging administration.(350)

As his philosophy is seen in the treatment of the evidences, so his
criticism appears in the discussion of the canon. He examines the several
books of scripture, and concludes from supposed marks of editorship that
the Pentateuch and historical books were all composed by one historian,
who was, he thinks, probably Ezra, Deuteronomy being the first
composed.(351) The prophetic books he resolves into a collection of
fragments. His opinions on this department would be rejected as immature
by modern rationalist critics; yet they have an historic interest as
marking the rise of the searching investigations into the sources and
construction of the Hebrew sacred literature, which have been pursued in
an instructive manner in modern times. His view respecting the nature of
scriptural doctrines,(352) that they can be reduced to the teaching of
natural reason, is a corollary from his philosophy, which cannot admit
that any religious truth is obligatory which is not self-evident, and is
analogous to the doctrine which a short time previously had been stated by
Lord Herbert of Cherbury.(353)

These remarks will suffice in explanation of the criticism exhibited in
this work. The book marks an epoch, a new era in the critical and
philosophical investigation of religion. Spinoza's ideas are as it were
the head waters from which flows the current which is afterwards parted
into separate streams. If viewed merely as a specimen of criticism, they
are in many respects very defective. For this branch was new in Spinoza's
time. Learning had been directed since the Renaissance rather to the
acquisition of stores of information concerning ancient literature than
reflective examination of the authenticity and critical value of the
sources. Yet Spinoza's sagacity is so great, that the book is suggestive
of information, and fertile in hints of instruction to readers who dissent
most widely from his inferences.(354) In Spinoza's own times the work met
with unbounded indignation. Indeed hardly any age could have been less
prepared for its reception. So rigorous a theory of verbal inspiration was
then held, that the question of the date of the introduction of the Hebrew
vowel points was discussed under the idea that inspiration would be
overthrown, if the admission was made that they were introduced after the
time of the closing of the canon.(355) T