their dogmatic teaching cannot be trusted, unchallenged by free
inquiry, on account of their discrepant(417) opinions, their rendering the
canon and text of scripture uncertain,(418) and their pious frauds;(419)
concluding by refuting objections against freethinking derived from its
supposed want of safety.(420)

The book met with intelligent and able opponents; the critical part,
containing the allegations of uncertainty in the text of scripture, and
the charge of altering it, being effectually refuted by Bentley. The work
is an exaggeration of a great truth. Undoubtedly free inquiry is right in
all departments, but it must be restrained within the proper limits which
the particular subject-matter admits of;--limits which are determined
partly by the nature of the subject studied, partly by the laws of the
thinking mind.

Eleven years afterwards, in 1724, Collins published his "Discourse of the
Grounds and Reasons of the Christian religion." This work is chiefly
critical. It does not merely contain the incipient doubts on the variety
of readings, and the uncertainty of books, but spreads over several
provinces of theological inquiry. Under the pretence of establishing
Christianity on a more solid foundation, the author argues that our
Saviour and his apostles made the whole proof of Christianity to rest
solely on the prophecies of the Old Testament;(421) that if these proofs
are valid, Christianity is established; if invalid, it is false.(422)
Accordingly he examines several of the prophecies cited from the Old
Testament in the New in favour of the Messiahship of Christ, with a view
of showing that they are only allegorical or fanciful proofs,
accommodations of the meaning of the prophecies; and anticipates the
objections which could be stated to his views.(423) He asserts that the
expectation of a Messiah among(424) the Jews arose only a short time
before Christ's coming;(425) and that the apostles put a new
interpretation on the Hebrew books, which was contrary to the sense
accepted by the Jewish nation; that Christianity is not revealed in the
Old Testament literally, but mystically and allegorically, and may
therefore be considered as mystical Judaism. His inference is accordingly
stated as an argument in favour of the figurative or mystical
interpretation of scripture; but we can hardly doubt that his real object
was an ironical one, to exhibit Christianity as resting on apostolic
misinterpretations of Jewish pr