The prolific germs of this Neologian method of the interpretation of Scripture are to be found every where in the writings of Spinoza.
Philosophical Rationalism, again, although often, or rather generally, blended with the Theological, is yet, in some respects, distinct from it.

The one has been developed in the Church, the other in the Schools.
The former, cultivated by divines who acknowledged more or less explicitly the authority of Scripture, has directed its efforts mainly to the establishment of a new method of Biblical exegesis and criticism, by which all that is peculiar to Revelation, as a supernatural scheme, might be enervated or explained away.

The latter cultivated by Philosophic speculators who were not bound by any authority, nor fettered by any subscription to articles of faith, has sought, without reference to Revelation, to solve the great problems relating to God, Man, and the Universe, on purely natural principles; and, after many fruitless efforts, has taken refuge, at last, in the Faith of Pantheism and the Philosophy of the Absolute.

The prolific germs of this method of the interpretation of Nature are also to be found in the writings of Spinoza.
The circumstance, indeed, which, more than any other, seems to have commended his system to some of the most inquisitive minds in Europe, is _its apparent completeness_.

It is not a mere theory of Pantheism, nor a mere method of Exegesis, nor a mere code of Ethics, nor a mere scheme of Politics, although all these are comprehended under it; but it is a system founded on a few radical principles, which are exhibited in the shape of axioms and definitions, and unfolded, by rigorous logical deduction, in a series of propositions, with occasional scholia and corollaries, after the method of Geometry; a system which undertakes to explain the rationale of _every_ part of human knowledge, to interpret alike the Book of Nature and the Book of Revelation, to determine the character of prophetic inspiration, and to account for apparent miracles on natural principles, to establish the real foundations of moral duty, and the ultimate grounds of state policy; and all this on the strength of a few simple definitions, and a series of necessary deductions from them.