LIFE OF BENEDICT DE SPINOSA. Written by John Colerus, Minifter Hague. Done out of French. LONDON. Printed by D. L. And Sold by Benj. Bragg, THE LIFE O F B. De Spinofa. SPINOS PINOSA, that Philofopher, whose Name makes fo great noife in the World, was originally a Jew. His Parents, a little while after his Birth, named him Baruch. But having afterwards forsaken Judaism, he changed his Name, and call'd himself Benedict in his Writings, and in the Letters which he fubfcrib'd. He was Born at Amsterdam the 24th of November, in the Year 1632. What is commonly faid, that he was Poor and of a very mean Extraction, is not true. His Father, a Portuguese Jew, was in very good Circumstances, and a Merchant at Amsterdam, where he lived upon the Burgwal, in a good House near the Old Portuguese Synagogue. Befides, his civil and handsome behaviour, his Relations, who lived at ease, and what was left to him by his Father and Mother, prove that his Extraction, as well as his Education, was above that of the Common People. Samuel Carceris, a Portuguese Jew, Married the Youngest of his two Sifters. The Name of the Youngest Miriam, whofe Son Daniel Carceris, Nephew to Benedict de Spinofa, declared himself one of his Heirs after his Decease: As it appears by an Act paft before Libertus Loef, a Notary, the 30th of March 1677. in the form of a Procuration directed to Henry Vander Spyck, in whose House Spinofa Lodged when he died. Spinofa's firft Studies. Spinofa fhewed from his Childhood, and in his younger years, that Nature had not been unkind to him. His quick fancy, |