JOSEPH, a learned and ingenious, but fanciful and credulous, writer in the 17th century, was born at Plymouth in 1636, and bred at Oxford. He became a great admirer of Mr Baxter, and a zealous person for a commonwealth. After the Restoration, he published The Vanity of Dogmatizing; was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society; and, taking orders in 1662, was presented to the vicarage of Frome-Selwood in Somersetshire. The same year he published his Lux Orientalis: in 1665, his Sceptis Scientifica; and in the year following, Some Philosophical Considerations touching the being of Witches and Witchcraft, and other pieces on the same subject. In 1669, he published Plus ultra; or, The Progress and Advancement of Knowledge since the Days of Aristotle. He likewise published A reasonable Recommendation and Defence of Reason; and Philosophia Pia, or A Discourse of the Religious Temper and Tendencies of the Experimental Philosophy. In 1678 he was made a prebendary of Worcester, and died in 1680.