propitious, by facrifice, has been as general throughout all ages: The most abfurd imagination in the eye of reafon; yet all the efforts of the wifeft and most revered philofophers, could never extirpate the notion of its being a divine inftitution.

The polytheism that was fo univerfally received, could never have had its rife from reasoning; as the perfect poffeffion of being and life, with all the powers and perfections of it, cannot poffibly fubfift but in one. Something may be faid for the Heathen, after they had loft the knowledge of the creator, and substituted the heavens, and their fenfible powers, in his room. But whence could the notion of a Trinity in this Unity arife? Why three, rather than three hundred? and yet the tradition is very ancient. Plato did not coin it, as appears by his blundering unintelligible account of it: and yet his account is not more blundering than those of our philofophical divines, who have attempted it, with the advantage of another fort of light than he had, from obfcure traditions only.

That God fhould have a Son, what mortal could fay? and yet the tradition is as

old

A

old as Nebuchadnezzar's days: and certainly much older; for it appears then to have been commonly received. That this Son of God fhould be born of a woman, is yet farther from any foundation in reafoning; and yet the books of the Heathen are full of it; which could never have had its rife any where but in the original tradition.

We need fay nothing of the many different methods of purification and cleanfing, by washing, fprinkling of blood, &c. as they could never have been thought of any ufe for purging from moral defilement.

The fabulous appearances of their gods, and their converfations with men; the notion they had of inspiration, as the rise and fpring of all great atchievements, by what they call Spirits, their oracles, &c. are evidently copied. And perhaps the devil might take advantage of man's ignorance, and by apeing the operations of the true God, make himself be mistaken for him, and worshipped in his ftead; as feems to have been the cafe with the Heathens before and at the time of the coming of the Son of God into the world.

Thefe and fuch other fentiments and practices religiously received and adhered

to;

to; however abfurd and ridiculous they may feem, and really were, as practised among them, who held them only, as one may, fay by rote, without knowing the true intent and meaning of them; yet, when run up to their true original, and taken as they stand in the Bible, reafon has nothing to fay against any of them; and fo much for them, that numbers have been deluded into an imagination, that they could have found out many fundamental ones without any farther affistance. But as the cafe is demonftrably otherwise in all or most of them, the conclufion will come out ftrong, that none could be the author of these writings but the creator, proprietor, and fovereign, of the world.

to. The Original State of Mankind.

Know not how it has come to be in a

manner taken for granted, that the firft ages of the world were abfolutely barbarous, and men for many ages no better than fuch favages, or worfe, as we meet with in the remote parts of the world; until by length of time, they were civiliVOL. I. D d

zed

zed by very flow degrees. The first, and moft, civilized countries, were Greece and Rome, whofe ancestors were certainly fuch; whence all the rest of the world paffed with them for barbarians. And yet it was not, could not be dissembled, that from these fame barbarians they had all their knowledge; that is, all the facts which ferved their philofophers to difpute, and form gueffes about. Certain it is, their predeceffors were of another opinion; for from them they had those charming defcriptions of the golden age, which degenerated by degrees into brass and iron, as they came to be fcattered abroad on the face of the earth, and loft the knowledge of the original facts, on which all religion and morality, that is, all the right measures of human knowledge, were founded; and thus degenerated into a course of error and folly. The plain original of that tradition, Mofes gives us in his description of paradise, and the ftate of our first parents there, incomparably beyond what the most luxurious, and at the fame time the most correct fancy could imagine. The particulars are in every body's hands who will deign to look at them. It is

plain, that garden was a complete abridgement of the univerfe, and a collection of every thing that was valuable there; and ranged too, by perfect wifdom, into the most agreeable and inftructive order. For thence, without question, man was to gather, or find exemplified, all the works of his creator, which perfect wisdom faw neceflary in that station. But how far it extended, is impoffible for us to guess by thofe fhort hints Mofes has given us. He taught him language, and converfed with him in it; he fhewed him the things he wanted to know, and directed him to give them names, on which all language is founded; and as it is natural to think they difplayed their feveral natures before him, he had fuch an opportunity as never another had, of taking in the whole compafs of what we call natural history. And thofe who understand the Hebrew language, and the import of the names he gave, will be furprifed at his fagacity. We have no account of his giving names to the plants and trees of the garden, nor to the heavenly bodies, which were obvious to his fenfes; but all these things were before him, and needed not Dd 2

to