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RESEARCHES 
 
 ANTEDILUVIAN, PATRIARCHAL 
 
 AND 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 CONCERNING THE WAV IN WHICH MEN FIRST ACQUIRED 
 THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF 
 
 GOD AND RELIGION, 
 
 AND AS TO WHAT WERE THE DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCHES OF 
 ADAM AND NOAH, 
 
 WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE LONG NIGHT OF IDOLATRY, WHICH 
 
 FOLLOWED AND DARKENED THE EARTH, 
 
 AND ALSO OF THE MEANS DESIGNED BY GOD FOR THE 
 
 RECOVERY AND EXTENSION OF HIS TRUTHS, 
 
 AND 
 
 OF THEIR FINAL ACCOMPLISHMENT BY 
 JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 THOM AS^CL ARKSON, M. A 
 
 FORMERLY OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE ABOLITION OF THE 
 SLAVE TRADE, &c, &c. 
 
 LONDON ; 
 
 LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND CO. 
 
 AND 
 
 S. PIPER, IPSWICH. 
 
t***^ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I think it right, before I give this work to the 
 Public, to say a few words concerning its origin 
 and the manner of its progress, and also on the 
 subjects it contains. 
 
 Sitting one night in a meditating frame of 
 mind a thought came across me " how the first 
 men obtained a knowledge of God and Religion." 
 To this an answer seemed to be immediately 
 ready; "they obtained it from Revelation, from 
 a Revelation made to them by God himself;" for 
 at this moment the Decalogue came to my re- 
 collection. But it occurred to me immediately 
 that this answer was not satisfactory; for this 
 
 a 2 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 knowledge of God and of his Laws had been 
 given to the second race of men, who were the 
 descendants of Noah, whereas the question re- 
 lated solely to the first, namely, to Adam and his 
 immediate descendants. I was obliged therefore 
 to think again, but after a considerable pause I 
 could not bring to my memory any words repre- 
 sented by Moses as having been spoken by God 
 either to Adam, Eve, or Cain, from which they 
 could have inferred any other knowledge of him, 
 than that he was their creator, as well as the 
 creator of the world in which they lived, and 
 that they found themselves under an obligation 
 to obey him. This being the case I determined 
 to read the Pentateuch of Moses from the be- 
 ginning to the end not only carefully but criti- 
 cally, not doubting but that I should be able to 
 collect from thence a satisfactory solution of the 
 question. 
 
 Having at length finished my task I found 
 that there were texts in these books, the full 
 meaning of which on former perusals of them I 
 had overlooked, and that these texts, if taken 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 from the several chapters where they lay scattered, 
 and put together would throw considerable light 
 upon the subject. I found in fact, that God, 
 besides having- given to Adam and Eve that 
 knowledge of himself as their creator, which has 
 been just mentioned, had given them also certain 
 laws or precepts, consisting chiefly of prohibi- 
 tions, which should serve them as rules for their 
 own moral guidance and for that of their posteri- 
 ty, so that the great principles of morality or 
 the distinction between right and wrong was 
 made known to them soon after their creation; 
 I found also that certain religions doctrines had 
 been entertained in the earliest times, which 
 could have come from no other source, and that 
 God had added to these gifts the gift of a por- 
 tion of his Holy Spirit, by which men might be 
 warned and guarded against moral evil, led into 
 the way of moral good, and taught spiritually to 
 understand both the lams and the doctrines now 
 mentioned. These laws and doctrines obtained, 
 both of them, in the antediluvian, and w r ere after- 
 wards introduced by Noah into the new or 
 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 patriarchal world. With respect to the former, 
 namely, the laics or precepts another discovery 
 was made, which was this, that as far as they 
 went, they* were the same in substance as the 
 laws of the Decalogue ; from whence it was to be 
 inferred, that the Ten Commandments given by 
 God to Moses on Mount Sinai were not the first 
 Revelation which he had given to man. This 
 statement is certainly contrary to our generally 
 received notions at the present day ; but, what- 
 ever our prejudices may be in this respect, wc 
 ought not to retain them if it can be fully proved, 
 that most of these laws or precepts were in ex- 
 istence and acted upon as divine laws many 
 hundred years before these commandments were 
 given. 
 
 Being unwilling to go without farther light, if 
 farther scriptural light could be obtained on this 
 subject, I determined to look into the book of 
 Job, as the only other book, which, on account 
 of its great antiquity, could serve my purpose. 
 But here an obstacle presented itself. It has 
 been contended of late years by some, contrary 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 to the opinion of our ancient and almost all our 
 modern divines, that Job lived after Moses and 
 not before him, and that he had seen the writings 
 of the latter, from which he had probably copied. 
 I was obliged therefore to have this question 
 settled in my own mind, before I could gather 
 any new information, which would be satisfac- 
 tory to me, from the book of Job. Upon this I 
 went to work. I looked first into the contro- 
 versies that had taken place upon this point, 
 and after this I decided upon reading the book 
 of Job, as I had done the Pentateuch, with all 
 the attention I could give it, and see whether I 
 could not collect from internal evidence, furnished 
 from the book itself, sufficient materials for satis- 
 fying myself upon this point. In consequence 
 of this investigation three new arguments rose 
 up to my mind, more strong and decisive of the 
 point in question than any which I had seen in 
 these controversies, and all of them tending to 
 show, that Job must have lived in the patriarchal 
 ages long antecedent to the birth of Moses. 
 This discovery, if I had not deceived myself by 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 any false reasoning, enabled me to confirm all the 
 deductions, and more than all the deductions, 
 which I had gathered from the Pentateuch rela- 
 tive to the laws and doctrines before mentioned, 
 which were said to have been given by God to 
 Adam ; the first for the moral guidance of him 
 and his posterity, and the latter for the exercise 
 of their religious faith. 
 
 I was now convinced of three things, first, that 
 the first men obtained their notions of God and 
 religion from God himself; secondly, that there 
 was a time when all men living possessed this 
 knowledge, namely, when they lived on the 
 plain of Shinar, where "they spoke one language 
 and dwelt together as one people ; " and there- 
 fore thirdly, that when the different families se- 
 parated from each other at the time commonly 
 called the dispersion, they carried with them this 
 knowledge to the new lands into which they 
 went. From these considerations a new question, 
 and this a most important one suggested itself to 
 my mind. It was this, what use did these 
 families, thus dispersed, make of this knowledge 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 afterwards. Did they preserve it, or did they lose it ? 
 In what situation for instance were they found in 
 this respect when our Saviour came into the 
 world ? This appeared to me to be a very 
 formidable question, for I saw no other way of 
 answering- it than by trying 1 to find out into what 
 parts of the world these different families (which 
 became afterwards so many nations) had migra- 
 ted, and what their religion was when settled 
 there. Formidable however as it appeared to be, 
 I resolved to do my best to solve it. Suffice it 
 then to say, that after a most tedious, difficult, 
 and laborious inquiry for many months, I dis- 
 covered that one of these families, namely, that 
 of Cush, had abandoned the worship of the true 
 God so early as at the end of the second or the 
 beginning of the third century from the Deluge, 
 and had begun to worship the Sun in his stead, 
 and that others of them had done the same after- 
 wards, the one after the other, at different intervals 
 of time, so that in the time of Moses there was 
 not one of them (of which any records could be 
 found) which had not gone into idolatry, except 
 
 b 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 the Israelites in Egypt; and even of these, many 
 had been infected by this moral disease ; so that 
 if it had not been for the providential call of 
 Abraham the world would have been involved 
 in universal darkness as relates to the knowledge 
 of the true God. This was the melancholy re- 
 sult; such indeed as when I began this enquiry, 
 I was not quite prepared to expect ; but I was 
 obliged to admit it, because it was founded upon 
 evidence, which had been almost all of it taken 
 from the word of God. 
 
 I had now answered my first question, and 
 also to a certain extent the second, which had 
 sprung out of the first. I had therefore done 
 more than I had at first intended to do, and was 
 about to conclude, when it struck me that I 
 ought, on account of the melancholy result just 
 mentioned, to carry my views a little farther. 
 The call of Abraham under such circumstances 
 and for such a purpose could not but claim at- 
 tention; and a fair consideration of it, though a 
 short one, would moreover make a suitable end- 
 ing to the work. I determined therefore, upon 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 this new view of the subject, to read once more 
 the history of Abraham, and also that of his de- 
 scendants as it was connected with this event ; 
 to follow these into Egypt ; to stop and examine 
 their civil and religious condition there; to ob- 
 serve their proceedings in the wilderness and the 
 promised land ; to visit them afterwards during 
 their captivity in Babylon ; and to see in what 
 manner they conducted themselves after their 
 return to Jerusalem till the coming of Jesus 
 Christ. This I did, and on a review of what I 
 had thus done it appeared that several of those 
 nations, which were found to be idolaters in the 
 time of Moses, had become so, as early as in the 
 days of Abraham, and that others were then go- 
 ing off in the same way, Abraham's own family 
 not having escaped the infection, so that the 
 prospect was, even in these early times, that the 
 religious light, which all the families possessed 
 when they lived together in Shinar, would have 
 become progressively extinct. It pleased God 
 therefore at this critical juncture, while a glim- 
 mering of the true light remained, to interpose to 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 prevent this appalling calamity, as well as to for- 
 ward at the same time some of his other gracious 
 designs to men. This he did by the call of 
 Abraham, whose descendants in a legitimate line 
 were to be his own chosen or peculiar people. 
 With this view they were to be kept distinct and 
 separate, by means of particular customs and 
 ceremonies, from the rest of the world. God was 
 also to take them under his own especial care 
 for the object just mentioned, namely, the pre- 
 servation of his truths, so that there might be 
 one nation upon earth to know and perpetuate 
 them. This appears to have been the first part 
 of the divine plan on this occasion. The second 
 appears to have been that at a future distant 
 time, when this nation should have been reclaim- 
 ed from idolatry, Jesus Christ, a legitimate de- 
 scendant of Abraham, should appear among 
 them, and should not only restore the knowledge 
 of God to all the nations of the earth, whose an- 
 cestors had lost it through unbelief, but should 
 restore it with additional light, and should be 
 also the bearer of a gracious message of salvation 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 to all who should receive him. These are the 
 contents of the first part of this little work. 
 
 With respect to the second part it was not 
 thought of till long after the first had been writ- 
 ten. It originated thus. Having finished the 
 manuscript of the first part I laid it by for nearly 
 a year. I then opened it that I might read it 
 again, hoping that at this distance of time I 
 might see it as it were with new eyes, and thus 
 be enabled the better to judge of its contents. 
 It seemed to me after a careful perusal of it that 
 much was yet wanted to complete it, indeed I 
 thought, if justice were to be done to the subject, 
 it ought not to have been closed here. There 
 were facts most intimately connected with it, 
 which ought not to be passed over. Thus for 
 instance the coming of Christ into the world, ac- 
 cording to the second part of the divine plan just 
 mentioned, was considered in Heaven itself as 
 such a blessing to mankind, that God was pleased 
 to give intimations of the event many ages before 
 it took place, as well as of the time at which it 
 was to take place, in order that there might be 
 
XIV PREFACE 
 
 a general expectation of some such personage 
 when he came. Here then a wide field was 
 opened for enlarging- on the subject, such as of 
 trying to find out what these expectations were ; 
 what particular nations entertained them ; how 
 these nations acquired them ; and whether Jesus 
 Christ, when he had finished his mission on earth, 
 had fulfilled all the objects for which he had 
 been sent, so that it might be said that he, and he 
 alone, answered the character of the personage, 
 who had been thus expected. I thought there- 
 fore that if something like a statement explana- 
 tory of the preceding particulars should be added 
 in a second part, the little work would be ren- 
 dered more complete. It would thus contain a 
 history of God's interference with men for their 
 spiritual welfare, and of its effects, in one un- 
 broken chain, from the clays of Adam to the 
 time when Christianity was established under 
 Constantine as the religion of the state, and 
 therefore that it might be acceptible as well as 
 useful to many. 
 
 Playford Hall, fin folk. May 10//,. 18.%'. 
 
RESEARCHES 
 
 ,j. Jul 1881 
 HSOLOGIC: 
 
 
 mi) 
 
 ANTEDILUVIAN, PATRIARCHAL, &c. 
 
 TWO PARTS 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Our first question is, how the Antediluvians 
 or first men acquired any true notion of God 
 and of their duties towards him or any true no- 
 tions of a system of morality and religion. Was 
 this knowledge intuitive? or did they acquire it 
 by the light of nature ? or by the strength of 
 their reasoning powers ? or did God first reveal 
 it to them himself? 
 
 When God had made Man and Woman, it 
 was necessary, absolutely necessary, that he 
 should give them information on a variety of 
 subjects for they could have known nothing of 
 themselves. They could not have known how 
 
2 
 
 the) came into the world; nor why they were 
 placed there; nor what they were designed to 
 do; nor what they could do; nor what they 
 ought to do; nor what they ought to avoid. It 
 was absolutely necessary therefore, that God 
 should give them instruction, to a certain extent; 
 but we, who judge only by the limited faculties 
 which we possess, know not how he could have 
 done this, though in his infinite wisdom he 
 might have used other means, unless he had 
 first given them the power of articulation and 
 then a language, that is, a power of understand- 
 ing certain words or sounds as representing 
 certain ideas. The learned and intelligent Ellis 
 in his essay " On the Knowledge of Divine 
 Truths" makes the following observations (p. 104) 
 on this subject. "God made man an intel- 
 ligent being, or endowed him with a capacity to 
 receive and know truth; and therefore gave him 
 also the faculty of speech or organs fit to frame 
 articulate sounds, and furnished him with lan- 
 guage to enable him both to receive and give 
 instruction; that words, being the signs of in- 
 ternal conceptions or marks for ideas in the mind, 
 he might be capable first of being taught by- 
 God and then to teach others or to convey the 
 thoughts of his own mind to another. 
 
w I think it would not be difficult to prove and 
 I shall in other parts of this work endeavour to 
 do it, that the first language was taught by God ; 
 or that man, could not of himself have dis- 
 covered the knowledge of fixing sounds to signify 
 objects, ideas or conceptions, so as to be signs 
 of, and stand for, the reality of things, for the 
 subject of internal operation in his own mind, or 
 make others so exactly understand his thoughts, 
 that the correspondence or least disagreement of 
 these invisible representations of things should 
 be immediately known, or, if this were possible, 
 that it must have been the work of many ages, 
 during which time man had been neither an 
 intelligent nor sociable creature, and so sent 
 into the world for no purpose; for though he 
 had the faculty of receiving knowledge and or- 
 gans adapted to form articulate sounds, yet, with- 
 out language, he could not have received it, he 
 could not have thought, and his several noises had 
 been sounds without signification. For he that 
 could not think, could never substitute sounds 
 for things, or affix sense and meaning to words 
 any more than parrots can, though they frame 
 articulate sounds; because there is no natural 
 connection between sounds and ideas, and con- 
 sequently language the instrument of rationality 
 
(since without it, our rational faculties had been 
 useless,) must be ascribed not to Man but to 
 God." 
 
 God, then, having given to Adam and Eve, 
 as we have supposed, a language, by which he 
 made it easy to hold conversation with them, 
 would, undoubtedly give them afterwards all 
 the information that was necessary for their 
 situation ; and the first information he would 
 give them would probably be, to tell them who 
 he himself was, and who and what they them- 
 selves were, and their relative situation with re- 
 spect to him and to each other. He would pro- 
 bably tell them, first, that he was God Almighty, 
 who had existed from all eternity; that h*e had 
 created the world and themselves, and all that 
 they saw in it; and that they, themselves there- 
 fore being creatures, owed to him homage, reve- 
 rence, and obedience. 
 
 This then, having been done directly after the 
 gift of language, (for we can suppose nothing 
 else than that this was done,) God, in order to 
 try these his newly made creatures, commanded 
 them not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree, and 
 annexed a penalty to their disobedience. There 
 was, at this time, when there was only one man 
 and one woman in the world, apparently no 
 
other way of trying their virtue than by some 
 prohibition. God therefore gave to Adam and 
 Eve by means of this prohibition an opportunity 
 of proving, whether they retained that innocence 
 or that image of God in their minds in which 
 they had been created. It appears, that both 
 of them transgressed the command just mention- 
 ed, and then it was that they first knew sin, or 
 the difference between good and evil. 
 
 If Adam and Eve had been designed to live 
 without issue, there would have been probably 
 no occasion for any other prohibitory laws, be- 
 cause there are crimes which they could not 
 possibly have committed. For example, any law 
 against Adultery would have been unnecessary, 
 because there w r as only one husband and one 
 wife then living. Again, any law against Theft 
 would have been useless, because all the things 
 then in the world, were their own. But when 
 they had begun to increase and multiply, 
 and when, moreover, moral evil, as we have 
 just seen, had already entered into the world, 
 and when again the nature of the children of 
 Adam was different from the original nature 
 of their father and mother (the former being the 
 offspring of parents who had sinned and the lat- 
 ter having come pure out of the hands of God) 
 
6 
 
 it became necessary, that new light should be 
 given and that laws should be introduced for the 
 moral and religious guidance of mankind ; and 
 it was necessary that God should do this him- 
 self; first, because he was the Creator and Gov- 
 ernor of the Universe, and the being therefore 
 who was to be obeyed; and secondly, because 
 no one knew what was God's own will but him- 
 self, nor what w T as fit to be done for such a 
 purpose. We collect accordingly from the pa- 
 raphrases of the most ancient Jewish writers on 
 the Pentateuch, that God had frequent inter- 
 course with Adam, that he revealed himself to 
 him as the Creator and Sovereign of the Uni- 
 verse, and that he gave him a number of laws 
 from his own mouth which pointed out to him 
 and his posterity what, as moral agents and re- 
 sponsible creatures, they were bound to do, and 
 what, as such, they were bound to avoid. These 
 laws were communicated by Adam to his child- 
 ren, and being committed to memory by them 
 and handed down by them and others in like 
 manner, they were observed by the Faithful up 
 to the time of the Flood. These laws may be 
 said, therefore, to have contained the preceptive 
 and prohibitory part of the body of divinity of 
 the Church of Adam ; and as thev were observed 
 
after the Flood, by Noah and his descendants, 
 and were in force at the memorable dispersion 
 of mankind which took place on the plain of 
 Shinar, and for one or two centuries afterwards, 
 they may be said to have constituted also the 
 preceptive and prohibitory part of the body 
 of divinity of the Church of Noah or of the pa- 
 triarchal world. Hence they are handed down 
 to us under two different names. Some of the 
 ancient Jewish Commentators alluded to, call 
 them the statutes of Adam, considering- them to 
 have been given by God to Adam ; and others 
 call them the precepts of the Sons of Noah, con- 
 sidering that Noah carried them over the waters 
 of the flood, and that he delivered them to his 
 children for their observance, and that these deliv- 
 ered them for the like purpose to the new world. 
 Our Divines, when they speak of them generally 
 give them the latter title ; but they are not known 
 in the Scriptures by either of these names. The 
 learned Ellis, before quoted, notices them thus. 
 "For as to the universal, equally common law of 
 mankind p. 443, the Jews never were of any 
 other opinion ; but as often as they had occasion 
 to mention it, their usual expression was " they 
 were commanded to the Sons of Noah, that is, 
 the whole race of men, and the first man, 
 
s 
 
 Adam, received them from God. For they 
 held, that certain natural laws were, immediately 
 after the creation, declared and commanded to 
 men, which, from divine authority became of 
 perpetual obligation ; whence the paraphrase of 
 Onkelos on those portions of holy writ, where 
 Enoch and Noah are said to have walked ivith 
 God, expresses it, that they walked in the fear 
 of the Lord ; and thus they became righteous, 
 because they kept the precepts which were ap- 
 pointed as early as our nature and propagated 
 through all mankind : hence the fratricide of 
 Cain, the abominations of Sodom, and several 
 other facts mentioned in the books of Moses, 
 were wicked and became unlawful before the de- 
 livery of the written law." 
 
 Let us now see what these laws are reported 
 to have been. I find that there are two versions 
 of them. Our great and learned Selden gives 
 them thus ; 
 
 1. To abstain from Idolatry. 
 
 2. To bless the name of God, or, as some 
 express it, to abstain from Blasphemy, or 
 Malediction of the divine name. 
 
 3. To abstain from Murder. 
 
 4. To abstain from Adultery, or from the 
 pollution of impure mixtures. 
 
9 
 
 5. To abstain from Theft 
 f>. To appoint Judges to be the guardians of 
 these precepts, or to preserve public jus- 
 tice. 
 Dr. Echard, in his ecclesiastical history, dif- 
 fers a little, and but a little from the former in 
 his account of them. According to him the du- 
 ties enjoined were these. 
 
 1. To abstain from all Idolatry. 
 
 2. To worship the true God, the Creator of 
 Heaven and Earth. 
 
 3. To shed no man's blood. 
 
 4. To refrain from unlawful lusts ami mix- 
 tures. 
 
 5. To shun all rapine, theft and robbery. 
 
 6. To administer true justice. 
 
 These, it appears, were the laws or moral pre- 
 cepts by which the first race of men were to be 
 governed as to their conduct towards God and 
 towards each other, and which, it is also said, 
 came from the mouth of God himself. They 
 are, as we see, whichever of the two accounts 
 we take or even if we compound them, both few 
 and simple ; and the reader cannot fail to ob- 
 serve, that they constitute an half part of the 
 Decalogue or ten commandments of Moses. Few 
 however as they were, they were most impor- 
 
 c 
 
10 
 
 iant as to the great ends for which the}* won 
 designed. They taught men their relative situ- 
 ation to God as creatures. They made it their 
 duty to worship him, and thus constantly to de- 
 pend upon him. They guarded against the 
 profanation of his worship by excluding all other 
 gods. They protected his holy name from pro- 
 fanation also ; and with respect to the conduct 
 of men themselves in their intercourse one with 
 another, they pointed out, and denounced as 
 sinful, those actions which, if men were betrayed 
 into them, would most disturb the order, peace, 
 and well-being of Society. 
 
 That these, or that some such Laws as these 
 were given by God to Adam for the moral gui- 
 dance of men in the first ages of the world imme- 
 diately or soon after the Creation, it is but rea- 
 sonable and consistent with the divine attributes 
 to suppose. Can any man imagine, that God 
 would have set down upon our Earth two crea- 
 tures, Man and Woman from whom millions of 
 responsible beings were to spring, and not have 
 informed them of their duties, or told them what 
 as beings so constituted they were to do, and 
 what they were not to do ? Such knowledge was 
 absolutely necessary for them in the infancy of 
 society, and they could never have discovered it 
 
1] 
 
 altogether of themselves. But it is not necessary 
 that we should appeal to our reason only on this 
 occasion or to the commentaries of Jewish inter- 
 preters. Every person, who reads his Bible 
 carefully, will find every thing- which I have 
 hitherto stated to have come from these Exposi- 
 tors mentioned there. 
 
 He will find there, in the first place, that 
 God had oral intercourse with Adam and Eve, 
 and that they must have known that he was 
 God Almighty, the Creator and Ruler of the 
 world, and that they were to worship him as 
 Creatures. The perusal of a part of two chap- 
 ters in Genesis will furnish him with this infor- 
 mation. 
 
 He will find there, in the second place, that 
 the men of the Antediluvian times were govern- 
 ed by Laws, to Which they looked up as the 
 religious guides of their lives and which . the) 
 considered to have come from God. Now thai 
 God gave to Adam, soon after the Creation, laws 
 for the moral and religious guidance of himself 
 and his posterity, may be inferred from what he 
 himself is reported to have said to Cain on a cer- 
 tain occasion. The occasion was this, "And it 
 came to pass, in process of time, that Cain 
 brought of the fruit of the ground and that Abel 
 
12 
 
 brought also of the firstlings of his flock and of 
 the fat therof, an offering to the Lord ; and that 
 the Lord had respect to Abel and his offering 
 but that unto Cain and his offering he had not 
 respect," Gen. c. iv. v. 3, 4, 5. 
 
 It will be important, before we proceed fur- 
 ther, to learn why God made this difference in 
 the respect shewn to the offerings of the two 
 brothers. In answer to this, I shall not trouble 
 the reader with the commentaries of the learned 
 on the words above-cited, but state at once, as 
 the result of their inquiries, that the offering of 
 Abel was in all respects conformable to the will 
 of God, as revealed to our first parents on 
 the subject of offerings or sacrifice and that 
 Cain's offering was not, Cain then, it is evident, 
 if this interpretation be true, had acted contrary 
 to the will, or transgressed a law of God. I may 
 now go on to say that Cain, having seen how 
 differently the two offerings had been received by 
 God grew very angry ; upon which God said 
 to him, " Why art thou wroth, and why is thy 
 countenance fallen ? If thou doest well, shalt 
 thou not be accepted ? and if thou doest not weft, 
 Sin lieth at the door" Gen. c. iv. v. 6,7. Now 
 these are the words of God to Cain, upon 
 which I mean to argue the case. And first, it 
 
13 
 
 appears to mc that God, when he used them, 
 appealed to the conscience of Cain, whether he 
 needed to have been in the situation he then 
 was ; whether in fact he did not know, that 
 laws had been revealed to Adam, obedience to 
 which would procure the favour of God, and 
 the breaking of which would draw down his 
 displeasure. Surely the words " shalt thou not 
 be accepted " are equivalent in this place to the 
 words dost thou not know, or thou knowest, that 
 thou shalt be accepted. These words indeed 
 would have been unintelligible to Cain and 
 wholly useless, if he had not had this know- 
 ledge before. We may conclude therefore that 
 God had given laws to Adam for the govern- 
 ment of the world upon moral principles, the 
 great principles of right and wrong, before or 
 after the birth of Cain, and that Cain knew it. 
 We shall come to the same conclusion if we will 
 be at the trouble of going into a more minute 
 examination of a part of the words in question. 
 And if thou doest not well, Sin lieth at the door," 
 that is thou shalt become chargeable with sin. 
 Hence it is clear, that if any man did not well 
 in those days, whether Cain or any other 
 person, he would be chargeable with Sin. 
 But what was sin or what could sin have been 
 
14 
 
 in these early times ? We have no conception 
 that it could have been any thing else than 
 what Moses and all the scriptural writers have 
 always defined it to be, a transgression of some 
 one or more of the laws of God. But if this de- 
 finition be true, there must have been at that 
 time laws of God to tra?isgress, or Cain would 
 not have been able to commit sin. But the 
 words in question will give us new light upon 
 this subject, if we will examine them still further. 
 "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted," 
 that is, rewarded; " and if thou doest not well, 
 sin lieth at the door ;" that is, thou shalt be pu- 
 nished ; for so the learned Bishop Cumber- 
 land in his treatise * de legibus Patriarcharum ' 
 translates the sentence "Sin lieth at the door," 
 p. 403, and very properly, because both the 
 ideas of punishment and guilt are included in it, 
 It appears then that these laws of God, or rather 
 the observance and infraction of them, were to 
 be accompanied by rewards and punishments 
 either in this or a future life. And this was 
 actually the case ; for we find that the very first 
 crime that was committed after God had thus 
 spoken to Cain was punished by his own espe- 
 cial interference, and that after this men were 
 frequently rewarded and punished in the same 
 
15 
 
 way, according as they had done good or evil. 
 Thus Cain himself was punished, as God had 
 forewarned him he would be, by being made an 
 outcast from society on account of the murder 
 of his brother. Enoch after this was rewarded, 
 because he had walked with God, that is, (ac- 
 cording to the Targum of Oukelos, because he 
 had kept the precepts, which God had given to 
 Adam) by being translated to Heaven. Noah 
 again was rewarded by God for the same reason 
 by being saved in' the ark with his whole family. 
 The rest of the world were punished by being 
 drowned, because they had broken every law 
 that had come from God, "every imagination of 
 the thoughts of their hearts being only evil con- 
 tinually." All this took place before the flood. 
 But Noah carried these same laws with him 
 afterwards to the new world, and we find that 
 they were accompanied there also by rewards 
 and punishments. Lot was made to escape 
 from Sodom by the especial interference of 
 God, while the rest of the inhabitants of that 
 city were destroyed. 
 
 He will find there again, by looking a little 
 farther into the book of Genesis, that there were 
 laws in the patriarchal times, some hundred years 
 before the decalogue appeared, in the knowledge 
 
16 
 
 oi' which, Men were to bring up their households, 
 
 in order that they might know their duty to God 
 and man, and that these also were acknowledged 
 and acted upon as the Laws of God. In Gene- 
 sis Chap. 18. v. 19 there is an allusion to a 
 code of laws as existing in Abraham's time for 
 such a purpose, " for I know him," (Abraham) 
 says God, " that he will command his children 
 and his household after him, and they shall keep 
 the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment : 
 that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that 
 which he hath spoken of him." The first ques- 
 tion which arises here is what was the way of 
 the Lord just spoken ol ? The text says " to do 
 justice and judgment." But the words, " to do 
 justice and judgment," have so large a meaning, 
 and imply so many duties, that no one law could 
 be so worded as to comprehend them all. The 
 " way of the Lord " then must have included 
 many laws, that is, a code of laws then exist- 
 ing for the moral government of mankind, con- 
 sisting both of precepts and prohibitions. The 
 words also used in the verse just quoted imply 
 that they came from God ,• for it is expressly 
 said that they were the way of the Lord. But 
 when did God give out the laws now under our 
 consideration'.' Not in Abraham's time ; for il 
 
n 
 
 is no where even hinted at that they were new 
 Nor at any time between Abraham's time and 
 the flood ; for we hear during- that interval of no 
 addition to the antediluvian laws, but only of a 
 change of penalty in one of them, namely, in the 
 law of murder, by which it was ordained, that 
 from that time, " who so sheddeth Mans blood, 
 by Man shall his blood be shed." They must 
 have been then those same laws which God al- 
 luded to when he spoke to Cain as lately explain- 
 ed ; those great laws of morality, which followed 
 the creation of man, and the observance of which 
 would procure the favour of God, and the break- 
 ing of them his displeasure. 
 
 He will find there again (if he will read the 
 eighteenth chapter of Exodus) in the answer 
 which Moses gave to a certain question proposed 
 to him by Jethro, a confirmation of what has 
 been said on this subject, so far as this, that a 
 code of Laws existed for instructing the people 
 in the knowledge of God, and also in the know- 
 ledge of right and wrong as related to the con- 
 duct of the one towards the other before the 
 Decalogue appeared, and that this Code came 
 from God. It appears that Jethro, the father-in- 
 law of Moses, when he heard in Midian of the 
 stupendous miracle, which God had performed 
 
 n 
 
is 
 
 ii, bringing the Israelites safely through the red- 
 sea and in destroying Pharaoh and all his host 
 there, found his way to Moses then encamped 
 in the wilderness, in order to enquire after his 
 health, and to congratulate him personally on 
 that marvellous event, During his stay there, 
 " it came pass that Moses sat to judge the people, 
 and the people stood by Moses from the morning 
 unto the evening. And when Moses' father-in- 
 law saw all that he did to the people, he said, 
 what is this thing that thou doest to the people ? 
 And Moses said unto his father-in-law, because 
 the people come unto me to inquire of God. 
 When they have a matter they come unto me, 
 and I judge between one and another, and do 
 make them know the statutes of God and his 
 laws." Exod. Chap. 18. v. 13—17. This was 
 the answer which Moses gave to Jethro, I have 
 but one question to ask upon it. I ask then 
 what were " the statutes and laws of God," out 
 of which Moses was then instructing the people. 
 One thing which we know concerning them (and 
 we need not desire to know more) is this, that 
 they could not have been the Decalogue or ten 
 commandments of Moses, for Moses had not 
 then received these from Mount Sinai. It 
 was not till some time after this occurrence that 
 
19 
 
 God gave them to him and his people. But if 
 they were not the laws of the Decalogue, what 
 were they ? It would appear that they could only 
 have been the patriarchal laws before mentioned, 
 and to which God alluded, when he said, " for 
 I know him (Abraham) that he will command 
 his children and his household after him, and 
 they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice 
 and judgment" Gen. Chap. 18. v. 19. They 
 could only have been those laws, which came 
 from God to Adam, and from Adam to Noah, 
 and from Noah to Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and 
 from Shem through the line of Arphaxad to 
 Abraham, and from Abraham to Isaac, and from 
 Isaac to Jacob, and from Jacob to his children, 
 and from his children to their children, the 
 Israelites in Egypt. Here, no doubt, they would 
 be used as Rules for instructing and judging the 
 people for eighty years, that is, while their re- 
 lation Joseph, was the Prime minister of Pharaoh. 
 They would be forbidden however by his 
 successors, to be used for nearly the next century 
 and half, while the people were slaves* But 
 
 * Our authorized version makes the sojourning of the children of 
 Israel in Egypt 430 years, whereas they were only 215 years there. 
 The Samaritan version sets this matter right by reckoning the '130 years 
 from the call of Abraham to the departure of the children of Israel from 
 Egypt. 
 
20 
 
 when the people escaped from the land of bond- 
 age, and stood in need of instruction more than 
 ever in their duty towards God and each other, 
 and this immediately, Moses would certainly 
 revive them for this purpose, for he must have 
 known them from his father and mother, who 
 were Hebrews, and that he did know them is 
 clear from this, that, when he drew up the civil 
 and ceremonial parts of his code, he incorporated 
 several of them in it. Thus, for example, the 
 Mosaic laws of inheritance were originally patri- 
 archal. Again, if a man died and left a widow 
 without children, his brother according to a law 
 of Moses was to marry his widow. This also 
 had been one of the patriarchal laws. Again, 
 the distinction between clean and unclean Beasts 
 made by Moses was a patriarchal distinction. 
 Again, Moses took his burnt offerings either 
 from the herds or flocks or turtle doves and young- 
 pigeons. The Patriarchs did the same. He 
 sprinkled also on two occasions the blood of the 
 sacrifice with a bough of Hyssop. This was also 
 the patriarchal mode of sprinkling it, I will just 
 add, that he revived also among his people, 
 when he left Egypt, the use of the Cubit and the 
 Shekel, which had been patriarchal weights and 
 measures 1 conclude therefore that when the 
 
21 
 
 Israelites were delivered from Bondage, they 
 came again under the patriarchal government ; 
 and that Moses was instructing the people when 
 Jethro came to him, as Abraham had clone be- 
 fore, out of those statutes and laws of God which 
 had been given by God to Adam. 
 
 And he will find lastly, if he looks into the 
 book of Job, what some of the patriarchal laws 
 were which constituted the code now mentioned, 
 that is, he will find that the six or seven laws 
 lately quoted from the ancient Jewish Expositors 
 were in force in the days of that patriarch. Take 
 as a proof of this the following extracts from 
 that book. And first, with respect to the pre- 
 cept for the worship of God. " Then Job rose, 
 and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and 
 fell down upon the ground and worshipped." 
 Job. Chap. 1. v. 20. Again, Job is charged 
 by Eliphaz on another occasion with disregard- 
 ing* this precept in the following words, " yea, 
 thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer 
 before God." Chap. 15. v. 4. Farther on he 
 reminds Job of the duty and advantage of attend- 
 ing to it. " Thou shalt lift up thy face unto God. 
 Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he 
 shall hear thee:' Chap. 22. v. 26—27. So far 
 for oral worship. With respect to the worship 
 
22 
 
 of God by sacrifice as a duty in those days, the 
 fifth verse of the first chapter will establish this 
 without going further. " And it was so when 
 the days of their feasting were gone about, that 
 Job sent and sanctified them and rose up early 
 in the morning, and offered burnt offerings ac- 
 cording to the number of them all." We come 
 next to the sabbath day. Divines have been 
 much divided in opinion as to the meaning of the 
 first verse of the second chapter, ''again there 
 was a day when the sons of God (or servants of 
 God, as Coverdale translates it, or devout per- 
 sons in Job's own house,) came to present them- 
 selves before the Lord. " Some say, that this 
 day was the sabbath ; others that it was the 
 great day of expiation ; but however this may 
 be, certain it is, that God had, centuries before 
 this time, commanded the seventh day to be set 
 apart for holy purposes ; and there can be no 
 doubt that Adam and his descendants wor- 
 shipped God on that day ; and no precept was 
 so likely to be practically attended to as the one 
 which commanded the day to be kept holy on 
 which God had rested from the great work of 
 Creation. Idolatry is our next subject, and here 
 the account is most satisfactory. " If I beheld 
 the Sun," said Job, " when it shined, or the 
 
23 
 
 moon walking in brightness, and my heart had 
 been secretly enticed, or my mouth had kissed 
 my hand ; this also were an iniquity to be pun- 
 ished by the Judge, for I should have denied the 
 God that is above." Chap. 31. v. 26, 27, 28. For 
 \/y Blasphemy Jie have only to appeal to the latter 
 part of a verse before quoted, " For Job said, it 
 may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed 
 God in their hearts." Chap. 1. v. 5. The cursing 
 of God then was a sin, if we read the whole 
 verse, to be expiated by burnt offerings. But 
 what does the ' cursing of God ' mean here ? 
 Divines have interpreted the words differently ; 
 but I believe the meaning to be, that the sons of 
 Job might have spoken irreverently of God du- 
 ring the merriment of their feasting. With 
 respect to Adultery, Theft, and Murder, Job in 
 the thirty-first chapter appeals to his accusers 
 as to the correctness of his former life, whether, 
 among other things he had injured his fellow- 
 creatures by the commission of any of these 
 crimes. " If mine heart have been deceived by 
 a woman, or if I have laid wait at my neighbour's 
 door ; then let my wife grind unto another, and 
 let others bow down upon her. For this is a 
 heinous crime. It is an iniquity to be punished 
 by the Judges." v. 9, 10, 11. Again, " if my 
 
24 
 
 land cry against me, or that the furrows thereof 
 complain ; if I have eaten the fruits thereof 
 without money ; and have caused the owners 
 thereof to lose their life ; let thistles grow instead 
 of wheat, and cockle instead of barley." v. 38, 39, 
 40. I may add to this, that Job speaks in the 
 twenty-fourth chapter of the man who removes 
 his neighbour's land mark, and takes away his 
 flocks, and the murderer and adulterer as rebel- 
 ling against the light, that is, the moral light 
 which God had given him in those days. So 
 far for the moral precepts or laws just mention- 
 ed as having been in existence as rules for the 
 moral guidance of men in the time of Job ; and 
 that Job considered these to have come origi- 
 nally from God, we may infer by an appeal to 
 the following remarkable verses. "My foot hath 
 held his steps, his way have I kept and not de- 
 clined, neither have I gone back from the com- 
 mandment of his lips, I have esteemed the 
 tvords of his mouth more than my necessary 
 food." Chap. 23, v. 11, 12. Here then there is a 
 direct allusion to the laws in question ; and how 
 does Job characterize them? He describes them 
 as having been the commandment of God's own lips 
 and the words of his own mouth. And when did 
 Job consider them as having been thus revealed 
 
25 
 
 to men ? He could not have alluded here to the 
 Decalogue or ten commandments given by God 
 to Moses on Mount Sinai, for these were not 
 given there till probably some centuries after his 
 own death. Nor could he have alluded here to 
 certain precepts or laws, which God had reveal- 
 ed privately to himself in particular or to himself 
 alone ; for in this case neither Eliphaz, nor Elihu, 
 nor Bildad, nor Zophar would have understood 
 him. He could only have alluded to them as 
 laws known to those, to whom he was then 
 speaking, and known also as having come down 
 to them from Noah, and to Noah from the Ante- 
 diluvians, and to the Antediluvians from Adam, 
 and to Adam from God. And I am glad to find 
 that the learned Ellis before quoted is of the same 
 opinion. " No other interpretation, says he, can 
 be given of these remarkable words. They were 
 not delivered by any immediate Revelation, and 
 therefore must refer to a former declaration of 
 Gods ivill to our first parents, which was of per- 
 petual and unalterable obligation to the sons of 
 men." p. 303. Dr. Hales also, one of our most 
 learned and laborious commentators makes near- 
 ly the same observations on the same two verses. 
 " It is evident," says he, " from this passage and 
 others, (See Mant's Bible on Job Chap. 23. v. 
 
 E 
 
26 
 
 11, 12,) that there was some collection of precepts 
 or rules of morality and religion in use among 
 the Patriarchs, Such were the precepts of the 
 sons of Noah ; and there is great reason to be- 
 lieve, that the substance at least of the Decalogue 
 given on Mount Sinai was of primitive Institu- 
 tion." 
 
 I should have thought these observations suffi- 
 cient on this part of the subject, but that I have 
 taken for granted a circumstance, which, if not 
 true, will at once annihilate the argument which 
 1 have been so long endeavouring to raise up ; 
 for some have supposed, that the book of Job 
 was written by Moses, and others at any rate 
 that Job lived in the time or not till after the 
 time of Moses. Now, in the first case, any 
 attempt to prove that the laws or precepts now 
 specified were divine rules for the moral gui- 
 dance of men in the first or patriarchal ages 
 because they are to be found in the book of Job, 
 would come to nothing if Moses had been the 
 author of that book ; and, in the second case, 
 the attempt would be equally vain ; for if Job 
 did not live till in or after the time of Moses, it 
 would be contended, that Job had borrowed 
 these laws from the Decalogue given by God to 
 Moses, and therefore that it could not be true 
 
27 
 
 that they had existed in these early times and 
 that they had been originally given by God to 
 Adam. In fact the book of Job can only be con- 
 firmatory of what we have said on this subject 
 on the supposition, that this venerable patriarch 
 lived before the delivery of the law. We must 
 therefore, before we proceed further, examine 
 what ground those authors stand upon, who 
 support either the one or the other of these 
 opinions. 
 
 In the first place they, who suppose that Mo- 
 ses was the author of the book of Job deduce 
 their suppositions principally from the very 
 striking resemblance, which they find in certain 
 thoughts and expressions in the book said to 
 have been written by Job to certain thoughts 
 and expressions which they find in the penta- 
 teuch of Moses. But to this argument we may 
 say at once, without quoting the passages which 
 have been compared the one with the other, that , 
 though such a striking correspondence or agree- 
 ment may afford a reasonable conjecture, it can 
 never be admitted as a decisive proof of the 
 fact. 
 
 They again, who assert that Job must have 
 lived either in or after the time of Moses, build 
 their assertions on the fact, that he mentions 
 
28 
 
 certain Institutions and laws as existing* in his 
 own time, which were actually among the Insti- 
 tutions and laws of Moses, and that he could 
 not therefore have known of these, unless he had 
 lived after Moses, and had either seen or be- 
 come acquainted with his works. But I believe 
 that there is as little solid foundation for this as 
 for the other argument. Let us examine one of 
 the cases. It is said that Job c. 31. v. 11 and 
 28., speaks of certain crimes as iniquities "to be 
 punished by the Judges." But we never hear, 
 it is said of the Institution of Judges in the 
 scriptures till the Israelites had left Egypt and 
 just before the delivery of the Law. It was an 
 Institution of Moses for the more convenient 
 settlement of disputes among the people as rela- 
 ted to himself. How then, it is said could Job 
 have mentioned it, if it was not known till three 
 or four centuries after his own death ? I answer 
 that though Moses introduced such an Institu- 
 tion among the Israelites, it does not follow that 
 there were not Judges among the different patri- 
 archal tribes or families for the same purpose ; 
 for how, without persons of this description 
 could peace and order have been preserved in 
 the world. Every one conversant with the his- 
 tory of the old Testament knows, that the heads 
 
29 
 
 of Families in those days were both Kings, and 
 Priests, and Magistrates, and Judges, and that 
 they had the power of punishing with Death. 
 
 Let us now go to another case ; and here I ask 
 at once, how can it be justly inferred, that Job 
 must have lived after the time of Moses, merely 
 because some of the laws of the Decalogue are 
 found to be the same as some of those mentioned 
 by Job, when the book of Genesis tells us, that 
 the laws so mentioned by the patriarch were in 
 use several centuries before he, Moses himself, 
 was born. Take the following as proofs of this 
 last fact. The first commandment in the Deca- 
 logue runs thus. " I am the Lord thy God. 
 Thou shalt have none other gods but me." Now 
 no man can read the Genesis of Moses and not 
 believe, that Adam and Eve had frequent inter- 
 course with God, and that they knew that they had 
 a Lord, their God, and that they were to worship 
 him and him only; and that they communicated 
 this knowledge to their children and their child- 
 rens' children. Nor can any man read the same 
 book and not believe, that Noah had frequent 
 conversation with God relative to the building 
 of the ark and the salvation of his family ; and 
 that when he landed from the ark, he built an 
 altar to the Lord the same Lord as the Lord of 
 
30 
 
 Adam and Eve, and his God also and that he had 
 the same notions concerning- the worship of God 
 as they had ; and that he conveyed these notions 
 to his children and his children's children also. 
 Hence the first commandment in the Decalogue 
 would have been the first fundamental article of 
 faith in the churches of Adam and Noah, and this 
 almost as early as the creation of the world 
 itself. 
 
 Again, the fourth commandment in the Deca- 
 logue given at Mount Sinai says, " Remember 
 the seventh day to keep it holy." But Moses 
 tells us, Gen. c. 2. v. 2, 3, that God had sancti- 
 fied that day, that is, that he had set it apart for 
 holy purposes, and this as early as almost im- 
 mediately after the creation of Adam and Eve ; 
 and there can be no doubt that Adam, Abel, 
 Enoch, and such as were reputed righteous in 
 the Antediluvian times, and that Noah after the 
 flood and his descendants for some ages honour- 
 ed it accordingly. He tells us also, Exod. c. 16. 
 v. 23, that the sabbath was kept in the wilder- 
 ness as an institution of God before he, Moses, 
 had arrived at Mount Sinai. 
 
 The sixth commandment in the same Deca- 
 logue says, " Thou shalt do no Murder." That 
 murder was a crime in the earliest times is clear 
 
31 
 
 from Moses' account of the first murderer. He 
 tells us, that God set a mark upon Cain, by 
 which he was to be known and held in abhor- 
 rence wherever he went, What this mark was 
 we do not know. We know however that God, 
 almost immediately after the flood, annexed the 
 heaviest possible punishment to the commission 
 of murder in these words " Wlioso sheddeth 
 man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." 
 Genesis, c. 9 v. 6. This was the law for the 
 new world in case of murder ; but it was only a 
 renewal by a fixed penalty of what had been the 
 will of God with respect to this crime in the time 
 of our first parents. 
 
 The seventh commandment in the Decalogue 
 says, " thou shall not commit Adultery ;" but we 
 gather from Moses himself, that this command- 
 ment was in force in the time of Abraham and 
 Isaac. As one proof of this see Genesis Chap. 
 26. v. 9. 10. 11. " And Abimelech called Isaac 
 and said, behold for a surety she is thy wife, and 
 how saidst thou she is my sister ? and Isaac said 
 unto him, because I said, lest I die for her. And 
 Abimelech said, what is this that thou hast done 
 unto us ? One of the people might lightly 
 have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldst have 
 brought guiltiness upon us. And Abimelech 
 
32 
 
 charged all his people, saying he that touchetb 
 this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.' 
 See also the case of Abraham, Sarah, and Pha- 
 raoh as related in the twelfth chapter of Genesis, 
 and also Genesis Chap. 38. v. 24., where Judah 
 as the head, and therefore lawgiver and judge 
 over his own family or tribe, pronounced sen- 
 tence of death upon Tamar. We know not at 
 what time this law was introduced among the 
 patriarchs, but Abimelech was so ready to have 
 acted upon it, that we may presume that it must 
 have been known many, many years before, and 
 if so, then it must have existed some centuriesbe- 
 fore the delivery of the law to Moses. 
 
 The eighth commandment in the Decalogue runs 
 thus " thou shall not steal." But we may con- 
 clude from the answer of Jacob, when he was 
 accused of having stolen the images of Laban 
 (which answer Moses himself has recorded) that 
 theft was a punishable offence in those days, 
 that is, more than three hundred years before Moses 
 himself ivas born. The words of Jacob were 
 these. " With whomsoever thou findest thy 
 goods, let him not live" Genesis. Chap. 31. v. 
 32. The learned Dr. Adam Clarke in his note 
 upon this verse says, " It appears from this that 
 anciently theft was punished with death, and we 
 
33 
 
 know that the Patriarchs had the power of life 
 and death in their hands/' 
 
 I have now shown, that several laws in the 
 Decalogue were acknowledged and acted upon 
 as laws of God for the moral guidance of men in 
 the patriarchal times, many hundred years before 
 the Decalogue itself appeared, and therefore that 
 the argument, which states that Job must have 
 lived after Moses or he could never have men- 
 tioned these laws in his book, is wholly false. 
 But I have not done with the subject yet. It is 
 of importance to try to ascertain, were it only as 
 an historical fact, which of these two lived prior 
 to the other. I feel it also to be a very interest- 
 ing question to myself. I shall therefore continue 
 my inquiries on this point. But before I do this 
 I wish to dispel a notion, which I know has ob- 
 tained with some, namely, that the dialogue 
 between Job and his friends is fictitious, or only 
 a dramatic composition. A few words only will, 
 I hope, suffice for this. Ezekiel speaks of the 
 -righteousness, and St. James of the patience of 
 Job. (Ezek. Chap. 14. v. 14. and James Chap. 
 5. v. 11. Now would two men, the one a pro- 
 phet, the other an inspired Apostle, have spoken 
 thus of a fictitious character ? 
 
 In looking over the book of Job we shall find, 
 
34 
 
 as far as events or persons are recorded, but little 
 to aid us in our inquiry. The transgression of 
 Adam and his attempt to hide himself from God 
 among the trees of the garden are mentioned 
 there. Job. Chap. 31. v. 33. There is also a 
 manifest allusion there to the voice of Abel's blood 
 crying from the ground. Chap. 16. v. 18. The 
 Creation of the world is also noticed there, Chap. 
 38. v. 4—9., and so is the Deluge Chap. 12. v. 
 15. It is certainly pleasant to see that traditions 
 on these subjects, which had passed from Father 
 to Son in the days of Job, agree so well with the 
 accounts which Moses has given of them, but 
 they do not promote our present purpose. We 
 learn also from the same book, that the land of 
 Uz was the country to which the Patriarch be- 
 longed, and that the names of his friends were 
 Bildad, Eliphaz, Zopha4 and Elihu ; and that 
 the first of these was a Shuhite, and the second 
 a Temanite, and the third a Naamathite ; but 
 notwithstanding all this knowledge we are still 
 in the dark as to the age in which he himself 
 lived. There is however one verse in the book 
 only, or two at most, which, as far as events are 
 concerned, can afford us any light on oar way, 
 and this only on the supposition that the verse 
 or verses alluded to have been rightly interpreted. 
 
35 
 
 As both of them are of the same kind and to the 
 same effect, the quotation of one of them will 
 suffice. Bildad in speaking- of the ruinous end, 
 to which the wicked man shall come, says, " It 
 (desolation) shall dwell in his tabernacle, because 
 it is none of his ; brimstone shall be scattered up- 
 on his habitation," Chap. 18. v. 15. that is, 
 say some of the interpreters of this passage, 
 brimstone shall be scattered upon the habitation 
 of the wicked man, so that, like Sodom and Go- 
 morrah, it may be an everlasting monument of 
 Gods displeasure. Now the question is, did 
 Bildad, when he made use of the word brimstone, 
 allude to the destruction of Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah, seeing that these cities are not mentioned by 
 him. If he did, then it is clear that Job did not 
 live till the time or after the time of Abraham 
 and Lot, during whose lives this signal act of the 
 divine vengeance took place. But there are no 
 records in Job, by which, supposing the inter- 
 pretation of the preceding verse to be right, we 
 can determine how long he lived after the two 
 Patriarchs now mentioned. There is one infer- 
 ence however, which I think we may safely draw 
 from the silence of this book on certain subjects, 
 which is, that Job never could have lived after 
 Moses ; for if he had lived either in the time or 
 
36 
 
 after the time of Moses, he must have heard of 
 the miracles of God in Egypt, but particularly 
 of that mighty one, which he wrought when he 
 drowned Pharaoh and all his host in the red sea ; 
 for it must not be forgotten, that in a few weeks 
 after the Israelites had effected their passage 
 there, they encamped at Kadesh very near to 
 the borders of Edom, afterwards called Idumea, 
 in which country Job is supposed to have lived, and 
 from which place (Kadesh) Moses sent messen- 
 gers to the king of Edom to apprize him of their 
 miraculous escape from Egypt, and to solicit a 
 passage through his land. Num. Chap. 20. v. 
 14. But, if Job or his friends had been ac- 
 quainted with these miracles, I think we should 
 have seen something very striking said concern- 
 ing them in the dialogue which passed between 
 them ; for not only were there many opportuni- 
 ties of introducing them there when speaking of 
 the infinite power of God, as in chapters 9. 12. 
 &c, but there was a disposition also in the in- 
 terlocutors themselves to appeal to whatever was 
 grand and sublime in nature or marvellous in the 
 ways of God, to enforce their reasonings. I can- 
 not account therefore for the ^omission of these 
 
 * Some learned men have thought, that one of these miracles, that of 
 dividing the Red Sea, is most clearly alluded to by Job in Chap. 2G. v. 
 12. " He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he 
 
37 
 
 miracles in the book of Job as well as of some 
 other events, but upon the supposition either that 
 Job and his friends knew nothing of them, or that 
 these were all dead, before they had taken place, 
 that is, before the time in which Moses is ac- 
 knowledged to have lived. 
 
 But we collect from the dialogue itself that 
 Job must have lived some centuries before Moses. 
 It is a fact established by history, as far as there 
 are any records on the subject, that in the time 
 of Moses every tribe or nation then upon the earth, 
 except the Israelites, had gone off into Idolatry. 
 It is not however to be understood by this, that 
 there might not have been here and there an in- 
 
 smiteth through the proud." Their reason for thinking so was that 
 Rahab, the Hebrew word for proud, was an epithet for Egypt. Indeed 
 Isaiah uses Rahab for Egypt. Chap. 51. v. 9. 15ut the same word Rahab 
 or proud was also an epithet for the sea in allusion to its proud lofty 
 waves in a storm. In this last point of view the verse would run thus. 
 He divideth the sea with his power (making mountains and vallies in it) 
 and by his understanding lie subdueth orsmiteth through the proud waves 
 thereof, and bringeth them back to a calm. This is thought to be the 
 most consistent interpretation of the verse. The idea, which Job gives 
 us here of the power of God is the same as that which David gives us of 
 it Psal. 107. v. 25. 26. 28. 29. " For at his word the stormy wind 
 ariseth, which liftcth up the waves thereof, They are carried up to Hea- 
 ven ; and down again to the deep ; their soul melteth away because of 
 their trouble . So when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, he deli- 
 vereth them out of their distress; for he maketh the storm to cease, so 
 that the waves thereof are still." 
 
38 
 
 dividual,* who still retained the knowledge of 
 the true God, though the nation to which he 
 belonged had, as a nation, adopted a new wor- 
 ship. Moses himself was acquainted personally 
 only with three nations, the Egyptians, the Ca- 
 naanites, and the Midianites. Now all these 
 were Idolators at this time ; the Egyptians, see 
 Ezekiel Chap. 20. v. 7. 8., the Canaanites, see 
 Moses every where; and the Midianites, see 
 Numbers, Chap. 12. v. 1., where Miriam and 
 Aaron spake against Moses, because he had 
 married the daughter of Jethro, a Midianite, 
 that is, a Cushite or idolatrous woman. See also 
 Numbers Chap. 31. v. 13 — 16 where the Midi- 
 anites were ordered to be cut off, being Idolators 
 or worshippers of Baal-Peor. But besides these 
 we know, that the Babylonians and Chaldeans 
 had gone into Idolatry, as will be shown by and 
 by, almost as early as the days of Nimrod, and 
 that the Ethiopians (of Abyssinia) were in the 
 same state, and that the children of Aram or the 
 Syrians had begun to go off afterwards in the time 
 of Jacob, see Genesis, Chap. 35. v. 2. where 
 Jacob purges his household, which consisted 
 chiefly of Syrians, of the images or strange Gods 
 
 * Such perhaps as Jethro and some others. 
 
39 
 
 before he went to Bethel. To these may be ad- 
 ded according to Bishop Cumberland the children 
 of the sons of Japhet. Now, bearing- in mind 
 that this was the state of things in the time of 
 Moses, I may ask what were the characters of 
 the five persons, who took a part in this dialogue ? 
 Job, the first of them, was a believer in God, and 
 accustomed to worship him in the appointed 
 way, by prayer and sacrifice. He taught his 
 children also to walk in his ow T n steps. He is 
 described in the beginning of his book, Job, Chap. 
 1. v. 1., to have been " a perfect and an upright 
 man, and one that feared God and eschewed 
 evil." Under the unparalleled trials of his faith 
 he continued unshaken in his fidelity to God, 
 and not a murmur escaped from his lips. He 
 said, " the Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away ; 
 blessed be the name of the Lord." We learn 
 also from the dialogue, that all the other four 
 were persons of nearly the same description. 
 They were all believers in God. They acknow- 
 ledged him as the Creator, preserver, and moral 
 governor of the world, and as a God of infinite 
 power, wisdom, and holiness, and they obeyed 
 and worshipped him as such. Now I may ask, 
 whether in the Idolatrous state of the world, as 
 just set forth, there could have been found five 
 
40 
 
 such persons as these, all believers in God in 
 the land of Uz in the time of Moses, seeing- that 
 the five were not persons selected from all the 
 inhabitants of the land for their religion, but that 
 they were suddenly and accidently brought to- 
 gether by reason of the illness of Job, and that 
 they were brought together from within a com- 
 pass of country, where the parties were only at a 
 visiting distance from each other, or perhaps 
 near neighbours. I think it would have been im- 
 possible. But this is not all. It appears again 
 from the dialogue, that as these five men were 
 all of them worshippers of the true God, so the 
 inhabitants of the country in which they lived 
 continued to worship him also ; for it is stated 
 by Job in the presence of all of them, and not 
 denied, that Idolatry there, was an offence then 
 punishable by the Laws.* Job. Chap. 31. v. 
 28. Now this consideration induces me to ask 
 another question, and one of even greater im- 
 portance than the other, as being more decisive 
 of the point which I have in view, which is, was 
 there a nation or people in the time of Moses, 
 except his own people, where the Laws took 
 
 * And yet this country went afterwards into Idolatry ; see 2 Chron. 
 Chap. 25. V. 20., " that he might deliver them into the hands of their 
 enemies because they sought after the Gods of Edom." 
 
41 
 
 cognizance of Idolatry as Sin ? Not one to my 
 knowledge. But if these things be so, then it is 
 clear that Job and his friends must have lived 
 in a purer age, than that in which Moses lived, 
 as far as the knowledge of the true God and the 
 practice of Idolatry were concerned ; and if so, 
 then in an age prior to that of Moses, and, taking- 
 other circumstances into the account prior by 
 some centuries. Indeed, if I were asked to say 
 when I supposed the Patriarch to have lived, I 
 should say (for I reject the interpretation of the 
 verse before quoted, Job Chap. 18. v. 15., where 
 Bildad, when he used the word Brimstone, is 
 thought by some to have alluded to the destruc- 
 tion of Sodom and Gomorrah) that Job lived 
 before the time of Abraham rather than that he 
 lived after it. 
 
 But the dialogue furnishes us with another 
 argument, which leads us to the same conclusion, 
 namely, that the age, in which Job lived, must 
 have been prior to that of Moses. For we dis- 
 cover, in perusing it further, what sort of Idola- 
 try it was which prevailed in the time of Job, 
 not in Job's own land, the land of Uz, for Idola- 
 try was punishable there, as we have just seen, 
 but in the countries round about, Job says, "If I 
 beheld the Sun when it sinned, or the moon 
 
 G 
 
42 
 
 Walking in brightness ; and my heart hath been 
 secretly enticed ; and my mouth hath kissed my 
 hand ; this also was an iniquity to be punished 
 by the judges ; for I should have denied the God 
 that is above." Job. Chap. 31. v. 26. 27. 28. 
 It is clear from this, that the species of Idolatry 
 practiced in Job's time by certain families, tribes, 
 or people known to him and his countrymen was 
 the ivorship of the heavenly bodies. But what was 
 the sort of worship usually practised in the time 
 of Moses by those nations, with which he, the 
 Legislator, was surrounded? It consisted in 
 paying adoration to Idols or graven Images. 
 These were either images of the Gods Baal-Peor 
 and Ashteroth or those of Calves. Indeed, we hear 
 nothing from him in his travels through the wilder- 
 ness but of Altars, Images, and Groves as con- 
 nected with the worship of the country through 
 which he passed. Indeed the second command- 
 ment delivered by him to the people from Mount 
 Sinai shews what was the heathen worship of those 
 times. " Thou shalt not make to thyself any 
 graven image ; nor the likeness of any thing that 
 is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or 
 in the waters under the earth." But though this 
 was the prevailing Idolatry of the day in those 
 countries with which Moses was acquainted, 
 
43 
 
 Moses did not fail to caution the Israelites against 
 the worship of the Sun or Moon also, and to 
 threaten those, who were guilty of it, with Death. 
 Deut. Chap. 4. v. 15—20, also Chap. 17. v. 
 2 — 6. Now with these materials in our hands, 
 or bearing in mind that these two different sorts 
 of worship prevailed in the two different coun- 
 tries in which Job and Moses might be said to 
 have lived, we shall find no difficulty in laying 
 the foundation of an argument, which will bring 
 us to the same conclusion as in the other case. 
 And first, it is a point agreed upon by all histo- 
 rians and divines, that when men first left the 
 true God through unbelief, and went off into 
 Idolatry, the worship, which they first substituted 
 for that which they had left, was that of the Host 
 of Heaven ; but that the worship of Idols, or 
 Images, or Likenesses of things, did not obtain till 
 some ages afterwards ; and this account carries 
 with it its own conviction ; because nothing like 
 a reason of any sort can be given, why men, who 
 had once the knowledge of the true God, should 
 have gone off all at once into such a gross wor- 
 ship as that of Beasts, Fowls, Fishes, and Creep- 
 ing things, whereas it is not difficult to imagine, 
 why they should have adopted the worship of the 
 heavenly bodies, when they must have daily seen 
 
44 
 
 and felt their powerful and benign influence upon 
 the earth, and this for the benefit of themselves. 
 The learned Calmet observes upon the verses of 
 Job which have been just quoted, "that they 
 point out the worship of the Sun and Moon, 
 which was much used in Job's time, and very 
 anciently used in every part of the East ; and in 
 all probability that from which Idolatry took its 
 rise" Dr. Adam Clarke speaks thus on the 
 same passage. . " In this verse, " says he, " Job 
 clears himself of that Idolatrous worship, which 
 was the most ancient and most consistent with 
 reason of any species of Idolatry, namely Sa- 
 bc^ism, the worship of the heavenly bodies ; 
 particularly the Sun and Moon ; Jupiter and 
 Venus ; the two latter being the Morning and 
 Evening Stars, and the most resplendent of all 
 the heavenly bodies, the Sun and Moon excepted." 
 The learned and laborious Dr. Hales, as quoted 
 in D' Oyley and Mant's Bible, makes the follow- 
 ing short observation upon the same. " The 
 only species of Idolatry, " says he, " noticed in 
 this book is Zabianism, or the worship of the 
 heavenly bodies, which is the earliest on record, 
 and an additional proof of the high antiquity of 
 the composition, ." The learned Bishop Cumber- 
 land, having occasion to speak of the worship of 
 
45 
 
 the Sun and Moon calls it the most ancient Ido- 
 latry (de Ligibus Patriarch : p. 439.) But it is 
 unnecessary to multiply testimonies : history 
 speaks but one language on this point. But if 
 it be the fact that constellation-worship was long 
 prior to that of Idols or graven Images, it is but 
 reasonable to presume, that Job must have lived 
 a long time before Moses. Had Job lived either 
 in or after the time of Moses, he never could 
 have said, when wishing to clear himself of Ido- 
 latry, "If I beheld the Sun when it shined, or the 
 Moon walking in brightness," but he would have 
 spoken in something like the following manner, 
 If I beheld Baal-Peor, or looked to Ashteroth or 
 any other Idol and my heart had been secretly 
 enticed, and my mouth had kissed my hand, 
 then I should have been worthy of punishment 
 for I should have denied the God that is above. 
 But the truth of the proposition, that constel- 
 lation-worship had its origin before that of Ima- 
 ges, when men first departed from the true God, 
 may be made to appear from facts. Moses, 
 though he never entered into the promised land, 
 yet fell in occasionally with Amalekites, Moabites, 
 Midianites and others, but we hear from him no 
 other account, as I have observed before, than 
 that they sacrificed to Idols, the work of men's 
 
46 
 
 hands ; but Joshua, who succeeded Moses, en- 
 tered into the territories of the Canaanites and 
 became intimately acquainted with their customs, 
 and he also, when speaking on the subject, gives 
 us a similar account. We gather however acci- 
 dently from Joshua by his mere mention of the 
 name of a town, which he allotted to the tribe 
 of Issachar, that it is probable that the worship 
 of graven Images, which then prevailed among 
 the Canaanites, was not the worship which their 
 ancestors had adopted when first or originally they 
 forsook Jehovah. The name of this town was Beth- 
 shemesh, which signifies the house or Temple of 
 the Sun, or the temple which had been dedicated 
 to the Sun. But history as well sacred as profane 
 informs us, that there were many Bethshemeshs 
 in Canaan. We may therefore fairly conclude 
 that, though the Canaanites both in the time of 
 Joshua and Moses were the worshippers of the I- 
 dols Baal-Peor and Ashteroth, their ancestors had 
 been the worshippers of the Sun in a former age. 
 And this is the conclusion, which Dr. Adam 
 Clarke also adopts in his note upon the word 
 Bethshemesh as mentioned by Joshua c. 19 v. 
 22. " There were several cities or towns, says 
 he, of this name in Palestine, an ample proof 
 that the worship of this celestial luminary (the 
 
47 
 
 Sun) had generally prevailed in that Idolatrous 
 country." Hence one or two ages might have 
 passed since the Canaanites quitted constella- 
 tion for idol-worship ; and one or two more since 
 their ancestors first quitted the true God for the 
 worship of the heavenly bodies, and thus adding 
 these ages together we may be carried back to 
 the time described by Job, when Idolatry in his 
 own country was punishable by the Laws. But 
 the case of the Canaanites was not a solitary one. 
 There were Bethshemeshs in Syria also. Jacob 
 Bryant in his Mythology, v. 1. p. 80, tells us 
 that " Ancient Syria was particularly devoted 
 to the worship of the Sun and of the Heavens. 
 Philo Biblius, says he, informs us," that the Sy- 
 rians and Canaanites lifted up their hands to 
 Baal-Samen, the Lord of Heaven, under which 
 title they honoured the Sun ;" but we know that 
 the Syrians in the time of Jacob had adopted 
 the worship of Idols. There were also anciently 
 Bethshemeshs in Egypt, or temples for the wor- 
 ship of the Sun there, but in the time of Moses 
 this worship had been changed into the worship 
 of bulls or calves, or as Jeremiah says of Images. 
 " He shall break also the images of Bethshemesh, 
 which is in the land of Egypt ; and the houses 
 of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with 
 
48 
 
 fire." Jer. c. 43. v. 13. It will be seen also fur- 
 ther on, that the Babylonians began their Idola- 
 try by the worship of the Sun ; but Isaiah in- 
 forms us that in his time their Gods consisted 
 of graven images. Now if it be true that in the 
 time of Moses the worship of the people which 
 he himself knew was that of Idols ; but that in 
 Job's time the worship of the people in his own 
 vicinity was that of the Sun, Moon, and Stars ; 
 and if the latter was the first upon record, pre- 
 ceding the former by some ages ; and if more- 
 over Job's own countrymen had not even gone 
 into the constellation-worship because they had 
 not yet departed from the worship of the true 
 God, we have another reason to induce us to 
 suppose, that the age, in which Job lived, must 
 have been considerably prior to that of Moses ; 
 and this assertion is strengthened, if not estab- 
 lished by Job's own declaration, that Idolatry 
 was punishable by law in his own time in the 
 land of Uz ; for if this declaration be true, Job 
 could not have lived after Moses; for Job was 
 not an Israelite ; and there was no nation from 
 Moses to Christ, except the Israelitish, which 
 had such a law ; the rest of the world having 
 been Idolaters during that long period. 
 
 But there is yet one other argument, which 
 
49 
 
 ought to be brought forward before we close the 
 case. It is said of Job (c. 42. v. 16) "that he 
 lived after this (his severe trial) one hundred and 
 forty years." Now t it appears from Genesis, c 
 11. v. 12 — 26 that the young men in the patri- 
 archal times from Shorn to Terah, the father of 
 Abraham, began to marry or to have their first 
 children born to them at about thirty-two years 
 of age. Let us now suppose this to have been 
 the case with Job. But it appears again Job 
 c. 1. v. 4, that his sons at the time when his 
 afflictions came upon him, were old enough to 
 have households of their own. Let us suppose 
 then that his eldest son might have been at this 
 particular time about thirty years old. Job un- 
 der these premises would have been in his sixty- 
 second year when his afflictions began. But he 
 is said to have lived one hundred and forty years 
 after this. He must have lived then to the 
 age of two hundred and two. But this was 
 about the age (from 200 to 240) to which men 
 generally lived from the time of Peleg, in whose 
 time the life of man began to be shortened to the 
 time of Jacob. Thus Peleg lived 209 years, Reu 
 207, Seng 200, Nahor 119, and Terah 205 after 
 the birth of their first children. Abraham also, 
 the son of Terah, was 175 years old, and Isaac, 
 
 a 
 
50 
 
 the son of Abraham, was 180 when he died. 
 After this the term of human life was shortened 
 igain. Jacob the son of Isaac reached only the 
 age of 147, and Joseph the son of Jacob the age 
 of 110; and this last term, namely, 110, was 
 about the ordinary length of an old man's 
 life in the time of Moses. Thus Moses himself 
 was 120, and his successor Joshua 110, when 
 they died. Now taking it for granted that these 
 statements are true, it will not be difficult to de- 
 termine among which of the three classes of men, 
 which have been mentioned, Job must have lived. 
 He could not have lived among the men either 
 in or after Moses's time, if he died at the age of 
 202. Neither if he was an old man, when he 
 died, could he have lived among the class of 
 men from Shem to Peleg, the length of whose 
 iives was from 400 to 500 years and upwards. 
 There is then but one class left wherein to place 
 him, namely, that which begins with Peleg and 
 ends with Isaac the son of Abraham, which con- 
 sisted of men, who lived a little better than two 
 hundred years after their first children were 
 ! -orn to them; and this is the class, in which, 
 meet the most objections, I think Job ought 
 1 be placed. 
 I am sorry that the digression, which I have 
 
51 
 
 been obliged to make, in order to prove that Job 
 lived in an age prior to that of Moses has been 
 so long ; for after all that has been written I 
 have only yet shewn what were the preceptive 
 and prohibitory parts of the body of divinity of 
 the churches of Adam and Noah. But what 
 were the doctrinal parts of them ? Men must 
 have had what we may call their religious opin- 
 ions or notions or rather articles of belief during 
 these ages. It will therefore be my next busi- 
 ness to try to discover what these articles of 
 belief were. 
 
 One of the religious opinions, which we may 
 consider to have been entertained in these times, 
 was that of the agency of the holy spirit of God, I 
 mean in its ordinary uses; that is, as convincing 
 men of sin, warning them against it, encoura- 
 ging them to good, comforting them in the pur- 
 suit of the same, and guiding them in their 
 religious concerns. This opinion must have 
 prevailed in the earliest ages ; for we find God 
 saying to Noah before he destroyed the world, 
 "My spirit shall not always strive with man." 
 Gen. c. 6. v. 3. Doubtless Noah understood tire 
 meaning of these words or God would not have 
 used them ; but he could not have comprehen- 
 ded the meaning of them, unless the agency of 
 
52 
 
 God's holy spirit on the minds of men for good 
 had been a doctrine previously received and 
 previously understood. And that men consider- 
 ed themselves to be influenced by the same 
 divine spirit after the flood we learn from the 
 book of Job. Elihu there, in apologizing as a 
 young man for reasoning with Job, says in sub- 
 stance, that it was not the number of days a 
 man had lived which gives him wisdom, but the 
 spirit of God which breathes upon the spirit 
 which is in man. His words are these, " There 
 is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Al- 
 mighty giveth him understanding. " Job, c. 32. v. 
 8. These words Elihu addresses to the persons 
 present, as containing a familiar truth or as a 
 doctrine which was known to them all. Hence 
 it appears that though the men in Job's time 
 had the benefit of the moral precepts said to 
 have been given by God to Adam, yet they were 
 not left without the agency of the spirit of God 
 upon their minds as a monitor, a reprover, a 
 comforter, an interpreter, and a guide. Indeed 
 how could Adam and his posterity have advan- 
 ced in spiritual life, after sin had entered into 
 the world, if God had not reserved for them a por- 
 tion of his holy spirit to enable them spiritually 
 to understand their duties, and to perform them. 
 
53 
 
 Another of these religious notions was the 
 agency of some invisible being who was known to 
 the men of these times under the name of Satan. 
 Satan was supposed to be constantly employed 
 in various ways in endeavouring to lead men 
 astray from their duty. Adam, we are told, was 
 tempted by him and fell : and most deplorable 
 was the change, which is represented to have 
 been made in his condition in consequence of this 
 fall. But if so, then the doctrine of the agency 
 of Satan must have been as old as the temptation 
 itself, and must have spread from that time ; for 
 Adam would undoubtedly take the first opportu- 
 nity to inform his children, that is, as soon as 
 they were able to understand him, who and what 
 the seducer was, and to caution them against his 
 artifices ; and as succeeding families were equally 
 interested in communicating the same warning 
 to their children, this doctrine must have been 
 well known to the Antediluvian world. But we 
 may go further and say, that Noah being in like 
 manner interested in cautioning his own children 
 against the seducer, would have carried this doc- 
 trine with him to the new world ; and it is evident 
 that he did so, for we find that it had come down 
 through the patriarchal ages to the time of Job, 
 in confirmation of which I need only appeal to 
 
51 
 
 the sixth and seventh verses of the first chapter 
 of his book. " Now there was a day when the 
 sons of God came to present themselves before 
 the Lord, and Satan came also, (invisibly) among 
 them. And the Lord said unto Satan whence 
 comest thou ? Then Satan answered the Lord 
 and said, from going to and fro in the earth and 
 from walking up and down in it." What a lively 
 description is this of the seducer ! It represents 
 him as always on the watch, as being here and 
 there and every where in search of his prey ; not 
 even forgetting the Sanctuary, if perchance he 
 might find any hypocrite there. Such a picture 
 could not have been drawn, had it not been a 
 faithful representation of one of the religious no- 
 tions of those times. 
 
 Another notion or article of belief was the fall 
 of man ; but as the arguments, which have been 
 just used to prove the doctrine of the agency of 
 Satan in the first temptation, will equally prove 
 this, I shall content myself with observing, that 
 Job alludes to the fall of Adam as a matter well 
 known and believed in his time. " If," says he, 
 "I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding- 
 mine iniquities in my bosom." Job, Chap. 31. v. 
 33. Now what could Job have alluded to when 
 he used the word trangressions and coupled it 
 
£i) 
 
 with the name of Adam and of concealment at 
 the same time, but the sin of our first parents, 
 when they endeavoured to conceal it by hiding 
 themselves among* the trees of the garden of 
 Eden ? 
 
 Another religious notion or matter of belief was 
 the depravity of human nature after the fall. 
 Moses informs us, that the cause of the destruc- 
 tion of the old world was " that God saw that 
 the wickedness of man was great in the Earth," 
 and " that every imagination of the thoughts of 
 his heart was only evil continually." We are not 
 at liberty to doubt, that this was the state of man 
 in the age to which Moses alludes ; and we know 
 that Job gives nearly a similar account of the 
 state of man in his own time. Two quotations 
 from him will be sufficient to shew this. " Who 
 can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No 
 one." Again, " What is man, that he should be 
 clean, and he that is born of a Woman, that he 
 should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no 
 trust in his Saints, yea, the Heavens are not clean 
 in his sight. How much more abominable and 
 filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?" 
 Thus then it was considered in Job's time to be 
 as natural to man to sin as when he was thirsty 
 to drink water. 
 
56 
 
 Another religious notion was that of the im- 
 mortality of the soul and of future rewards and 
 punishments. I fear however in consequence of 
 the very scanty space allowed by Moses in his 
 history of the world from the Creation to the 
 Deluge, that I shall not be able to establish these 
 doctrines satisfactorily for Antediluvian times. 
 We may infer however, if such doctrines, were 
 found in the succeeding ages, that they had been 
 brought by Noah together with those others, 
 which we have just seen, from the old to the new 
 world. That such doctrines prevailed in the 
 patriarchal times we cannot doubt. To shew 
 this I may observe first, that " to die " is usually 
 represented in the Pentateuch by the words " to 
 give up the ghost, or " the spirit, or as it may be 
 translated, the breath. But Moses, when speak- 
 ing of the dying- of Rachel, avoids this usual 
 phrase, and makes use of another so remarkable, 
 that it is impossible to avoid noticing it. " And 
 it came to pass, as her soul (not her breath) was 
 departing (for she died) that she called his name 
 Benoni." Genesis. 35 18. The learned Dr. 
 Adam Clarke, who has bestowed great attention 
 upon this passage, and who has given us the 
 benefit of his extensive learning in the Hebrew 
 Language upon it observes thus of Rachel's death, 
 
it is said " Be-tseath Naphshah " that is, in the 
 going away of her soul ; but her body did not go 
 away ; therefore her soul and body must have 
 been distinct : If her Breath only had been in- 
 tended Neshem or Ruach would have rather been 
 used, as the first means Breath, the latter Breath 
 or Spirit indifferently.'' By this explanation we 
 are led to understand, that the word, which is 
 translated Soul in this passage, does not mean 
 Breath, but the immortal part of our nature, and, 
 if this be so, we cannot but believe that the no- 
 tion in these times was, that the soul was imma- 
 terial ; that it was distinct and separate from the 
 body ; and that when a man died his body was 
 left upon earth, and that his soul went to another 
 place. There is reason also to suppose that the 
 same notion was entertained by Job in his time 
 relative to the immateriality and immortality of 
 the soul, and its entire distinctness from the body, 
 for in Chap. 10. v. 1., Job says of himself, " my 
 soul is weary of my life" Here is a proof, that 
 the Hebrew word Nephesh here translated soul, 
 and the same as that which was translated soul 
 in the case of Rachel, does not signify the ani- 
 mal life but the soul or immortal mind, as dis- 
 tinguished from the Hebrew Chai used in this 
 verse to denote that animal life. It is also ven 
 
58 
 
 remarkable, that Job uses the same two Hebrew 
 words Nephesh and Chai in another part of the 
 Dialogue in the same sense as before, that is, as 
 opposed to each other, the one to signify the 
 mortal and the other the immortal part of the 
 Creature Man. "In whose hand, says Job, 
 Chap. 12. v. 10. is the Soul of every living thing 
 and the Breath of all mankind." Does not the 
 first part of this verse, says Dr. Adam Clarke, 
 refer to the immortal soul, the principle of all intel- 
 lectual life, and the latter part of it to the Breath, 
 the grand means, respiration, by which Animal 
 Existence is continued. 
 
 But we must leave Job for a moment and go 
 back to the Pentateuch to examine a phrase there 
 before we can complete our knowledge of this 
 subject. It is frequently said of the Patriarchs 
 when they died, that " they were gathered to 
 their people." No phrase so plain as this at the 
 first sight was ever so much mistaken, or so 
 much misunderstood. Readers generally ima- 
 gine, that the persons thus spoken of wxre either 
 buried in the sepulchre of their fathers, or com- 
 mitted to the earth in the same burial-place with 
 their ancestors and tribe; but this is not the 
 proper meaning of the phrase as I shall attempt 
 to show. It is said for instance of Abraham, 
 
59 
 
 that he gave up the ghost and was " gathered to 
 his people." Gen. e. 25. v. 8; but this was 
 not literally true, for Abraham was buried 
 in his own cave of Machpelah at a distance from 
 his father, relatives, and former connexions, and 
 where the body of his wife Sarah alone had been 
 deposited. Again, the same phrase is used by 
 God himself to Moses and Aaron on Mount Hor, 
 saying, " Aaron shall be gathered to his people." 
 "And Moses did as the Lord commanded; and 
 they went up into Mount Hor, in the sight of all 
 the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron 
 of his garments and put them on Eleazar his son, 
 and Aaron died there on the top of the Mount, 
 and Moses and Eleazar came down from the 
 Mount." Numbers, c. 20. v. 24—27—28. From 
 this account it appears that Aaron w r as not buried 
 with his family or people ; for his body was left 
 by Moses and Eleazar upon Mount Hor. Again, 
 the same phrase is used by God to Moses. 
 " Thou also shalt be gathered to thy people as 
 Aaron thy brother was gathered." Numbers. 
 Chap 27. v. 13. "And Moses went out from 
 the plains of Moab unto the mountains of Nebo 
 to the top of Pisgah. So Moses the servant of 
 the Lord died there in the land of Moab, accord- 
 ing to the word of the Lord. And he buried him 
 
60 
 
 in a valley in the land of Moal> over against 
 Beth-Peor; but no man knows his sepulchre, 
 unto this day." Deuter. c. 34. v. 5. 6. Here 
 then is a third instance of a holy man who 
 is said to have been " gathered to his people," but 
 yet who was buried in a strange land, away from 
 all his kindred and friends. But if, when the 
 righteous died, it is not true that the phrase 
 " being gathered to their people " means that 
 they were buried in the same sepulchre or burial- 
 ground with their fore-fathers, relatives, and per- 
 sons among whom they had formerly lived, what 
 is the meaning of it? I believe that the notion in 
 these [times was, that the souls of the righteous 
 (for to these only the phrase was applied) were 
 to be gathered together in another world to dwell 
 there, if I may so speak, with the souls of their 
 oivn people, that is, of other servants of God like 
 themselves, such as of Abel, Enoch and Noah, or 
 of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the three latter 
 of whom our Saviour, in answer to a question 
 concerning the Resurrection of the dead (Mark, 
 c. 12. v. 27.) speaks of as then living, though 
 they had been dead some hundred years before. 
 And this interpretation seems to me to be con- 
 firmed by the consideration that " to sit down 
 with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was one of the 
 
61 
 
 phrases in our Saviours time, which had, no 
 doubt, then come down by tradition, to denote 
 the happy state of the righteous dead in another 
 world ; for many, says our Saviour, Matt. c. 
 8. v. 11., shall come "from the East and the 
 West, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 It has appeared then, if my interpretation of 
 these texts be right, that a notion existed among 
 the Patriarchs, that there was a soul in Man dis- 
 tinct from the body, and that the souls * of holy 
 or good men, when their bodies perished on 
 earth, lived in another state, and that they were 
 rewarded there, and that their reward consisted, 
 as the phrase "setting down " implies, in feast- 
 ing with, or enjoying the conversation or company 
 of the spirits of all the other good and holy men 
 and servants of God who had gone before them. 
 A notion was also equally prevalent in those 
 
 * It is evident foom St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews c. 11. v. 
 14 — 20., that the patriarchs in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's time, ex- 
 pected to live again in a better country, viz., a heavenly one ; but whence 
 did they get this expectation ? The Apostle says, from faith. But faith 
 always supposes something previously done or said, to which it is to be 
 attached. They must therefore have derived this expectation from reve- 
 lation handed down to them by tradition from the earliest times. It is 
 probable therefore that when God gave the precepts to Adam before men- 
 tioned, he gave him other information, such as of a future state and fu- 
 ture rewards and punishments. Sec what was said in the case of Cain. 
 
62 
 
 times that evil doers would be punished in ano- 
 ther life. See that very beautiful chapter the 
 twenty-first of Job, where (to shorten it) the Pa- 
 triarch may be represented as speaking in sub- 
 stance thus. " Wicked men often live long- and 
 prosper in their families and concerns. At other 
 times their prosperity is suddenly blasted, and 
 their families come to ruin. God however deals 
 with all according to his wisdom. Some are 
 weak and others strong in their constitutions. 
 Some are cheerful and happy, while others are 
 melancholy and miserable ; but they shall all lie 
 down in the dust. Men of wisdom and experience 
 will tell us if we ask their opinion, that God's 
 dispensations are unequal in this life, but though 
 the wicked may often prosper in this world they 
 will assuredly be punished in another. Job's ow 7 n 
 words at the conclusion are these. " The wick- 
 ed is reserved to the day of destruction ; they 
 shall be brought forth to the day of wrath." 
 c. 21. v. 30. The notion in fact was, that 
 God would give to every man the just recompence 
 of his actions, as he had been found to have done 
 good or evil, and to this effect Elihu speaks in 
 the dialogue "for the work of a man shall God 
 render unto him, and cause every man to find 
 according to his ways." Job. c. 34. v. 11. 
 
63 
 
 Another doctrine, which prevailed in the pa- 
 triarchal ages, was that sin must be expiated or 
 atoned for by sacrifice, or that when men sup- 
 posed that they had offended God, they were to 
 endeavour to appease his wrath by the blood of 
 animals to be shed and offered to him with 
 solemnities suited to the occasion. This doc- 
 trine may be illustrated by the practice of Job. 
 "And it was so when the days of their feasting 
 were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified 
 them, and rose up early in the morning and 
 offered burnt offerings according to the number 
 of them all ; for Job said it may be that my sons 
 have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. 
 Thus did Job continually." Job, c. 1. 5. We 
 learn from this that Job, fearing that his children 
 when they feasted together, might have let slip, 
 in the hours of their merriment, some irreverent 
 expressions concerning God, thought it to be 
 his duty to offer burnt offerings to God in their 
 behalf ; and this he did continually, that is, as 
 often as they sinned, or as often as he feared 
 that they had sinned ; every new sin requiring 
 a new expiation. 
 
 But upon what ground or authority was it 
 that Job sacrificed as above described ? I an- 
 swer upon the ground of tradition : the usage 
 
()4 
 
 of the day, and the common belief, that the 
 practice had been commanded by God, and that 
 it had been in operation ever since the time of 
 the first sacrifice by Cain and Abel to the days 
 in which he, the Patriarch, lived. But this 
 answer leads to another question, by whose 
 authority did Cain and Abel institute this rite ? 
 Did they invent it themselves ? Certainly not, 
 But why ? Because the doctrine of appeasing 
 God by the blood of animal victims could never 
 have been the spontaneous product of the human 
 mind. It never could have entered into the 
 mind of Adam, or of Abel or of Cain, that the 
 taking away of the life of one of the animals of 
 their flocks and offering it to God could appease 
 his wrath, when offended on account of sin. 
 Now there were probably no more than these 
 three (full-grown) men in the world, though there 
 might have been many children, at the time 
 when the Rite was introduced. But if these 
 could not have possibly invented it, who did ? 
 The answer is plain. We have only to recollect 
 that God had occasionally conversation with 
 Adam and others (for so Moses tells us) and the 
 conclusion will be inevitable, that this rite could 
 only have come from God by revelation ; and 
 that it did so come is clear from some of the 
 
65 
 
 words of God to Cain which we know of, as be- 
 fore quoted* by which it appears that he (Cain) 
 had not observed the instructions which God 
 had given him on this subject ; and this is the 
 light in which it was viewed, I mean as of di- 
 vine institution throughout the patriarchal times. 
 Men had also undoubtedly a notion in those 
 times that some one of the descendants of Eve 
 was to come at a future day in the character of 
 a Redeemer from the power of Satan and the 
 guilt of sin. The prophecy that the seed of the 
 woman should bruise the serpent's head must 
 have given indescribable pleasure to Adam and 
 Eve after their fall ; and to their children after- 
 wards, and therefore the utmost care would be 
 taken by them all to preserve the memory of it. 
 Noah also and his children would be equal- 
 ly interested in the preservation of it, so 
 that it would be sure to be handed down to 
 the new world. I cannot doubt that Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob were acquainted with it. 
 And this was certainly the case with Job and 
 his friends, or perhaps I should rather have 
 said that Job and his friends knew that God 
 had found a ransom for the sins of men upon 
 their repentance. In confirmation of this I may 
 
 * Genesis, c. 4 v. 6, 7. 
 K 
 
66 
 
 appeal to the thirty-third chapter of Job. In 
 this chapter Elihu describes to Job the various 
 methods, which God in his mercy takes to bring 
 sinners to himself ; and when by these means he 
 has occasioned a sinner to repent, then says he 
 (that is on repentance) "God is gracious to him 
 (the sinner) and saith deliver him from going 
 down into the pit ; I have found a ransom (an 
 atonement) for him." v. 24. Here is a just pic- 
 ture of Redemption in a few words according to 
 Christian notions. But how much more perfect 
 is this picture made by the two following verses, 
 (25, 26) which give the following description of 
 the redeemed. "His flesh shall be fresher than a 
 child's. He shall return to the days of his 
 youth." Does not this show that he shall be 
 born again and become a new creature? "He 
 shall pray unto God, and he will be favourable 
 unto him ; and he shall see his face with joy ; 
 for he will render unto man his righteousness. " 
 Does not this show again, that he, the redeemed, 
 shall have the spirit of prayer, and that he shall 
 feel himself reconciled to God, so that this shall 
 fill him with joy? God moreover will enable him 
 to bring forth the fruits of the spirit, and reward 
 him for the work as if it had been his own right- 
 eousness. But this is sufficient for my purpose; 
 
67 
 
 for I know not where, taking- any three verses in 
 the scriptures standing together, we shall find such 
 a complete description of redemption and its 
 effects as in the three which have been just cited. 
 Let me now make a few observations, such 
 as a review of some of the preceding parts of 
 this work may warrant. There is reason to be- 
 lieve from what has been said, that God gave to 
 Adam and Eve after their creation certain pre- 
 cepts for the moral guidance of themselves and 
 their posterity, and that certain doctrines or reli- 
 gious notions may also be distinctly traced from the 
 earliest times, which precepts and doctrines 
 combined constituted the body of divinity of the 
 church of Adam, and that the same precepts and 
 doctrines constituted afterwards the body of 
 divinity of the church of Noah. Hence they 
 must have been in operation as such in the plain of 
 Shinar when Noah and all his descendants were 
 living there, speaking one language and dwel- 
 ling together as one people ; for it is impossible 
 to suppose that such a distinguished servant of 
 God as Noah, one who had been miraculously 
 saved from destruction in the ark, one who im- 
 mediately on landing from it built an altar to the 
 Lord, and one who is called in the scriptures a 
 preacher of righteousness, would have neglected 
 
68 
 
 to keep up among- the different families, all of 
 which had sprung from his own loins, that 
 knowledge of God and religion which he had 
 brought with him from the old world. Hence 
 I conclude that all the families, when thus 
 living together in Shinar, knew what their 
 duty was both to God and man as far as 
 it had then been revealed. Hence I conclude 
 again that when the different families just allu- 
 ded to separated from each other, and wandered 
 about and formed separate communities in new 
 lands, they carried with them in their wander- 
 ings (the head of each family on the tablet of his 
 memory) all the religious precepts and doctrines 
 which they then possessed; and hence it is easy 
 to see how men in the succeeding patriarchal 
 ages, such as Job and others, acquired that reli- 
 gious information which we have seen in the 
 preceding pages, fragments * of which would be 
 found afterwards in different parts of the world. 
 
 * Mr. Douglas in a work on " Errors regarding Religion " has the fol- 
 lowing observation "Traces of primeval Revelation, and of the worship 
 of the true God, are found dispersed in scatterred fragments over the 
 habitable earth. Even tribes so rude as to be enumerated among the 
 instances of men who had no religion are yet discovered, from sub- 
 sequent information to retain vestiges, however faint, of the primitive 
 condition of man." To this observation I may add that the customs or 
 rites discovered amongst the different tribes or nations inhabiting the 
 earth, such as offerings or sacrifices to appease the wrath of an invisible 
 Being or Beings, may be particularly noticed. 
 
69 
 
 Nor have we any reason to suppose, that this 
 religious information, or that any traditions of 
 importance, would have suffered materially in 
 point of truth by being passed from one genera- 
 tion to another, when we consider that in conse- 
 quence of the longevity of man in those days 
 three persons only would have been needed to 
 hand down any striking occurrence from the 
 Creation to the time of Abraham. Methuselah 
 for instance lived at the same time both with 
 Adam and Noah. He could therefore have told 
 Noah whatever he might have received, or heard 
 as having come from Adam, or whatever he 
 himself had known of the history of the antedi- 
 luvian world ; and certainly no man could have 
 done this better than Methuselah ; for we can- 
 not but believe that such a man as Enoch, his 
 father, would have taken great care to acquaint 
 his son with all that had passed relative to reli- 
 gion, laws, and doctrines, from the beginning. 
 Noah then, having been thus instructed would 
 have had numberless opportunities of communi- 
 cating what he had thus heard and also what he 
 had himself seen to his sons. Now Shem is 
 said to have lived 500 years after the Deluge, or 
 so far into patriarchal times as to have been con- 
 temporary with Abraham. Indeed Shem is sup- 
 
70 
 
 posed by many to have been Melchizedek, the 
 venerable King of Salem, and Priest of the most 
 high God, who blessed Abraham after the battle in 
 which he rescued Lot, and to whom Abraham 
 gave a tenth of all. his spoil on that occasion. 
 
 Having now endeavoured to trace the nature 
 and extent of the religious knowledge which 
 men had acquired at the time of the dispersion 
 of mankind, my next object will be to see what 
 use their descendants had made of it, that is, how 
 far they had preserved or lost it, when, after 
 having been thus dispersed, they began to peo- 
 ple different parts of the earth ; Shem (I speak 
 generally) to people the continent of Asia, Ham, 
 the continent of Africa, and Japhet, Europe. 
 I mean what use they were found to have seve- 
 rally made of this knowledge when our Saviour 
 came into the world. 
 
 I shall begin, because it suits my purpose bet- 
 ter, with the family of Ham. The Bible informs 
 us that Ham had four sons, Cush, Canaan, Miz- 
 raim, and Phut. The sons of Cush, of whom I 
 shall speak first, did not migrate immediately on 
 the dispersion, like many other of the families, 
 but kept, if I may so say, their family-seat, that 
 is, a tract of country near Babel on the plain of 
 Shinar. Here they continued for some time till 
 
71 
 
 Nimrod, the successor of his father Cush, and 
 a man of great ambition, is said to have enter- 
 tained views of aggrandizement, if not to have 
 aimed at universal dominion. He accordingly, 
 in process of time, possessed himself by force of 
 certain parts of Babylonia and Chaldea, where 
 he established the first known kingdom in the 
 world. It is said of this family, that they were 
 the first to abuse the religious light, namely, the 
 moral precepts and doctrines before-mentioned, 
 which Noah had left them, and to have departed 
 from the true God. Indeed the word Nimrod 
 sig-nifies rebellavit or the man who rebelled ; but 
 whether this name was given him because he 
 had broken the precepts of the churches of Adam 
 and Noah by committing outrage and murder in 
 his expeditions for aggrandizement, or because 
 he had broken the same precepts by going into 
 Idolatry, I do not know. Certain however it is, 
 that at this very early period, the infancy of the 
 new world, he set up a new worship* " The 
 Cuseans, says the learned Bryant, (Mythology 
 vol. 4. p. 194) were the first apostates from the 
 truth. They introduced the worship of the Sun, 
 that great fountain of light, and paid the like 
 
 * Bishop Cumberland places the beginning of Idolatry at about the 
 eud of the second, or the beginning of the third century from the Deluge. 
 
72 
 
 reverence to the Stars and all the host of Heaven. 
 They looked upon them as fountains, from whence 
 were derived to men the most salutary emanations. 
 This worship was styled the fountain-worship" 
 In process of time, these Cushites or Cuseans, 
 who occupied, as we havejust said, certain parts 
 of Babylonia and Chaldca, became so populous, 
 that they pushed out colonies, which went in 
 search of new lands. The first body of these 
 Emigrants, of whom we have any account, seated 
 themselves on the borders of the Arabian Gulph, 
 of which they became the first inhabitants. This 
 fact is well attested by history, and indeed is 
 proved by the circumstance, that Arabia Petraea 
 which is situated there, is always called in the 
 scriptures " Cush." Other bodies of Cuseans, 
 whether from Arabia or the mother country, took 
 possession of the ancient Thebais ; and it is re- 
 markable that the Bedouin Arabs, according- to 
 Volney, call those who live there Beni-kous or 
 the children of Cush at the present clay. Others 
 of the same nation went as far as the sources of 
 the Nile and settled in Abyssinia ; and this part 
 of ancient history is confirmed by Bruce (vol. 1. 
 p. 376) who informs us, that there was a tradi- 
 tion among the Abyssinians, equally received by 
 Jews and Christians, that they came originally 
 
73 
 
 from the family of Cush. Here they established 
 a powerful kingdom, and indeed went so far into 
 the torrid zone, that in Jeremiah's time the whole 
 race had become black, as appears from the well- 
 known question of that prophet "can the Ethio- 
 pian (or as it should have been translated Child 
 of Cush) change his skin or the Leopard his 
 spots ?" It was from these Abyssinian Cuseans 
 that many of the negro nations now peopling the 
 vast continent of Africa derived their origin. I 
 may observe of all the different bodies of Colo- 
 nists now mentioned, that they carried with them 
 into the new countries, where they settled, the 
 constellation-worship, which Nimrod had intro- 
 duced among the parent stock. 
 
 The descendants of Canaan, whose case I shall 
 consider next, occupied the land, which went by 
 their fathers name, and which was also known 
 by the name of the land of promise. These peo- 
 ple abandoned the religion of their fathers also. It 
 is not known at what time they fell into unbelief; 
 but we have reason to suppose not quite so early 
 as the descendants of Cush. Like these how- 
 ever they substituted the worship of the Sun and 
 of the other heavenly bodies for that of the true 
 God. This I shewed a few pages back to have 
 been the case, or rather to have been deducible 
 
74 
 
 from the number of towns in the first or ancient 
 Canaan, which were called Bethshemesh, or 
 temples dedicated to the Sun. At a later period 
 however, when we become better acquainted 
 with the descendants of Canaan, we find them 
 occupied in the worship of Graven Images. 
 This we collect from Moses, who, as he drew 
 near to their borders, cautioned the Israelites 
 against their Idolatry in the following- words, 
 " thou shalt make no covenant with them ; thy 
 daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor his 
 daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For 
 they will turn away thy son from following me 
 that they may serve other Gods ; so will the an- 
 ger of the Lord be kindled against you, and 
 destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal 
 with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and 
 break down their images, and cut down their 
 groves, and burn their Graven Images with fire." 
 Deut. c. 7. v. 2. 3. 4. 5. But they had gone 
 much farther than this in the time of Moses, as 
 we find from a farther account by him concern- 
 ing them. " Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord 
 thy God: for every abomination to the Lord 
 which he hateth have they (the descendants of 
 Canaan) done unto their Gods ; for even their 
 sons and their daughters they have burnt in the 
 
75 
 
 fire to their Gods." Deut. c. 12. v. 31. This then 
 was the use, which these people also had made 
 of the light, which they must have had concern- 
 ing their duty to God at the time of their disper- 
 sion. 
 
 With respect to the descendants of Mizraim, 
 another of the sons of Ham before mentioned, 
 we may say that these in their wanderings from 
 the plain of Shinar came at length to a tract of 
 country where they settled, and that this tract 
 is handed down to us by the Seventy as the land 
 of Egypt. Of these Mizraim I may observe at 
 once, that they appear to me to have left the true 
 God, and to have set up a new worship, much in 
 the same way and probably much about the same 
 time as the descendants of Canaan ; for as in the 
 land of Canaan we have seen that there were 
 cities of the name of Bethshemesh, so we find 
 (Jeremiah, c. 43 v. 13) that the Mizraim or peo- 
 ple of Egypt had their Bethshemeshs also, of 
 which probably there were as many there as in 
 Canaan. Hence we may presume that their 
 Idolatry began with the worship of the sun. We 
 find however that in the time of Moses it had 
 degenerated into that of Graven Images ; for so 
 Ezekiel informs us in the following words, " In 
 the day that 1 lifted up my hand unto them (the 
 
76 
 
 Israelites) to bring them forth out of the land of 
 Egypt into a land that I had espied for them 
 flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory 
 of all lands : then said I unto them cast ye away 
 every man the abomination of his eyes, and defile 
 not yourselves with the Idols of Egypt \ lam 
 the Lord your God. But they rebelled against 
 me, and would not hearken unto me : they did 
 not every man cast away the abominations of their 
 eyes, neither did they forsake the Idols of Egypt : 
 then I said I will pour out my fury upon them, to 
 accomplish my anger against them in the midst 
 of the land of Egypt." Ezekiel, c. 20. v 6. 7. 8. 
 These Mizraim appear afterwards to have fallen 
 into the grossest Idolatry ; for not satisfied with 
 worshipping Idols, in process of time they paid 
 their adoration, as Herodotus tells us, to various 
 living creatures, such as beasts, birds, and fish 
 of different sorts, and among these, to Crocodiles, 
 Serpents, Frogs, Flies, and Beetles. 
 
 Very little is said of Phut, the remaining son 
 of Ham. It is supposed however, that part of 
 the family settled in the cities of the plain, such 
 as Sodom and others, but that a remnant of it 
 settled in that part of Africa which the Romans 
 knew by the name of Mauritania. The ancient 
 names of places seem to shew, that the family 
 
77 
 
 had been there, for there was a whole country 
 and a river also in Mauritania, both of which 
 anciently bore the name of Phut. The other 
 part of Africa called Lybia is said to have been 
 peopled by Lehabim, a grandson of Cush, so 
 that almost all this continent must have been 
 occupied by the descendants of Ham. There 
 can be no doubt that Phut and Lehabim, if they 
 were sent from Chaldea and Babylonia to colo- 
 nize, which was most probably the case, would 
 carry with them the worship of the Sun and Moon 
 and heavenly bodies (as it had been practised in 
 these countries) wherever they went. And now 
 having gone through the case of all the sons of 
 Ham, I am reminded to ask what was the reli- 
 gious state of the descendants of all these when 
 our Saviour came into the world, namely, of those 
 who were in Babylonia and Chaldea, of those 
 who were settled on the borders of the Arabian 
 gulph, of those who occupied the Thebais and 
 Abyssinia, and of those who inhabited Maurita- 
 nia and Lybia. There is but one answer to be 
 given, which is this, that, though their ancestors 
 had been all of them acquainted with the doc- 
 trines and moral precepts of the Churches of 
 Adam and Noah, while living in the plain of 
 Shinar, they themselves were all sunk in Idolatry 
 and barbarism. 
 
78 
 
 I proceed next to the case of the sons of Ja- 
 phet; and here I am to see what use these also 
 had made of the religious light which they had 
 received from their father, when, having left the 
 plain of Shinar, they settled in Europe ; for all 
 historians agree that this continent was mostly 
 peopled by them. We can collect, however, but 
 very little information either from sacred or pro- 
 fane history relative to any movements or trans- 
 actions on their part, or any customs or opinions 
 among them of a date so ancient, as that must 
 be, which followed soon after the dispersion of 
 mankind. It is not however necessary for my 
 purpose, that I should go into their very early or 
 earliest history ; for if in after times we should 
 find countries peopled by them, in which all the 
 inhabitants worspipped Idols, we should be as 
 sure that these had departed from the religious 
 principles of Japhet, or from the knowledge of 
 the true God, as if the historian himself had told 
 us when, where, and how such a change had 
 taken place. Such then was the case both with 
 the Greeks and Romans, the undoubted descend- 
 ants of Japhet, and also with the colonies estab- 
 lished by these in different parts of the world. 
 Let us go first to Ephesus, the Greek colony of 
 Ionia, and see whether the inhabitants there had 
 
79 
 
 retained the precepts and doctrines which God 
 had originally given to Adam, or had declined in 
 their religious notions, at the time when St. Paul 
 was among them. Did not the town-clerk of 
 that city cry aloud in the hearing of the apostle, 
 "ye men of Ephesus what man is there, that 
 knoweth not, how that the city of the Ephesians 
 is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and 
 of the image which fell down from Jupiter"? 
 Acts, c. 19. v. 35. Let us go next to Athens 
 for the same purpose ; and w r as it not here, that 
 St. Paul's " spirit was stirred within him, when 
 he saw the city wholly given to Idolatry?" 
 Acts, c. 17. v. 16. Could any man walk at that 
 time in the streets of Athens, and not fall in at 
 every corner of them with some one altar or ano- 
 ther, and these dedicated to different Deities ? 
 and did not St. Paul find among them one " to 
 the unknown God?" Again, should we have 
 found at Rome religion in a purer form than at 
 Ephesus or Athens ? Should we not have seen 
 there the college of Augurs and a little further on 
 in the streets temple after temple wherein to 
 practise Idolatry, and in every house an image 
 kept to be worshipped as an household-god ? 
 
 It appears then from the above account, though 
 very short, that the descendants of Japhet had 
 
80 
 
 abandoned in our Saviours time, equally with 
 the descendants of Ham, those precepts and 
 doctrines of the Churches of Adam and Noah, 
 which had been the religious light and guide of 
 their fathers. And here it is degrading to ob- 
 serve, that, if we go back from this time to the 
 history of either Greece or Rome, we shall come to 
 a period, when many of the Idolaters in these 
 countries were men of the finest genius and of 
 the most highly cultivated minds ; men capable 
 of the deepest and most intricate research, and 
 whose talents, though they may have been equal- 
 led, have never been surpassed by any even the 
 most acute and enlightened of modern times, and 
 that all these, notwithstanding their superior in- 
 tellect and attainments, lived like their contem- 
 poraries of the common herd in the trammels of 
 a vile superstition and without God in the world. 
 It may be proper to observe in this place, that, 
 whatever was the religious state of Rome or 
 Athens as now described, the same was the 
 state of the inhabitants of every city in Eu- 
 rope, that is, of every city inhabited by the 
 children of Japhet, at the same time. 
 
 I am now to go back to the family of Shem, 
 and to make the same enquiries there as in the 
 other two cases. Shem had five sons, Aram, 
 
81 
 
 Ashur, Elam, Lud, and Arphaxad. All these 
 settled in Asia where they were born. My ac- 
 count of them will be very short. Of Aram we 
 have already said, that his children settled in 
 Ccelo-Syria, and that their descendants were 
 early found to be worshippers of the Sun and 
 afterwards of Graven Images in the time of Jacob. 
 Ashur, it is well known, built Nineveh, and there 
 laid the foundation, on which the great Assyrian 
 Empire was afterwards erected. His descend- 
 ants also became Idolaters. When this great 
 change in their religion took place is not known ; 
 but it must have been very early. The proof 
 however that the Assyrians had left the true God 
 for Idols is not to be collected from any scriptural 
 writer till the time of Hezekiah, between seven 
 and eight hundred years before Christ, when it 
 is accidentally recorded that Sennacherib, their 
 king, was killed by two of his own sons as he 
 was worshipping in the house of his God Nisroch, 
 a sufficient proof that the worship of idols must 
 have been long before this the National Worship 
 of the descendants of Ashur. 2 Kings, c. 19. v. 
 37. Elam settled with his family on the South 
 frontier of the Medes, and to the North of Susiana, 
 and at no great distance from the borders of As- 
 syria. The capital of his country was known 
 
 M 
 
82 
 
 some ages afterwards to the Greeks by the name 
 of Elymais. It is no where positively said of 
 his descendants, as far as my knowledge goes, 
 that they w T ere idolaters, but they are classed by 
 the prophets amongthose idolatrous nations which 
 were destined by God to punish the Israelites 
 for their idolatry and afterwards to be destroyed 
 themselves, Isaiah, c. 11. v. 11., Ezekiel, c. 32. v. 
 24. We know however that they were conquer- 
 ed by Nebuchadnezzar, and that they were in 
 Daniel's time one of the one hundred arid twenty 
 seven provinces which constituted the Babylo- 
 nian Empire. Daniel, c. 8. v. 2. This obliges us 
 to conclude, that they must have been at any 
 rate idolators after this epoch ; because idolatry 
 was the religion of their conquerors, as we learn 
 from Isaiah, who foretelling the fall of Babylon 
 speaks thus, "And behold, here cometh a cha- 
 riot of men with a couple of horsemen. And he 
 answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen ; 
 and all the graven images of her gods he hath bro- 
 ken unto the ground." Isaiah c. 21. v. 9. 
 
 Concerning Lud we know little or nothing. 
 It is generally supposed that he settled almost 
 in the midst of his idolatrous brothers, that is, if 
 we take a map of Asia into our hand and look 
 to the North, that he settled so as to have had 
 Aram on his left hand, and Elam and Ashur on 
 
83 
 
 on his right. There cannot be a doubt that the Lur 
 dim also forsook the religion of their fathers ; for 
 considering their local situation as we. have just 
 described it to have been, and moreover .that the 
 Babylonians were to the South- West* and the 
 Chaldeans to the South of them (two of the ear- 
 liest and most obstinate of the idolatrous nations) 
 we cannot conceive how they could possibly 
 have escaped the contagion of such examples. 
 It may be therefore laid down as a truth, that 
 the descendants of all the four sons of Shem now 
 mentioned had,, like the descendants of Ham 
 and Japhet, left the true God,; and that they 
 were all found in a similar state of idolatry with 
 these when our Saviour came into the world. 
 
 The only case which remains for consider- 
 ation is that of Arphaxad, the eldest son of 
 Shem ; and here we are to enquire how far his 
 descendants also preserved or lost the religious 
 light, which he had received from his father. I 
 may begin then by observing, that Arphaxad 
 dwelt originally in Mesopotamia, but that his 
 successors, as their families increased, moved 
 on for the purpose of obtaining fresh land, so 
 that in time they came to the Euphrates, and 
 settled at length, in the country known to the 
 ancients by the name of Chaldca, a part of which 
 
84 
 
 had been before occupied, as I have already 
 stated by Nimrod. Of the family now under 
 consideration we have nothing interesting to re- 
 port till the time of Terah, who was then living 
 at Ur, in the country last mentioned. Terah, 
 is the first person in the line of Arphaxad, of 
 whom we hear that he left the true God. How 
 long he had abandoned the doctrines of the 
 churches of Adam and Noah, or whether his 
 father before him had abandoned them is no- 
 where said. Certain however it is, that Terah, 
 the father of Abraham, was an idolater, if the 
 testimony of Joshua be true. "And Joshua 
 said unto all the people, ' thus saith the Lord 
 God of Israel, your fathers dwelt on the other 
 side of the flood ( Euphrates ) in old time, even 
 Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of 
 Nahor; and they served other Gods." Joshua 
 c. 24. v. 2. This text has been generally un- 
 derstood as conveying the meaning that all the 
 three had been Idolaters. There are some how- 
 ever, who would willingly make an * exception 
 
 * After the third verse of the 28th chap, of the 2nd. Chron. a remark- 
 able addition is made in the Chaldee version, but in no other version of 
 the bible; a part of which is as follows, " Abraham escaped from the 
 furnace of fire among the Chaldeans, into which he had been cast by 
 Nimrod, because he would not worship their idols." Hence evidently 
 there must have been a Tradition to this effect, or this fact could not 
 have crept into the text of this ancient version. 
 
85 
 
 in favour of Abraham. But be this as it may, 
 it pleased God especially to interfere to prevent 
 this moral pestilence from spreading among the 
 legitimate children of Abraham. Accordingly 
 he called Abraham out of Ur to Charran, and 
 made the great covenant ivith him, and instituted 
 the rite of circumcision, by which he and his 
 children and his children's children were to be 
 kept distinct from all other tribes or nations. 
 Abraham in fact was to be the father of a new 
 race of men or of men to be brought up afresh in 
 those laws and statutes of God, which were then 
 in the way of being lost forever. Suffice it now 
 to add, that after Abraham came Isaac and af- 
 ter Isaac came Jacob. To these two illustrious 
 patriarchs God in fulfilment of his design re- 
 newed the great covenant: both of them in 
 consequence observed the rite now mentioned ; 
 both of them had communion with God ; 
 both of them endeavoured to keep themselves 
 pure and to do his will. The latter indeed, be- 
 fore he went to Bethel, commanded his house- 
 hold to ''purge themselves of their idols and to 
 be clean." Gen. 35. v. 2. He would not allow 
 his servants to have the instruments of idolatry 
 in their possession. This is a proof that idol- 
 worship was known in this part of the world in 
 those days. 
 
86- 
 
 I come now in the prosecution oi' my inquiry 
 to the children of Jacob. These were settled as 
 strangers in the land of Goshen in Egypt, under 
 Pharoah. They give birth to a numerous pos- 
 terity, which occupied that land till their deliv- 
 ery by Moses, during which sojourning they had 
 increased to six hundred thousand effective men? 
 They were, during all this period, distinguished 
 from the Egyptians both by language and the 
 rite of circumcision. They were also distin- 
 guished from them by name, being called Israel- 
 ites from their great ancestor Jacob, who after 
 wrestling with the angel had his name changed 
 to Israel. The sacred writings do not tell us 
 what their religion was, or whether it had de- 
 clined during this long interval. We may pre- 
 sume however that they were brought up in the 
 principles of Jacob, or in those patriarchal doc- 
 trines which had come down to them in a direct 
 line from Shem, with the addition of the rite of 
 circumcision, and that they continued in these 
 observances for the first eighty years of their 
 residence in Goshen; for during this time Joseph 
 was the prime minister of Pharoah, and having 
 the power, he would naturally have the incli- 
 nation, to protect his own relatives, all of whom 
 were the descendants of his father Jacob, 
 
87 
 
 in the performance of their religions dirties. 
 Besides it has been generally understood, that 
 one of the reasons why Joseph settled them in 
 Goshen, besides that of its being- a superior place 
 for the maintenance of their herds and flocks, 
 was that they might be kept distinct from the 
 Egyptians, who as we have shown were at that 
 time idolaters, and that they might serve God 
 without interruption and bring up their children 
 in their own way. After this when the old Pha- 
 raoh died, and a new Pharaoh, reigned in his 
 stead, they suffered the most cruel persecution ; 
 and we cannot doubt that from this time till their 
 delivery by Moses, their situation must have 
 been very unfavourable for the preservation of 
 the true faith. It is true indeed that they had 
 many opportunities,, while Pharaohs Magicians 
 were endeavouring to rival the miracles perform- 
 ed by Moses, of seeing the vast superiority of 
 the God of Israel over the gods of the Egyptians ; 
 we have reason however to suppose that ma- 
 ny of them must after so long a sojourning there, 
 have been not a little tainted with idolatry. For 
 the Egyptians, as has been just said, had all de- 
 parted from the true God. Now when we con- 
 sider that the Israelites lived in their territory, 
 they must have frequently seen their idolatrous 
 
88 
 
 practices ; and it is highly probable also, that 
 they would have been frequently importuned by 
 their task-masters, who superintended them dai- 
 ly, to abjure their religion. But there is a fact, 
 which strengthens this supposition. Scarcely had 
 the Israelites left their oppressors and arrived in 
 the wilderness, when doubting the return of Moses 
 who had gone up to mount Sinai to communicate 
 with God, they made a golden calf and wor- 
 shipped it; a practice, which they could not 
 have adopted all at once, or so readily as they 
 did, if they had had no notion of it or no incli- 
 nation towards it before. We may also suppose 
 that other circumstances occurred which, if the 
 supposition just made be right, will place them 
 again in a very unfavourable situation with re- 
 spect to the preservation of the true faith. 
 There is reason to believe that for considerably 
 more than a century, that is, from the death of 
 the first Pharoah when their bitter slavery be- 
 gan, they had been deprived of the religious 
 benefit of the sabbath; for it is not likely that 
 his hard-hearted successors, when they studied 
 to make their bondage as bitter as human na- 
 ture could bear, would have given them one day 
 in seven as a day of relaxation from their labour 
 and much less as a day for the worship of that 
 
89 
 
 God, whom they and their subjects had discard- 
 ed : and this conjecture assumes the form of 
 truth when we consider that when Moses cele- 
 brated the first sabbath in the wilderness, he did 
 not speak of it as of a new institution, but as of a 
 practice, which had been well known to them or 
 their ancestors. " And it came to pass that on 
 the sixtli day they gathered twice as much bread, 
 two omers for one man ; and all the rulers of the 
 congregation came and told Moses." Now what 
 did Moses say in reply ? He said unto them, 
 " This is that, which the Lord hath said, to-mor- 
 row is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the 
 Lord. Bake that which ye will bake, to day ; 
 and seethe that ye will seethe ; and that which 
 remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until 
 the morning." Exod. c. 16. v. 22. 23. These 
 were the words of Moses on this occasion, and 
 it appears that the rulers of the congregation un- 
 derstood them, for they made no reply. But how 
 could they possibly have comprehended their 
 meaning (spoken as they were, without any pre- 
 face or explanation on his part) if they had never 
 heard of the custom before. But whether this 
 conjecture be right or wrong, there is reason to 
 suppose that the Israelites were tainted, and not 
 a little tainted, with Idolatry before they left the 
 
 N 
 
90 
 
 land of their bondage. Indeed we have already 
 shewn this by a former quotation, which, having 
 been made for another purpose may have been 
 overlooked by the reader. I will therefore repeat 
 it here. " Then said I unto them, cast ye away 
 every man the abomination of his eyes, and de- 
 file not yourselves with the Idols of Egypt. I 
 am the Lord your God. But they (the Israelites 
 when in Egypt) rebelled against me, and would 
 not kearken unto me : they did not every man cast 
 away the abomination of their eyes, neither did 
 they forsake the Idols of Egypt; then I said I will 
 pour out my fury upon them to accomplish my 
 anger against them in the midst of the land of 
 Egypt." Ezek. c. 20. v. 7. 8. Hence it would 
 appear, that their bitter sufferings in Egypt were 
 a punishment for having begun to desert the 
 God of their fathers in that land. And now, to 
 close our account for this part of the subject, we 
 may collect from all that has been said, that there 
 could have been at this time but very little reli- 
 gious light left among men ; that the Israelites 
 were the only people, who then possessed it as a 
 people, but that it had become dim, and was 
 growing daily more dim then among them ; many, 
 of them as we have seen, having become Idola- 
 ters ; and the prospect was, that if God had not 
 
91 
 
 especially interfered, universal darkness would 
 have covered the whole earth, and he himself 
 have been banished from his own world. 
 
 We come now to the means, which it pleas- 
 ed God at this particular crisis to take for the 
 preservation of his truths. Lhave before obser- 
 ved, that the Israelites, degraded as they now 
 appear to have been, were the people, whom 
 God had fixed upon, some ages before, to be 
 the instruments of forwarding his designs. He 
 therefore called these out of Egypt under the 
 auspices of Moses, whom he had prepared to be 
 their leader, and conducted them miraculously 
 to the wilderness, which lay on the other side of 
 the Red Sea. This was the first step : and the 
 next was, at a proper distance of time after 
 their departure from Egypt, to renew to them 
 that religious light, which was contained in the 
 precepts of God to Adam, and which had been 
 the guide of their forefathers, with such addi- 
 tions, both moral, civil, and ceremonial, as 
 should fit them for the new situation which they 
 were to fill. Accordingly he began by deliver- 
 ing to Moses for their use the law of the two 
 tables, containing the ten commandments, which 
 were engraved on stone ; and, to make this de- 
 livery the more impressive, " There were thun- 
 
92 
 
 tiers and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the 
 mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceed- 
 ingly loud; so that the people in the camp 
 trembled ; and mount Sinai was altogether in a 
 smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in 
 fire." Exod. : c. 19. v. 16. 18. That the ten 
 commandments however now given were nearly 
 the same as, or but little more than, the pre- 
 cepts so often mentioned I think I have already 
 shown. I have shown at any rate by the statements 
 of Moses himself, that five of these command- 
 ments, and if Job be admitted an evidence, that 
 no less than seven of them out of the ten, served 
 as rules for the regulation of men's moral con- 
 duct in the first ages of the world. There 
 are however divines, and these of high character 
 for learning, who go farther than I have gone 
 upon this point. Bishop Cumberland in his 
 Latin treatise on the patriarchal laws, published 
 in 1724 asserts, " that the patriarchs did most 
 diligently observe all the great and leading pre- 
 cepts which related both to God and Man, be- 
 fore the law was delivered by Moses from Mount 
 Sinai; and that they were moved to this diligent 
 observance of them by the same great promises, 
 the fear of the same divine judgments, and the 
 terror of the same punishment which the law of 
 
93 
 
 Moses held out." p. 443. He says in another 
 place, " that the patriarchal laws, which Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob were so careful in ob- 
 serving, were very like those, which Moses by the 
 cammand of God gave the Israelites four hundred 
 and thirty years after Abraham had entered the 
 promised land." p. 441 " They were as like them 
 indeed, as if the ten commandments had furnished 
 the primary heads from whence the patriarchal laws 
 had been taken!' The learned Ellis, before quoted, 
 delivers his sentiments upon the subject before us 
 thus. " That these," says he (the laws or pre- 
 cepts given by God to Adam) "were before the 
 written law and every where binding appears from 
 the book of Job, wherein most of them or the na- 
 tural law are to be found, and that the written 
 law was only a repetition of them with an addition 
 of some things peculiar to themselves." p. 237. 
 Grotius speaks nearly the same language. "Mo- 
 ses," he says, " did not enlarge upon those pre- 
 cepts because they were known to all mankind. 
 These precepts were by God's command trans- 
 mitted to posterity, but after the dispersion they 
 became much impaired and obscured, and a dark 
 night of ignorance and barbarity covered the 
 earth. " (Lib., c. 2. De Jure belli ac Pacis) This 
 is the language of three particularly learned men 
 
94 
 
 on this subject ; and if their opinions be well 
 founded, then a notion, which generally prevails, 
 that the Decalogue was the first revelation given 
 by God to man, is not true. That it was the 
 first written revelation, there can be no doubt ; 
 but no one can say, that God had not revealed 
 his will, concerning the moral conduct of men 
 before. 
 
 But to return to the subject. God having 
 called the Israelites out of Egypt and having 
 conducted them in a miraculous manner in safety 
 to the wilderness, renewed to them there, by 
 means of the law of the two tables or ten com- 
 mandments, that religious knowledge which 
 they had nearly lost. It pleased him next to 
 introduce institutions among them, which should 
 serve as so many helps for preserving it. With 
 this view Moses was directed to erect a taber- 
 nacle, and to place in it the ark with the tables 
 containing the ten commandments. By divine 
 appointment also an order of Priests was estab- 
 lished to offer sacrifice daily, to watch over and 
 preserve the sacred edifice and utensils from pol- 
 lution, and at stated times to rehearse in the 
 hearing of all the people the commandments 
 and all the statutes which God had given to 
 Moses. To unite the Israelites in still closer bonds 
 
95 
 
 among themselves, other institutions, such as 
 the Jubilee, New Moons, and Sabbaths, Feasts 
 of various sorts and other sacred and ceremonial 
 observances were appointed, which, while they 
 kept them together, served also as a partition- 
 wall between them and the Gentiles, to preserve 
 them from the contamination of Idolatry. These 
 were the measures which it pleased God to take 
 for the preservation of his truths, and they were 
 carried into execution all of them during- the so- 
 journing of the Israelites in the wilderness. 
 
 Let us now see how the Israelites conducted 
 themselves during the period of which we have 
 been last speaking. One would have thought 
 that their deliverance from such an oppressive 
 slavery as the Egyptian would have filled them 
 with gratitude to God, and have made them at 
 least fearful of offending him. But this was not 
 the case ; they had been but a very short time 
 in the wilderness, when they made a golden 
 calf and worshipped it. One would have thought 
 again, that the delivery of the law of Moses, ac- 
 companied as we have seen it to have been by 
 the awful voice of God himself amidst thunder, 
 lightning, and smoke, would have had an im- 
 mediate effect upon their minds, so as to have 
 made them still more watchful over their future 
 
96 
 
 conduct ; but it appears, that no such impres- 
 sion had been made. Notwithstanding this 
 their deliverance, notwithstanding the denun- 
 ciations of the Law, notwithstanding- the many 
 miracles which God had but a short time before 
 wrought in their favour, and all of which must 
 have been then fresh in their memory, such as 
 the smiting of the first-born among the Egypt- 
 ians, the passage over the Red Sea as over dry 
 land, the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilder- 
 ness, the raining down of Quails and Manna 
 when they wanted meat, and the bringing of 
 Water out of the Rock when they wanted drink, 
 they took the very first opportunity, namely that 
 offered to them by the Women of Moab and 
 Midian, (Numbers c. 25. v. 2. ) of flying in the 
 face of God, and of shewing their attachment to 
 Idolatry, by joining with these in eating the 
 sacrifices and " bowing the head to Idols." 
 
 My account of their subsequent history will 
 be very short. It appears that, when they came 
 out of the wilderness they carried with them the 
 Law, the Tabernacle, the Priesthood and the 
 Institutions before mentioned to the land of pro- 
 mise. They had therefore evidently the means 
 within themselves of preserving the religious 
 light and knowledge which had been given them, 
 
97 
 
 when they arrived there ; but it pleased God 
 after this to give them additional helps for the 
 same purpose, by raising up among them from 
 time to time a race of holy men and prophets, 
 who should constantly bear witness to his truths 
 and never suffer them to lie dormant or to be 
 invaded without reproof. And now let us ask 
 what was the effect of these combined measures 
 on these people ? They kept up no doubt a cer- 
 tain outward knowledge of God and of his will 
 amongst them ; but it is to be feared that few, 
 compared with the great mass of the population, 
 were properly influenced by them ; and that the 
 majority were still Idolaters at heart. Their 
 history in fact, from their departure from the 
 wilderness for centuries afterwards, was little 
 other than a history of rebellions against God, a 
 history of repeated idolatries, of repeated returns 
 to duty, and of repeated relapses into unbelief, 
 many of the people going to the length of sacri- 
 ficing their children to Moloch in the valley of 
 Hinnom ; so that God at length determined upon 
 making an example of the whole nation. At 
 this time the nation was divided into two king- 
 doms, that of Israel and that of Judah, the 
 former of which consisted of ten, and the latter 
 of two tribes. Israel according to the divine 
 
98 
 
 purpose was to be punished first. God therefore 
 permitted Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, to car- 
 ry the whole population of Israel away, men, 
 women, and children, into Media. After this 
 they were divided and dispersed among the in- 
 habitants of the different cities of that country, 
 with whom they were so identified in time, as to 
 have lost their language, dress, manners and 
 customs. They must either have become Me- 
 dish subjects, or have found their way out of 
 Media to some unknown land, for no one knows 
 what became of them to this day. 
 
 The people of Judah had a respite granted 
 them for sometime longer, but neither this res- 
 pite nor the terrible example made of the peo- 
 ple of Israel, availed to produce an alteration in 
 their conduct. They still followed their idol- 
 atrous course, kings as well as people, and some 
 of their kings became so hardened as to have 
 profaned the Temple itself, and its courts by in- 
 troducing idols and images to be worshipped 
 there. This open affront to God by the pollution 
 of his own sanctuary, in the way most hateful 
 to him that could be devised, helped to swell 
 the long catalogue of their crimes ; and he re- 
 solved at last as if this had been the only cure 
 left for them, to send them captive to Babylon. 
 
99 
 
 At length the day arrived and the people of the 
 kingdom of Judah, then called Jews, were de- 
 livered with few exceptions into the hands of the 
 Babylonians. Here they paid the penalties of 
 their former disobedience; here they suffered all 
 the miseries of slavery ; its tiresome labour, its 
 hunger, nakedness, and want; its cruel scourges, 
 its insults and degradations ; and in this situa- 
 tion they remained for many years till their 
 spirits were broken down by affliction. 
 
 This then was a proper season for repentance, 
 and it appears that they availed themselves of it. 
 The mercies of God to their forefathers, and their 
 own wickedness and ingratitude must have 
 frequently broken in upon their minds. The 
 words of Moses and of the Prophets must have 
 been frequently brought to their recollection, 
 and have occasioned both self-abasement and 
 self-condemnation ; and it is to be presumed that 
 God was pleased to sanctify these their medita- 
 tions, the consequence of which was that, when 
 they were permitted to depart from the land of 
 their captivity they went out of it, very generally 
 with minds properly chastened and humbled. 
 On returning to their own land, they began to 
 rebuild their temple. This was the first fruits 
 or the first visible proof of their reformation. 
 
100 
 
 They then put in force the laws and sacred in- 
 stitutions of their ancestors ; and, though more 
 than five hundred years elapsed from the time of 
 their deliverance from captivity in Babylon, to 
 the coming of the Messiah, they continued all 
 this time as a nation in the observance of them. 
 They kept their new moons and their sabbaths 
 and their various feasts with the most scrupulous 
 exactness, and caused obedience to be paid to 
 the commandments of Moses, so that even Idol- 
 atry, the most difficult of all sin to eradicate, no 
 longer disgraced the land. It is a fact that 
 after the Babylonish captivity and the rebuild- 
 ing of the Temple (which Temple afterwards 
 underwent various vicissitudes of spoliation and 
 pollution by foreigners ) the Jews themselves 
 had no more concern with Idols. Thus did Je- 
 hovah miraculously preserve, by means of the 
 Israelites and the Jews, the religious light which 
 he had given to Adam four thousand years be- 
 fore; and having thus extirpated Idolatry from 
 among them, as a previously necessary measure, 
 it was then, and not till then, that he sent his 
 son Jesus Christ into the world. I say a pre- 
 viously necessary measure, because if our Sa- 
 viour had come upon earth before this time, he 
 would not, humanly speaking, have been pro- 
 
101 
 
 perly supported in his mission. There could 
 not have been found before this time any one na- 
 tion or people, so generally instructed and so 
 firmly established in the belief of God, as the 
 Creator of Heaven and Earth, as that there 
 could have been taken from the lower orders be- 
 longing to it, persons to be relied upon as Apos- 
 tles for executing his great designs. The people 
 of Israel were the only people from the time of 
 Moses to the time of which we speak, who had 
 any knowledge of the true God, and a great 
 part of these during this long period were Idol- 
 aters. Now I ask at what time were these in a 
 state to have sent out from their own body men 
 capable of teaching the truth and willing to die 
 for it? Certainly not when they were in Egypt; 
 nor when they were in the wilderness ; nor when 
 they were under Joshua; nor lastly when they 
 were under their kings ; for a part of them were 
 sent among the Medes to be annihilated as a peo- 
 ple, and the other part were sent captive to Baby- 
 lon ; both of them as a punishment for their unbelief. 
 It appears then that Jesus Christ came into the 
 world just at the time when every thing had been 
 prepared for him ; just at the time when he was 
 enabled to choose out of the purified Jews 
 Apostles qualified for their office. Suffice it to 
 
102 
 
 say that he chose these, and that he commanded 
 them, after he had instructed them in all things 
 necessary, to travel into foreign parts, and to 
 give back to all the benighted nations of the 
 earth all the religious knowledge, which their 
 ancestors had lost ; nay more, to restore it to 
 them with increased splendour, by adding to it 
 the superior light of the gospel. And here we may 
 have a clearer view, than is perhaps usually taken 
 of the truth and beauty of those words in the 
 scriptures, which Jesus Christ spoke relative to 
 his own mission when he said that he was come 
 " to save that which was lost ;" for all the sons of 
 Shem, all the sons of Ham, and all the sons of 
 Japhet, except the handful of Jews just mention- 
 ed, had lost, as we have now seen, the know- 
 ledge of the true God when he appeared among 
 men. And thus did God himself show to the 
 whole world, that he was not willing that any 
 should perish, but that all should have everlast- 
 ing life. 
 
 I shall now endeavour to draw from the fore- 
 going pages such conclusions, as I hope may be 
 found useful. The first lesson, which we may 
 learn from them, is this, that the first knowledge 
 which men had of the being of a God and of God 
 as the Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of his 
 
103 
 
 attributes, and of their duty towards him, did not 
 come from their own intuitive faculties or from 
 their own reasonings on the subject; but by a 
 revelation, an oral * revelation, from God himself ; 
 and that if God had never given them such a 
 revelation, they could never have known him at 
 all; for how indeed could they have acquired 
 this knowledge of themselves? Certainly not by 
 the light of reason ; for if this had been possible 
 then the learned Greeks, who were among the 
 most acute of the sons of Japhet, would have 
 recovered that knowledge of God, which their 
 ancestors had lost. But this they were never 
 able to do, though "the first great cause of the 
 universe " had been the subject of their inquiry for 
 ages. St. Paul confirms this statement when 
 (alluding to the philosophers to whom we our- 
 selves have just alluded) he says "the world by 
 wisdom knew not God." The truth is, that 
 God is a being invisible and undefinable ; but if 
 so, then who, as Job says, "by searching can 
 find him out " ? There are no data to go upon 
 in such a search ; no axiom that can be applied 
 to help us; no one point visible or imaginary on 
 
 * I never heard any other supposition than that, when God spoke to 
 Adam, Eve, Cain or Noah, he spoke to them with his own holy voice, and 
 that lie did the same to Moses on Mount Sinai. 
 
104 
 
 which the mind can rest to argue the case. 
 Neither could men have come to the knowledge 
 of God, such knowledge as is here meant, by the 
 light of nature ; for if nature could have furnish- 
 ed such knowledge, then the contemplation of the 
 heavenly bodies, whose influences in giving light 
 and heat and fertility to the earth have occasioned 
 so much admiration and astonishment among 
 men, would have furnished it; but so far was 
 this from having been the case, that they who 
 had cultivated Astronomy and Astrology as sci- 
 ences in the then infancy of the world, went off 
 from the worship of the true God into Idolatry ; 
 making a mistake, by ascribing to the creature 
 what only belonged to the Creator. Hence we 
 see that the religion, which we profess, is a real 
 revelation from God and not a cunningly devised 
 fable. 
 
 But if the above be true, it will follow that, when 
 God created man and made him a responsible 
 being, he did not subject himself to the charge of 
 injustice, such as of having left him without suf- 
 ficient light to guide him in his spiritual concerns. 
 Nor did he subject himself to such a charge after- 
 wards, for it has appeared that, when the men 
 of the new world were likely through their own 
 unbelief to lose the religious light which he had 
 
105 
 
 given to their ancestors, so as to have gone into 
 total darkness, he interfered to preserve it. This 
 he did by calling Abraham out of Ur, and ma- 
 king his legitimate descendants his instruments 
 for this purpose. With this view he gave them, 
 among other things, in exchange for the old pre- 
 cepts, which had been hitherto committed to 
 memory but then nearly lost, the written law. 
 And it has appeared again that, when these had, 
 through the divine assistance, performed the work 
 allotted to them, at least as far as it was neces- 
 sary for this purpose, he sent Jesus Christ into 
 the world to give new light in addition to that 
 which had been already given, and to disperse 
 the whole of it among all nations, making no dis- 
 tinction between Jew and Gentile. So far then 
 was God from being chargeable in this respect, 
 that we find that he never ceased to exercise 
 a fatherly care over his creatures, for their 
 spiritual welfare, by revelations from time to 
 time ever since the beginning of the world. These 
 revelations have come down to us through the 
 Holy Scriptures, and it is upon these, and not 
 upon the light of nature or our own foolish rea- 
 sonings, as I said before, that, we build our reli- 
 gion at the present day. 
 
 We learn secondly from these pages, that sin 
 
106 
 
 is not sin because the action done is contrary to 
 what is called expediency or the supposed fitness 
 of things, but because it is a transgression of the 
 revealed laws of God ; and in this view of the 
 subject we are confirmed both by the old and the 
 new testament. In the fourth chapter of Levi- 
 ticus we find, that the Israelites were required 
 to make eolation for every thing done against the 
 commandments, which God had given them 
 through Moses. What then must sin have been 
 at this time, or what could it only have been, 
 but the breaking of any of these commandments ? 
 St. Paul also speaks the same language. ° I had 
 not known sin but by the law," that is, unless 
 the law of God contained in his commandments 
 had told me what it was. 
 
 We learn thirdly, from these pages the natural 
 depravity of the human heart, or the almost con- 
 stant propensity there is in man to go astray, and 
 also the necessity there is for constant care and vi- 
 gilence on his part, and also for the divine aid to 
 keep him in the right way ; for we have seen that all 
 the nations, which sprung fromShem, Ham, and 
 Japhet, went off into Idolatry, the one after the 
 other (no doubt for w r ant of watchfulness) and 
 that this departure from God would have been 
 probably universal, if it had not pleased God to 
 
107 
 
 reclaim and purify and strengthen one family, 
 namely, that of Abraham ; and we know again, 
 that the legitimate descendants of this family were 
 only kept within the bounds of their duty by the 
 same especial interference, that is, by miracles 
 and by warnings, which it pleased God to give 
 them, and by punishments which he was pleased 
 to inflict upon them from time to time. 
 
 We are enabled fourthly, to confirm from the 
 same pages, if confirmation were wanted, the 
 truth of that declaration of St. Paul, "that God 
 hath made of one blood all nations of men for to 
 dwell on all the face of the earth;" Acts. c. 17. 
 v. 26. for whatever difference there may be in the 
 colour of the skins of men, as they now live scat- 
 tered over the different parts of the earth, they 
 are all of them either the descendants of Shem, or 
 of Ham, or of Japhet. This difference therefore 
 must have been entirely accidental. And we are 
 warranted again in saying this, for we have seen 
 that a whole nation, which can be proved to 
 have sprung from Cush, one of the sons of Ham, 
 had become black in the time of Jeremiah, "Can 
 the descendant of Cush change his colour or the 
 Leopard his spots, then may ye also do good who 
 are accustomed to do evil. " (Jer. c. 13. v. 23.* 
 
 * For an elucidation of this see the Appendix. 
 
108 
 
 Another argument, but of a very different nature 
 from that which has been just used, may be 
 collected from these pages to establish the same 
 truth ; namely, that all mankind, however they 
 may differ one nation from the other in language, 
 customs, or colour, sprung from one and the 
 same stock. We have already seen that God in 
 his intercourse with Adam ordained worship by 
 sacrifice. Now how can we account for the fact, 
 that this custom, the custom of sacrifice, should 
 have obtained among all the nations of antiquity 
 both before and in our Saviour's time, as well as 
 among all the newly discovered people since? 
 Can we account for it by saying, that the custom 
 was natural or agreeable to reason ? No — for no- 
 thing could have been more unnatural or unrea- 
 sonable. I wish for instance to obtain mercy from 
 God for my past sins. But what do I do to pro- 
 cure it ? I do an unmerciful act myself by taking 
 away the life of a poor animal, which I had no 
 plea for killing, either because I wanted food or 
 because I feared any injury from it. In fact the 
 difficulty can only be solved by admitting the 
 Bible-account to be true, namely, that the dif- 
 ferent nations of men, which are now, or which 
 have ever been upon our earth, sprung from two 
 parents, and that God commanded sacrifice to be 
 offered by these. This having been admitted, 
 
109 
 
 the custom must have gone down from our first 
 parents to Noah, and from Noah to his descend- 
 ants on the plain of Shinar, where it must have 
 prevailed at the time of the dispersion, from which 
 time it is easy to see how it could have been 
 spread over the whole world. 
 
 END OF FIRST PART. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 The descendants of Cush spoken of by Jeremiah 
 were probably the Cuseans or Cushites of Abys- 
 sinia, though they might have been the Arabians, 
 who were a dark-coloured people, and descended 
 from Cush also. But this change of colour was 
 not confined at that time to these two nations. 
 The Egyptians of the Nile according to Herodo- 
 tus had dark faces also, and likewise woolly hair. 
 Many also of the descendants both of Shem and 
 Japhet are now black, who originally found their 
 way into India, where their posterity have re- 
 mained since. The ancients considered this 
 change of colour to have been produced by cli- 
 mate ; for the Greek word rendered Ethiopian 
 means the man with the sun-burnt face. I am 
 
II APPENDIX. 
 
 partly of this opinion, and I think it right to give 
 a few reasons here in support of it. 
 
 In the first place it is an established fact, that 
 all children, all children whatever, whether the 
 sons and daughters of Europeans, Africans, 
 Asiatics, or Americans are born of a dullish red 
 colour. The child of the blackest negro is of the 
 same colour when it comes into the world, as the 
 child of the fairest white ; and he continues of 
 the same colour for about a month, when his skin 
 assumes the appearance of a pale yellow. In 
 process of time it becomes brown, and his skin 
 after this continues to increase in darkness with 
 his age, till it reaches his countrymen's colour. 
 It is of great importance that this fact should have 
 been established : for it shews us, that the dif- 
 ference of colour in grown up people in the differ- 
 ent regions of the earth, is not natural (nature 
 having only to do with one colour at the birth) but 
 that it is wholly accidental or dependent upon cir-' 
 cumstances. It also favours the Bible-account just 
 mentioned, that all the different nations of men 
 came originally from one and the same stock. 
 
 Having made this observation we may now 
 mention a fact, another fact, which will enable us 
 to make a reasonable conjecture as to what might 
 be at least one of the incidental causes or circum- 
 
APPENDIX. Ill 
 
 stances from which this difference of colour might 
 arise. If we were to take a common globe, and 
 begin at the equator and paint one of the countries 
 lying upon it, and all the other countries lying 
 above this country in succession from thence to 
 the pole, and to paint them with the colour, 
 which is found to be the colour of the skins of 
 the respective inhabitants of each, we should see 
 the black, with which we should have been 
 obliged to begin, changing through certain inter- 
 mediate degrees of colour to an olive, and the 
 olive changing through other intermediate degrees 
 to a white. Now this generally regular and gradual 
 change of colour in the persons of men from black 
 to white as you travel through the different de- 
 grees of latitude from the equator to the pole, 
 would lead us at once, if not force us to conclude, 
 that the sun, whose power is found to vary in the 
 same manner, that is, according to the different 
 degrees of latitude, must have a considerable in- 
 fluence in the production of the colour of the 
 skins of the different inhabitants of the earth. 
 Nor am I aware of more than one objection that 
 might be made here, and this might be soon 
 answered. It might be said that all the different 
 tribes of people living in the same parallel of la- 
 titude are not precisely of the same colour. 
 
 Q 
 
IS APPENDIX. 
 
 Hence the gradation of colour from the equator" 
 to the pole just mentioned would not be quite so 
 regular as we have held it to be. But this is no 
 real objection to the argument; for every different 
 country lying within the same parallel has not 
 the same climate. High mountains in the 
 neighbourhood of a place make it cooler. Large 
 spreading succulent plants, if among the produc- 
 tions of the soil, have the same effect. They 
 afford agreeable cooling shades, and a moist at- 
 mosphere from their continual exhalations, by 
 which also the ardour of the sun is abated; while 
 the soil on the other hand, if of a sandy nature, 
 retains the heat, and makes the summers con- 
 siderably hotter than those, which are found to 
 exist in the same latitude where the soil is 
 different, To the proximity of what may be 
 called burning sands, and to the sulphureous and 
 metallic particles, which are constantly exhaling 
 from the bowels of the earth, have been ascribed 
 the different degrees of blackness, by which some 
 African nations are distinguished from each other 
 though living under the same parallel. To these 
 observations I may add that, though the in- 
 habitants of the same parallel are not always 
 exactly of the same hue, yet they differ only by 
 shades of the same colour, that is, there are no 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 two nations in such a situation there, that one of 
 them is black and the other white. 
 
 I may now state that anatomical researches 
 have produced a discovery, which is of the 
 greatest importance to us in the present case. 
 It has been found that the human skin consists 
 of three lamina or parts, namely, the first or 
 outward skin, which we see, feel, and handle ; 
 the inner, which is invisible to us ; and a certain 
 coagulated or mucous substance called the Rete 
 Mucosum, which lies between the other two and 
 adheres to both. Now the first or outward skin, 
 which we see and touch, is of a dullish white and 
 semi-transparent, and this is the same in both 
 respects in men of all colours, the outward skin 
 of the black man being of the same colour and 
 transparency as that of the white. Where then 
 in the human skin, it may be asked, is that colour 
 seated, by means of which, when we see it, we 
 denominate one man white, another brown, 
 another olive, another copper, and another black. 
 Anatomists have discovered it to be seated in the 
 intermediate mucous substance just mentioned. 
 This substance then being impregnated or dyed 
 with any colour, whatever it may be, such as 
 black, brown, or white, transmits it to our eyes 
 through the transparency of the outward skin ; 
 
VI APPENDIX. 
 
 and that the Rete Mucosum is the seat of colour 
 in the human body, has been confirmed by other 
 circumstances. Diseases for example have often 
 a great effect upon it, but particularly the jaun- 
 dice, which turns it yellow. Hence, the outward 
 skin being semi-transparent, the yellow colour of 
 the body of the invalid. But this appearance is 
 not confined solely to the white people. Negroes 
 themselves, while affected by this disorder, 
 change their black colour for the yellow, which 
 the disorder conveys to the mucous substance of 
 their skins. 
 
 It appears then from what has been said 
 above, that the colour of the mucous substance 
 makes the colour of the outward man ; and it has 
 been insinuated in the course of this enquiry, that 
 the action of the sun upon the mucous substance, 
 might possibly produce a similar effect upon his 
 outward appearance ; I shall therefore now put 
 these two considerations together, that is, I shall 
 now attempt to show how the rays of the sun 
 may so act upon this substance as to give it a 
 colour, and also such a variety of colour, as to 
 enable us to form a conjecture how the difference 
 of colour so visible in the skins of the different 
 inhabitants of the earth may have been originally 
 in part occasioned. This may be done by ex- 
 
APPENDIX. Vll 
 
 plaining the way in which freckles are said to be 
 produced. These are frequently to be seen in 
 the faces of children even in our own climate, 
 but of such only as have the thinnest or most 
 transparent outward skins, and are occasioned 
 by the rays of the sun striking- forcibly on the 
 mucous substance beneath the skin of the face 
 and producing perspiration or drops of sweat, 
 and then drying the accumulated fluid. This 
 accumulated fluid or perspired matter is at first 
 colourless, and being exposed to heat and there- 
 by dried becomes yellow and then brown. Hence 
 the mucous substance being tinged or dyed in 
 various parts by this coagulated fluid, and the 
 parts so tinged appearing through the outward 
 skin which is semi-transparent, arises that spot- 
 ted appearance observable on the faces of freckled 
 persons. But let us now suppose the rays of the 
 sun to act so universally on the mucous substance 
 beneath the skin in a person's face, as to produce 
 these spots so contiguous to each other that they 
 should unite and form one mass of freckles, we 
 should then see a face similar to those, which are 
 daily to be seen among coloured people ; and if 
 we were to suppose his body to be constantly 
 exposed to the sun and atmosphere, and acted 
 upon in the same manner, we should then see his 
 
VI J 1 APPENDIX. 
 
 body as well as his face assuming- a similar ap- 
 pearance, and thus we should see the whole man 
 resembling- one of the naked inhabitants of one 
 of the hotter zones. Now as the seat of freckles 
 and of the blackness of a man's skin is the same, 
 and as the cause of the first is the ardour of the 
 sun, it is most likely that one of the causes of the 
 second is the same: and this suggestion seems 
 to be confirmed by another consideration ; for if 
 blackness is occasioned by the rays of the sun 
 striking forcibly and universally on the mucous 
 substance of the skin of a man's body, and caus- 
 ing perspirable matter to come there, and drying- 
 it when produced, we may account for the 
 different degrees of it to be found in the different 
 inhabitants of the globe ; for as the quantity of 
 perspirable fluid or matter and the force of the 
 solar rays are successively increased as the cli- 
 mates are successively warmer from the poles to 
 the equator, it follows that the fluid or matter, 
 with which the mucous substance will be tinged, 
 will be successively thicker and deeper coloured, 
 and hence as it appears, or shines through the 
 outer skin, the complexion will be successively 
 darker, or, what amounts to the same thing, 
 there will be a difference of colour in the in- 
 habitants of every successive parallel. 
 
APPENDIX. IX 
 
 Now, having proceeded thus far, I think that 
 we may safely come at least to one conclusion, 
 which is, that if a child were born of white pa- 
 rents in the torrid zone, and to go naked like the 
 natives there, and to attain the age of forty or 
 fifty years, the whole mucous substance of his 
 body from head to foot would be so completely 
 dyed by the sun by that time, that his flesh 
 would most likely exhibit the appearance of a 
 yellowish brown, and that he might with as much 
 propriety be called a yellow brown, as a negro 
 is called a black man; and that he might with 
 as much propriety be considered as belonging to 
 a different race of men from the black or white 
 man, as the black or the white man is now too 
 often considered as belonging to a different race 
 from him. But I shall stop here, and leave 
 others to follow the clue which I have furnished. 
 I shall leave it to others to enquire whether there 
 may not be other causes which have an influence 
 in tinging the mucous substance of the human 
 body; and also whether the colour of the in- 
 habitants of any country after a residence in it 
 for several centuries, be the colour black, brown, 
 olive, or white, may not, during that long time 
 have become so incorporated into their constitu- 
 tions as that it may have been transmitted to 
 
X APPENDIX. 
 
 their children, and yet not so entirely or perma- 
 nently as not to be capable of undergoing a 
 gradual change upon their removal to an entirely 
 different climate. There are instances in history of 
 black people removed centuries ago to what may 
 be called a white latitude, who are now white ; 
 and, on the other hand of white people removed 
 to what may be called a black latitude who are 
 not only now as black as the aboriginal inhabitants 
 but who may be seen with the woolly hair of 
 these and even with their features. I have my- 
 self known instances of persons carried from 
 Africa to the West Indies and brought from 
 thence to this country, whose colour in the 
 course of from twenty to thirty years became less 
 dark by some shades than when they arrived 
 here. 
 
ANTE DI LU VT AN, 
 
 PATRIARCHAL, 
 
 AND OTHER RESEARCHES 
 
 PART II. 
 
 We have seen in the preceding- Essay, that 
 the first men gained all their religious knowledge 
 from God himself, but that they had made so 
 bad a use of it, or that so many of them had 
 gone off, and so many more were on the point of 
 going off into idolatry, even so early as the time 
 of Abraham, that, if it had not pleased God to 
 interfere, the probability was, that every family 
 then upon earth (for the inhabitants of the whole 
 world then lay within a very small compass) 
 would in a short time have been infected by this 
 moral contagion. We have seen again that God 
 
 R 
 
II 
 
 did thus actually interfere by selecting Abraham 
 to preserve his truths, from whose loins also a 
 long- line of descendants should spring for the 
 same purpose, such as Isaac, Jacob, David and 
 others, and that from the last in this line the 
 Messiah should come. And we have seen again, 
 that, when the Messiah actually appeared, all the 
 known world had lost the knowledge of the true 
 God (which God himself had given to their an- 
 cestors,) except the descendants of Abraham just 
 mentioned, and that it was his, the Messiah's ob- 
 ject, to renew to all those, both living and to 
 come, the light which their ancestors had thus 
 lost, and to accompany it with new light of 
 greater splendour than the former, by which they 
 should be enabled to see new prospects ; and to 
 lay before them a grand scheme of salvation for 
 the human race. Now when we consider that 
 the coming of the Messiah was the greatest and 
 most glorious event that ever took place in the 
 world, we should have judged it probable, speak- 
 ing as men, that God would have given such 
 intimations of it before-hand, that, not only men 
 would be looking out for such a personage before 
 he came, but that when he came, he should an- 
 swer the description contained in these notices 
 so clearly, that he would be recognized generally 
 
112 
 
 as the person sent. And in fact, such notices 
 were given. It is my intention therefore to in- 
 quire, what these notices or intimations were, and 
 how the different people of the earth acquired 
 them, and whether, when Jesus Christ came into 
 the world, he answered the character which had 
 thus been given of him. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 The different ?iotious which prevailed at this 
 time 071 this subject — among the Jews — the 
 Samaritans — the people of the East, and, the 
 Romans. 
 
 That there were people living in different na- 
 tions, who expected some extraordinary person 
 to come upon earth just before or about the time 
 of the birth of Christ is an historical fact. All 
 the Jews, from the high priest to the peasant, 
 were in daily expectation of the Messiah, exactly 
 at the time when he came. They had an idea 
 that he would be born in Judea. They expected. 
 
113 
 
 that he would be to them a king, a conqueror, and 
 a deliverer from the Roman yoke, and that the 
 Gentiles would be brought under their dominion. 
 They spoke of him also as a Redeemer. " They 
 trusted that it had been he, who should have 
 redeemed Israel." Luke. c. 24. v. 21. By Re- 
 deemer they meant in general a deliverer as be- 
 fore ; but the more pure-hearted and better- 
 instructed among them believed that he would 
 bring peace and rest to them, by which they 
 would be enabled to study more attentively the 
 law and the commandments ; the consequence of 
 which would be, that the reign of sin would be 
 extinguished, and the reign of righteousness 
 would succeed it ; while there were some of the 
 learned among them, as Dr. Lightfoot informs 
 us, "who indulged a notion that he would raise 
 the dead, and gather them together in the garden 
 of Eden to partake of the joys thereof." They 
 looked forward to him also in the character of a 
 restorer " Lord, wilt thou at this time, restore the 
 kingdom to Israel, "(Acts. 1. 6.) that is, re- 
 store the kingdom of David to its ancient glory. 
 It will be seen from this account, that the views 
 of the Jews were for the most part worldly on 
 
 this subject. 
 
 The people of Samaria also, a spurious race 
 
114 
 
 descended from those Jews, who had married 
 heathen women, and who on this account kept 
 themselves separate from the Jews, though they 
 lived next to them, had their expectation of some 
 great personage to come, as appears from our 
 Saviour's conversation with the woman at Jacob's 
 well. " I know, said the woman, that Messias 
 cometh, which is called Christ." John, c. 4. v. 
 25. But to see in w T hat character he was to ap- 
 pear according to their notions, it will be proper 
 to refer to a part of the conversation, which took 
 place on that occasion. Our Saviour having 
 made a beautiful comparison between the water 
 of the well, and the living water which it was 
 in his power to bestow, proceeded to a new topic, 
 namely, the worship of God. He informed the 
 woman, that a great change was about to take 
 place in this respect ; for that God was a spirit, 
 and that he was to be worshipped in spirit and 
 in truth. At present they worshipped they knew 
 not what. To this the woman answered "I 
 know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ : 
 when he is come he will tell us all things." 
 Here then are two declarations of the woman 
 shewing what were her own notions on this sub- 
 ject ; the first that Messias was expected, the 
 second that he would come in the capacity of a 
 
115 
 
 teacher of religion. "He will tell us all things.'' 
 And here what is meant by " all things/' but all 
 those things, which related to the worship which 
 had been mentioned ? It is remarkable that our 
 Saviour had not yet himself said one word about 
 the Messiah, but yet the woman immediately, 
 I repeat immediately, upon hearing of the spiri- 
 tual reformation that was to take place, herself 
 mentioned his name, as the name of him who 
 was to instruct them on that subject. But to go 
 on. It appears that when the conversation, of 
 which I have now given but a part, was ended, 
 the woman returned to Sychar, the place of her 
 abode, and informed the inhabitants of what she 
 had seen and heard. This produced a great de- 
 sire in them to see the stranger, with whom she 
 had conversed. Accordingly they went out 
 of the city and came to him. " So when the 
 Samaritans were come unto him, they besought 
 him that he would tarry with them. And he 
 abode there two days ; and many more believed 
 on him because of his own words, and said unto 
 the woman, now we believe, not because of thy 
 saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and 
 know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour 
 of the world." Here then we have two declara- 
 tions as before, but these were made by the whole 
 
116 
 
 city. The first of thorn was similar to that of the 
 woman, namely, that the Samaritans were in ex- 
 pectation of the Messiah ; but the second gave 
 a new view of his character. He was to come 
 according- to the apprehensions of the people of 
 Sychar, not only in the capacity of a preacher 
 or teacher of religion, but as the Saviour of the 
 world ; and here it may be remarked, that the 
 word " world," used in this place, does not mean, 
 as it often does in the new Testament, the little 
 petty world of Judea but the whole inhabited 
 world, consisting of Gentiles as well as Jews. 
 Thus the Samaritans, who had less means of 
 light, appear to have had a more accurate know- 
 ledge than their proud neighbours the Jews, of 
 the true character of the Messiah. 
 
 A report was also very current among the na- 
 tions of the East at that time, that a great per- 
 sonage was to make his appearance whom all 
 the world should obey. It will be only neces- 
 sary to quote the words of two such respectable 
 and learned authors as Tacitus and Suetonius, 
 to prove this. "Pluribus persuasio inerat an- 
 tiquis sacerdotum literis contineri, co ipso Tem- 
 pore fore, ut valesceret Oriens, profectique Ju- 
 daea rerum Potirentur." (Tacit: His. l. 5. p. 
 621. " Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus & con- 
 stans opinio esse in fatis, ut eo tempore Judaea 
 
117 
 
 Profecti rerum potirentus." (Sueton : in vit : Vesp : 
 c. 4.) These writers, we see, speak nearly the 
 same language as to the point in question. Both 
 agree in this, that the great personage here al- 
 luded to should have universal dominion. Both 
 agree that he was to come out of Judaea. Both 
 agree that the belief thus entertained was not 
 merely common but very current in the East; 
 indeed Suetonius says, throughout the whole 
 East, which would include Egypt, the three A- 
 rabias, Palestine, Syria, Assyria, Chaldea, Ba- 
 bylonia and other countries. Both agree again 
 in this, that it was a belief of ancient standing, 
 and Suetonius farther explains it by the word 
 " constans," from which we may infer that the 
 subject was then constantly talked of, or that 
 there was no variation in men's opinions con- 
 cerning it. 
 
 Nor was this notion confined to them. It was 
 entertained by many at Rome a few years before 
 Jesus Christ was born, where an expectation 
 prevailed at that time, that some great man was 
 about to make his appearance who should be a 
 King or Emperor, and who should hold a be- 
 neficent dominion over the whole world. But 
 as I shall go very largely into this subject, in 
 another part of this work, I shall content myself 
 at present with having barely mentioned the fact. 
 
118 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 On the particular way in which the Jews 06* 
 tained their particular notions on this subject. 
 
 Having now shewn the different notions which 
 were entertained by the different people mention- 
 ed, as to the character of the extraordinary 
 person who was expected to come upon earth, 
 I shall endeavour to point out the way in which 
 each of them obtained his own particular notion, 
 and this in the order in which I noticed them in 
 the last chapter. 
 
 The Jews acquired their knowledge of the 
 extraordinary person who was expected in the 
 world and of the time of his coming by a perusal 
 of the books of Moses, and of those other books 
 which form, what we usually call the Old Testa- 
 ment. If a Jew, living before the time of our 
 Saviour, had the Pentateuch on his hand, he 
 could not fail of being struck, before he had gone 
 over the first three chapters of Genesis, with the 
 
It) 
 
 prophecy which God delivered to our first pa- 
 rents when he denounced the curse upon the 
 serpent. He would see there, that God created 
 man in his own image, but that he fell soon 
 afterwards from innocence into sin ; and that 
 on account of this sin, he incurred an awful 
 sentence, which made a most melancholy change 
 as to his privileges and condition. He would 
 see also that the serpent or the deceiver was de- 
 graded and punished, but at the same time that 
 a prospect was held out to Adam and his pos- 
 terity, that some one of the seed of his wife should 
 spring up at a future time, who should bruise the 
 deceivers head, that is, subdue the deceiver, and 
 thus deliver them from the dominion of sin. 
 Hence this Jew would do as the other Jews 
 actually did ; he would draw from the prophecy 
 two characters of him who was to come ; for if 
 he w r as to subdue the serpent, he would view him 
 in the light of a conqueror', and if this serpent 
 was supposed to be Satan, he would consider him 
 as a deliverer from sin and evil. 
 
 But there were other prophecies in the Penta- 
 teuch, which described the character of the same 
 personage. " The sceptre shall not depart from 
 Judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet, 
 until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gather- 
 
120 
 
 ing of the people be." Gen. c. 49, v. 10. By 
 Shiloh the Jews understood the Messiah, and by 
 the people (which ought to have been translated 
 peoples,) they understood, and very properly, all 
 the nations of the earth, the Gentiles as well as 
 themselves. But the prophecy says that in his 
 time, the time of Shiloh, this great gathering of 
 the nations was to take place. How then did 
 the Jews understand it? They interpreted it 
 according to their own prejudices. They had 
 been accustomed to consider the Gentiles as little 
 better than dogs ; they were neither to eat nor 
 to drink with them. Indeed Moses for wise pur- 
 poses had made a partition-wall between the two. 
 They could not therefore comprehend how such 
 a gathering, that is, how such a union of nations 
 could be effected except by conquest; and as 
 this was very gratifying to their pride, they be- 
 lieved that the Gentiles were to be brought 
 under their government, and hence the notion 
 that their Messiah was to hold dominion over 
 the whole world. 
 
 Another prophecy in the Pentateuch, which 
 would give the Jews new views of the character 
 of their Messiah, is that remarkable one by 
 Moses himself in the wilderness. " The Lord, 
 thy God, will raise up unto thee a prophet from 
 
121 
 
 the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me ; 
 unto him shall ye hearken." Deut. c. 18, v. 15. 
 This prophecy, namely, that the great personage 
 who was to come should be like unto Moses, 
 gave such a latitude to the imagination of the 
 Jews on this subject, that there was no end to 
 the favourable interpretation they might give of 
 it, both as regarded him or themselves. In the 
 first place, Moses was a king among his own 
 people. He was also a deliverer, that is, a de- 
 liverer from Egyptian bondage. He was the 
 conqueror of the Canaanites, a Gentile nation. 
 He was a great law-giver. He was at the head 
 of the church of Israel. He was supreme judge 
 of the people, and he was the mediator between 
 God and man in his own time. 
 
 There were also other prophecies in the Pen- 
 tateuch, which would shew what the character 
 of the Messiah was to be, but as some of these 
 will be introduced for examination with more 
 propriety in the next chapter, I shall go to the 
 books of the Prophets which were of later date, 
 where the same great personage was pointed out 
 and his offices described. The Jews would find 
 there more and more particulars relating to 
 their Messiah. They would learn there the 
 very family from which he was to spring ; the 
 
122 
 
 very place in which he was to be born ; the 
 nature of his mission ; the character which he 
 was to sustain ; the very time when he was to 
 come upon earth, and other most important cir- 
 cumstances, so as in fact to have all the know 
 ledge necessary for their conviction on this 
 subject. 
 
 It is not necessary that I should cite here all 
 the Prophecies which contain the particulars 
 just mentioned, but there is one, which I cannot 
 omit bringing forward in this place. The pro- 
 phecy is this. " Seventy weeks are determined 
 upon thy people aud upon thy holy city, to finish 
 the transgression, and to make an end of sins, 
 and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to 
 bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal 
 up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the 
 most holy. Know therefore and understand, 
 that from the going forth of the commandment 
 to restore and build Jerusalem unto Messiah 
 the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore 
 and two weeks : the streets shall be built again 
 and the wall even in troublous times." Daniel 
 c. 9. v. 24. 25. 
 
 I may now observe on this prophecy, that it 
 was one of the most remarkable as well as valu- 
 able of all the prophecies contained in the sacred 
 
123 
 
 records ; for in the first place it fixed the coming 
 of the Messiah so precisely in point of time, that 
 every Jew was enabled to inform himself when 
 (within a very short period) he was to appear 
 upon earth. It is well known that computation 
 by weeks of years was common among the Jews. 
 It follows therefore by means of such a way of 
 computation, that, to complete the prophecy, 
 there would be four-hundred and ninety years 
 from the seventh year of Artaxerxes, when Ezra 
 received the commandment to go and rebuild 
 Jerusalem and restore the Jewish worship, to 
 the making reconciliation for iniquity or the 
 death of Christ. This prophecy then afforded 
 ground to the Jews to expect that this great per- 
 sonage would appear before the expiration of this 
 period. And it is generally understood that Je- 
 sus Christ began his ministry, just about three 
 years before this period was completed. In the 
 second place this prophecy pourtrayed the cha- 
 racter and offices of him, who was to come, with 
 as much exactness as it had done the time of his 
 appearance. What says the prophecy? " To 
 anoint the most holy," the great personage ex- 
 pected therefore was to be anointed or consecra- 
 ted the prophet, priest and king of mankind. 
 " To make reconciliation for iniquity," he was 
 
124 
 
 to expiate iniquity by offering- his own body on 
 the cross, and thus to reconcile men to God. 
 "To make an end of sins," that is, of sin offerings ; 
 for when the great ante-type was sacrificed, there 
 was no need of any farther sacrifices. " To 
 finish," that is, to restrain " the transgression," 
 he was to restrain the transgression by the 
 preaching of his gospel and the pouring out of 
 the holy spirit among men. " To seal up the 
 vision and prophecy," he was to put an end to 
 the necessity of any further revelations, or any 
 farther prophecies. " To bring in everlasting 
 righteousness," he was to introduce a reign of 
 righteousness into the world, which righteousness 
 should be as everlasting as the reign or domin- 
 ion itself, that is, as the dispensation, after- 
 wards called the gospel, which produced it. 
 This new reign was to produce principles, which 
 if accompanied by the Holy Spirit, would always 
 and everlastingly cleanse the heart of him who 
 received them, and dispose it to universal good. 
 And this righteousness would be everlasting in 
 another sense : for it would always and for ever 
 be acknowledged by God, while men lived upon 
 earth, as the true righteousness, the only right- 
 eousness (whatever might be thought to be 
 righteousness by men) and for ever acknow- 
 
125 
 
 lodged by him as such, and rewarded by him as 
 such, in Heaven Hence there would be in this 
 reign, as far as it should be diffused, an ever- 
 lasting- tendency to restore that image of God in 
 the heart of man, which he had lost. 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 On the particular way in which the Samaritans 
 gained their particular notions on the same 
 subject. 
 
 I must now enquire where the people of Sa- 
 maria gained their more enlightened views on 
 this subject. It is notorious that they discarded 
 all the books of the prophets, in fact all the books 
 of the Old Testament, beginning with Joshua 
 and ending with Malachi, as well as all those, 
 which go under the name of the Apocrypha. It 
 is however equally true that they received and 
 held in high estimation the five books of Moses, 
 
126 
 
 of which the) are said to have possessed the 
 most perfect copies. It must therefore have been 
 from a perusal and a very careful perusal of 
 these that they acquired their superior know- 
 ledge. They could not possibly have obtained 
 it from any other quarter. 
 
 But if the Samaritans could have collected 
 their information on this subject from the Penta- 
 teuch alone, it follows that they must have drawn 
 a good part of it from the prophecies cited in a 
 former chapter ; and this will oblige me, though 
 unwillingly, to advert to these again. And first 
 it appears that the Samaritans gave a wider 
 meaning to the prophecy respecting the serpent, 
 than the Jews had done. They considered that 
 the moral deliverance, which this prophecy point- 
 ed out, was to be universal, that is, that it ad- 
 mitted of no exceptions as to particular families 
 or nations ; but that it was to extend to the whole 
 human race. It is clear then, that one of the 
 characters in which they expected the Messiah to 
 come was that of an universal deliverer from the 
 power of Satan, and if this was so, we see that 
 they were warranted in saying of him, as they 
 did at Sychar, that he was to be the Saviour of 
 the world. 
 
 It appears again, that they differed most 
 
 T 
 
127 
 
 widely from the Jews in the interpretation of the 
 prophecy relative to Shiloh. It is said there that 
 in him, or in his reign, " the gathering of the 
 peoples ( Jews and Gentiles) should be." They 
 did not understand by these words, as the Jews 
 did, that the Jews and Gentiles should be made 
 one people by conquest, and live together under 
 one dominion. They understood them in a reli- 
 gious or scriptural sense. Thus when men were 
 gathered together in the Jewish Synagogues, it 
 was for the purpose of religious instruction. In 
 like manner " gathering together " taken in such 
 a sense, stood with them for preaching or teach- 
 ing. They believed therefore, that the words 
 " the gathering of the peoples " meant, that the 
 Jews and Gentiles though living in different lands 
 and under different governments, were to go to 
 the same School, or Tabernacle, or Temple, 
 which they might be properly said to do, if they 
 were to receive the same divine truths, or to be 
 taught alike the truths of the new dispensation 
 which was at hand ; and therefore they believed 
 that the extraordinary person, who was to come, 
 would come as the preacher or teacher of a reli- 
 gion whose doctrines should be, not for any par- 
 ticular people, but for the whole world. With 
 respect to the other prophecy cited, the prophecy 
 
128 
 
 of Moses in the wilderness, that the great person 
 expected should be " like unto him," we may 
 pronounce from what we have just said, and from 
 what will be said shortly, that the Samaritans 
 must have interpreted it also in a spiritual man- 
 ner ; and, if so, then that the person expected 
 should come in the character of a King, Con- 
 queror, Deliverer, Lawgiver-, Priest and Mediator 
 between God and Man. 
 
 The Samaritans would find also the character 
 attached to the Messiah, namely, that of a 
 preacher or teacher, in those promises or pro- 
 phecies given in the book of Genesis relative to 
 Jacob, by which we are led to understand, though 
 very improperly, on account of the mistranslation, 
 that he was to be the father of many nations. 
 These promises or prophecies are mentioned in 
 three places, but not exactly in the same terms. 
 In the first of them, Isaac says to Jacob — " God 
 Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful and 
 multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude 
 of people." (Gen. c. 28. v. 3.) In the second God 
 is represented as saying to Jacob, " I am God 
 Almighty, be fruitful and multiply, a nation and 
 a company of nations shall come out of thee, " 
 (Gen. c. 35. v. 11) In the third Jacob says to 
 his son Joseph, " God Almighty appeared tome 
 
121) 
 
 at Luz, in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, 
 and said unto me ; " Behold ! I will make thee 
 fruitful and multiply thee, and I will make of thee 
 a multitude of peoples " (Gen. c. 48. v. 3 — 4 The 
 late learned Bishop Horseley contends, that these 
 different quotations contain a prophecy that the 
 Messiah should come into the world as an univer- 
 sal teacher ; and that this would have appeared 
 clear if all the words had been properly translated. 
 That our translation is not correct is evident 
 from this one circumstance, that the meaning 
 which it conveys, is contrary to historical facts; 
 for Jacob never was the father of many nations. 
 If this had been said of Abraham it would have 
 been true; for he was the father of the Arabians 
 in part, and of the Idumceans, and through Jacob 
 of the Israelites also ; but Jacob was the father 
 of the Israelites only. The translation ought to 
 have been, in the tw r o first quotations, "I will 
 make thee for the gathering together of the na- 
 tions ; " and in the third, " the gathering together 
 of the nations," (in Christ for the purpose of in- 
 struction and salvation) " shall be from thee." 
 And here I may observe, that this new translation 
 of the passages in question corresponds exactly 
 with what I have already stated that Jacob him- 
 self predicted of the office of the Messiah under 
 
130 
 
 the name of Shiloh, when he said " unto him 
 shall the gathering- of the people be." And that 
 this was no fanciful interpretation of the Bishop, I 
 shall show immediately. First the late Dr. Adam 
 Clarke, a master of the Hebrew Language, and 
 a most careful interpreter of the Holy Scriptures, 
 in commenting upon the third verse of the twenty- 
 eighth chapter of Genesis says, that the strict 
 meaning of the words "that thou mayest be a 
 multitude of people," is that thou mayest be for 
 an assembly, congregation, or church of peo- 
 ples," referring, no doubt to the Jewish Church 
 in the wilderness, but more particularly to the 
 Christian Church, composed of every kindred 
 and nation and people and tongue. Secondly 
 w r e find the same translation as the Bishop gives, 
 in the Greek Version of the Bible, made by the 
 Seventy many hundred years ago at Alexandria, 
 and now in common use, with only this slight dif- 
 ference, viz : that the Hebrew word, which stands 
 for "gathering," is in each place in the Septua- 
 gint made plural, or "gatherings." This leads 
 the Bishop to suppose, that in the copy, from 
 which the Seventy made their translation, a letter 
 was added in the word, which has been omitted 
 in the copy from which our translation was made. 
 This letter, he tells us, is one which transcribers 
 
131 
 
 have been very apt to omit, and lie inclines the 
 more to believe that it was in the copy from 
 whence the Greek translation was made, because 
 the word with the addition of this letter, though 
 not improperly translated "gatherings," might 
 with equal propriety have been translated " the 
 preacher." It is in fact the self-same word, he 
 says, which in the book of Ecclesiastes is trans- 
 lated " the preacher." The learned Bishop there- 
 fore is of opinion that the Samaritans, who must 
 have had some of the oldest and best copies of 
 the books of Moses in their possession, could not 
 but have expected the Messiah to come into the 
 world as a teacher of religion to all nations. 
 
 They would collect also that he would come 
 in this character from another prophecy in the 
 Pentateuch, which will be found in the second, 
 third, fourth, and fifth verses of the Song of 
 Moses before his death ; (Deut. c. 33.) which the 
 same learned prelate translates thus. 
 
 "Jehovah came from Sinai; 
 
 ' ' His uprising was from Seir ; 
 
 " He displayed his glory from Mount Paran; 
 
 " And from the midst of the myriads " (of attendant 
 
 angels) " came forth the Holy One, 
 " On his right hand, streams of fire. 
 " O'loving father of the -peoples ! 
 
132 
 
 " All the saints are in thy hand, 
 
 " They are'seated at thy feet 
 
 "And received thy doctrine. 
 
 "To ns he" (the Holy One) "prescribed a law." 
 
 (the Law of Moses) 
 " Jacob is the inheritance of the preacher. 
 "He" (the preacher) "shall be King in * Jeshurim 
 "When the chiefs of the peoples gather themselves 
 
 together 
 " In union with the tribes of Israel." 
 
 Thus says the learned Bishop, " it appears 
 that in this prophecy of Moses, if we have rightly 
 divined its meaning-, the Messiah is explicitly 
 described under the character of a preacher, in 
 whose spiritual kingdom Jews and Gentiles shall 
 be admitted as the subjects of a common Lord." 
 
 * Jeshurun, not the name of a place; it signifies the whole body of 
 the justified. 
 
133 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 The particular way in which the people of 
 the East acquired their knowledge on this 
 subject. 
 
 I have already said that a belief also prevailed 
 in Arabia, Chaldaea, Babylonia and other parts 
 of the East, that about the time when Jesus 
 Christ came into the world, there should arise in 
 Judaea one, who should rule the whole world. 
 I stated also that this was grounded on the 
 authority of Tacitus and Suetonius, and I made 
 an extract from each of these authors to prove 
 the point. Indeed I might have cited others to 
 the same purport. The question then now is, 
 How did the Arabians, Babylonians and all those 
 people, which were known by the Romans, in 
 the time of these authors, as the people of the 
 whole East, get their knowledge on this subject? 
 One of them, Tacitus, whose work " de moribus 
 Germanorum" will always be a monument of his 
 
134 
 
 faithful representations of what he heard and saw 
 (for from that book we may trace most of the 
 feudal customs of our own ancestors) tells us, 
 that this belief was founded on " antiquis sacer- 
 dotum Uteris," that is, certain ancient records or 
 writings, which some priests had left behind 
 them. But who were the priests living in these 
 countries before Tacitus, whose records thus 
 survived them ? As they are not named by him 
 we must give the best answer we can ourselves. 
 We may say therefore, that these could be only 
 the Magi, (the higher order of priests) or the 
 common priests of the country, or certain priests 
 or prophets of the Jews, who with their country- 
 men were carried captive at three different 
 periods into three different parts of the East. 
 Now it is not likely that God would employ 
 heathen-priests, who were daily sacrificing to 
 devils, to communicate any of the glad tidings 
 relative to his son, when he had established a 
 chosen line ever since the days of Abraham, by 
 whom his gracious designs were to be made 
 known. We may therefore consider it as certain, 
 that the records, alluded to by Tacitus, must 
 have been the writings of the Jewish Prophets, 
 which they carried with them when they went 
 into captivity, or wrote while they were there, 
 
 v 
 
135 
 
 and from which the Magi or priests of the 
 country had made extracts. 
 
 The above is unquestionably my own opinion, 
 nor do I see how any other person, acquainted 
 with Jewish History, could come to any other 
 conclusion on the subject. IfindthatDr.Echard, 
 in his Ecclesiastical History entertains pretty 
 nearly the same opinion as myself; and as he 
 was a man of learning and laborious research, I 
 shall transcribe what he says upon it. " Thus 
 was God pleased," says he, " to make way for 
 his only son among- his peculiar people; but as 
 this great blessing was designed for the benefit 
 of the Gentiles as well as Jews, and for all that 
 should believe in him, so providence was no less 
 careful to make way for him in the Pagan world, 
 and this was effected by divers measures, but 
 more especially by means of several dispersions 
 of the Israelites and Jews." — " And now it was, 
 that not in Jewry alone was God known, but he, 
 whose name was great in Israel, did make way 
 for the knowledge of himself among all the na- 
 tions of the earth. In order to this the nation of 
 the Israelites, the great store-house of divine 
 knowledge, which before was an inclosed garden, 
 was now thrown open, and great numbers of the 
 inhabitants transplanted into foreign and remote 
 
136 
 
 countries. And this was done several times by 
 the special hand of providence, but more es- 
 pecially at the times of the three great captivities 
 formerly taken notice of, namely, the Assyrian 
 by Salmanassar in the year 721 before Christ ; 
 the Babylonian by Nebuchadnezzar in the year 
 607, and the Egyptian by Ptolomaeus Lagi in the 
 year 320: which captivities occasioned many 
 lesser dispersions of this people, so that in our 
 Saviour's time there were Jews dwelling in all 
 the principal countries of the world, Jews of 
 every nation under Heaven as St. Luke expresses 
 it. Acts c. 2, v. 5. These captivities and dis- 
 persions, though they seemed to have been only 
 the just punishment of a corrupted and disobe- 
 dient nation, yet proved of infinite advantage to 
 the rest of the world, which was excited and en- 
 lightened by those people who were not worthy 
 to inhabit their own country. By these the 
 world had the opportunity of looking into the 
 holy scriptures, and of being informed both of the 
 necessity and the nature of a Mediator ; and by 
 these great numbers of proselytes were made, 
 especially those called proselytes of the gate, 
 whose principles being so very conformable to 
 the laws of true reason and nature they became 
 the most visible cause, as I hinted before, of the 
 
137 
 
 first propagation of Christianity. Partly by means 
 of these dispersed, though generally detested 
 Jews, partly by means of several peculiar revela- 
 tions to the Gentiles, and partly by the exceeding 
 growth of human learning, not long before our 
 Saviour's birth, the whole world, as well as the 
 inhabitants of Palestine, was awakened into the 
 expectation of the appearance of some extraordi- 
 nary and wonderful person, who was to be ex- 
 ceedingly beneficial to all mankind." Echard 
 Eccles. Hist, vol 1, p. 35-6. 
 
 These three captivities then became the means 
 under providence, of communicating- to the peo- 
 ple of those countries, (then wholly sunk into 
 idolatry,) into which the Jews were severally 
 carried captive, some knowledge of the true God, 
 and of the Messiah who was to come. The 
 Assyrian, the first of them, was on a very large 
 scale. We are told that all the ten tribes of 
 Israel, men, women and children, were carried 
 away from their country by Salmanassar. These 
 must have amounted altogether to some millions 
 of souls. We are told again that, when they 
 arrived in Assyria, they were not made to live 
 together as one people in a large tract of country 
 allotted to them for this purpose, and away from 
 all communication with their captors, but that 
 
138 
 
 they were distributed among the cities of Assyria, 
 so as to be mixed with the inhabitants of them. 
 Now it is impossible that such an immense num- 
 ber of Jews should not have communicated in 
 the course of time to the people with whom they 
 lived so intermixed, some knowledge of their own 
 history and customs, some knowledge of their re- 
 ligion, some knowledge of the true God and his 
 Messiah, and that they should not also have made 
 as they were always trying to do, a multitude of 
 proselytes of the gate. They would also doubt- 
 less take with them into their captivity, their own 
 scriptures, namely, the books of Moses and such 
 of the prophets as had then appeared. 
 
 The Babylonish captivity was the next. It 
 appears that Jehoiakin, king of Jerusalem was 
 carried prisoner to Babylon, where he suffered 
 imprisonment for some years, but was at length 
 released, and treated kindly, so kindly indeed, 
 that he was allowed to have a throne, that is to 
 keep a court there. " And the king of Babylon 
 spake kindly to him and set his throne above the 
 thrones of the kings that were with him at Baby- 
 lon, and he did eat bread continually before the 
 king all the days of his life, and his allowance 
 was a continual allowance given him of the 
 King." 2 Kings, c. 25, v. 28, 29, 30. There were 
 
139 
 
 carried also from Jerusalem to Babylon no less 
 than ten thousand of those who were called mighty 
 men and nobles. All the priests, and all the choir or 
 singing men, and all the officers and servants of 
 the temple were consigned to the same city as 
 prisoners of war, and among these some of the 
 prophets. One thousand of what were called 
 craftsmen and smiths were marched thither also. 
 As to the other or remaining population many 
 thousands shared the same fate, but most of the 
 vine-dressers and husbandmen were left in Judaea 
 to be tributary and to cultivate the land. Now 
 from such a choice assemblage of Jews at Baby- 
 lon we may easily imagine how the Babylonians 
 might have obtained the knowledge that some 
 extraordinary personage was expected to spring 
 from Judaea, as both Tacitus and Suetonius de- 
 clare to have existed among them before our 
 Saviour came into the world. With respect to 
 the mighty men or nobles just mentioned, it is 
 not difficult to conceive that they might occa- 
 sionally mix with the princes or nobles of the 
 king of Babylon, as well as with the mighty 
 men and nobles of the courts of other kings who 
 might sojourn in that city, so that in time, the 
 higher orders of the population of Babylon might 
 become pretty well acquainted with the history, 
 
140 
 
 customs, religion aud expectations of the Jews. 
 With respect to the craftsmen, smiths and 
 others, who would be intelligent and useful men, 
 would not these have been in request at Baby- 
 lon? Would they not have been employed by 
 the people there ? And would they have said 
 nothing to their employers during a seventy 
 years captivity, about their history and origin, 
 about their great men, such as Abraham, Moses, 
 David and others, their once happy condition 
 as the chosen people of God, their then degra- 
 ded state in consequence of their disobedience 
 and unbelief, and the prospect of brighter days 
 under their expected Messiah ? 
 
 But besides the information, which the Jews 
 would thus give the Babylonians of all orders 
 concerning themselves, they would carry with 
 them their sacred books to Babylon. Among 
 these would be the Pentateuch, many thousand 
 copies of which had been made in the reign of 
 Josiah. To this they would add Isaiah and some 
 of the minor prophets which had then come out, 
 and most probably Jeremiah. Now it seems to 
 me impossible that the contents of these books 
 should have been kept secret in such a place as 
 Babylon, during so many as seventy years. 
 Would not the Magi have been, of all people in 
 
141 
 
 the world, the most desirous of seeing- them? And 
 would not the Jewish priests, always looking out 
 for proselytes, have been most happy in obliging 
 them ; nay would they not have given them co- 
 pies of their books? And here it must be re- 
 membered, that both Ezekiel and Daniel were in 
 Babylon during- the captivity, and that the latter 
 wrote his prophecies there; one of which we 
 have seen in the second chapter to have been so 
 particular, that any person, whether Jew or 
 Babylonian, could have calculated the time of 
 the Messiah's coming- within a year. These then, 
 that is, the books of the sacred writings just 
 mentioned, were, I presume, the "antiquae sa- 
 cerdotum literae" of Tacitus, or ancient manu- 
 scripts of certain priests and prophets, from 
 which the report came, which according- to 
 Tacitus was so current in the East, that some 
 great personage should come out of Judaea, who 
 should be Lord of the whole Universe. 
 
 The next captivity of the Jews was by Ptolo- 
 maeus Lagi, who took Jerusalem by storm on a 
 Sabbath-day when the inhabitants would not 
 leave their worship to fight, and carried away 
 many thousands of them, and settled them mostly 
 in Egypt. But it will not be necessary to say 
 much concerning this, but only, perhaps that as 
 
142 
 
 the Egyptian took place more than 300 years 
 after the Babylonish captivity, all the books of 
 the Old Testament, or, all the "antiquae sacer- 
 dotum literae" of Tacitus must have been then 
 out * ; and if so, then, as the Jews would take 
 their sacred books with them into captivity in 
 Egypt, the Egyptians could not but have gained 
 from thence the same expectations of an extra- 
 ordinary person about to appear upon earth at 
 the time predicted, as the Assyrians and Ba- 
 bylonians, and hence the whole east would have 
 imbibed the same notion. 
 
 The Septuagint version of the Old Testament had then appeared 
 and its contents were then consequently laid open to the whole world. 
 
 W 
 
143 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 On the particular way in which some of the en- 
 lightened Romans acquired their knowledge 
 on this subject. — By means of the prophecy 
 of the Cumeean Sybil. — Substance of this pro- 
 phecy as taken from Virgil. 
 
 I stated in the first chapter, that it was sup- 
 posed by many enlightened persons at Rome, a 
 few years before Jesus Christ was born, that 
 some great personage was to make his appear- 
 ance upon earth, who should hold universal do- 
 minion, and whose reign should be a reign of 
 righteousness, or a reign in which the guilt of 
 sin should be expiated, and men restored to the 
 innocence and happiness of the golden age. I 
 am now to enquire where these Romans acquired 
 such an extraordinary notion. 
 
 I shall answer the enquiry at once by saying, 
 that they gathered it from the Sybilline oracles, 
 or, as these are often called the prophecies of the 
 Cumaean Sybil. These oracles were deposited 
 
144 
 
 in the capitol at Rome as early as in the days of 
 the second Tarquin and placed under the care of 
 two of the nobility of those times ; and here they 
 continued till the time of Marius and Sylla, when 
 the capitol was burnt down and when they 
 perished in the flames. All Rome was in con- 
 sternation at this event and the senate partaking 
 of this feeling sent ambassadors into Ionia, Lybia, 
 Greece and other countries, namely, to those 
 places where the most ancient temples existed, 
 with a view, if it were possible, of replacing 
 them. [Tacit: Annal : Lib: 6. c. 12.] Also 
 Lactantius, Instit: Divin: Lib. 1. c. 6. At 
 length the ambassadors returned, bringing back 
 with them copies of about a thousand verses in 
 all, containing the most ancient oracles. From 
 these, the most learned of the augural college in 
 Rome, selected those which they deemed the 
 most authentic and then deposited them in the 
 temple of the capitol which had been rebuilt. 
 It was from these copies that the enlightened 
 Romans gained their information and formed 
 their notions on this subject. 
 
 But it may be said that the fifteen keep- 
 ers of these Records, who alone were permitted 
 to have access to them, were bound not to divulge 
 their contents; and it may then be asked, if this 
 
145 
 
 were the case, how could any other persons or 
 any great number of persons have become ac- 
 quainted with them ? To this I may reply by saying 
 that secrets are not always kept, and that in Cicero's 
 time, many people in Rome, beside the Quindecem- 
 viri were acquainted with parts of their contents, 
 and particularly with that part of the verses, 
 which related to the coming, about that time, 
 of some extraordinary potentate upon earth, nay, 
 Cicero himself once discussed this part of the verses 
 in the Senate. Among those, who had acquired 
 this knowledge, was the poet Virgil, who was 
 so much pleased and interested with it that" he 
 made it the subject of his fourth Eclogue. In 
 this Eclogue, he took the opportunity of paying 
 a compliment to his friend Pollio, who was then 
 consul, for he addressed the poem to him as to 
 the person, during whose consulship the child 
 was to be born, who was to do such glorious 
 things for the world. 
 
 Having said thus much by way of introduc- 
 tion, we may now inquire what this prophecy 
 was, that is, what were the particular words in 
 which it was expressed, that we may form our 
 own judgment upon it. But alas, all inquiry 
 here will be to no purpose ! for the Sybilline 
 Books having survived three centuries or more 
 
146 
 
 after the reign of Augustus, during which they 
 were eagerly consulted by succeeding emperors, 
 disappeared all at once and were never more 
 heard of. We have therefore no means of 
 knowing what this prophecy contained, but by 
 what Virgil has said of it : and here we must 
 make some allowance for the embellishments of 
 poetry ; and also for the introduction of the 
 names of heathen Gods and Goddesses, and again 
 for the popular notions and expressions current 
 in the poet's own time. Thus for example he 
 invokes Lucina, the goddess of child-bearing, 
 to be favourable to the birth of the child then 
 expected, whose reign was to be so beneficial to 
 the human race. Thus again he speaks of the 
 Golden and Iron ages, using them as terms to 
 express the innocence and the happiness of the 
 one and the wickedness and misery of the other 
 of those ages, to which the prophecy alluded. 
 Stripping then the Eclogue of these accompani- 
 ments we may fairly conclude, that Virgil 
 has given us the sense and substance of the 
 prophecy in question as far as he understood it. 
 I shall now give in his own words all that he 
 has said upon this part of the subject, premising, 
 that he tells us that he took his materials from 
 the Cumcean Sybil, and that I omit the three 
 
147 
 
 first lines merely because they are compliment- 
 ary only. 
 
 " Magnus ab integro Saeclorum nascitur Ordo. 
 "Jam redit et Virgo ; redeunt Saturnia Regna. 
 " Jam nova Progenies Caelo demittitur alto. 
 " Tu modo nascenti Puero, quo ferrea primum 
 "Desinet, ac toto surget gens aurea mundo, 
 " Casta fave Lucina; tuus jam regnat Appollo; 
 "Tequeadeo Decus hoc aevi, te consule, inibit, 
 " Pollio : et incipient magni procedere menses. 
 " Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, 
 " Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras. 
 " Ille Deum vitam accipiet, Divisque videbit 
 " Permixtos Heroas, et ipse videbitur illis, 
 "Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus Orbem. 
 At tibi prima, Puer, nullo munuscula cultu 
 " Errantes hederas passim cum Baccare tellus, 
 " Mixtaque ridente Colocasia fundet Acantho. 
 "Ipsse lacte domum referent distenta Capellaa 
 " Ubera; nee magnos metuent armenta leones. 
 " Ipsa tibi blandos f undent cunabnla flores, 
 " Occidet et Serpens, et fallax herba veneni 
 " Occidet" &c. 
 
 As in metrical translations the sense is often 
 obliged to be sacrificed to the verse, I shall give 
 Smart's translation of the above in prose, which 
 is the most literal I can find. 
 
 " The great series of ages begins anew ; and now 
 u * Virgo returns; the Saturnian reigns return; now a new 
 
 * The Constellation Virgo. 
 
148 
 
 ' progeny is sent down from high Heaven. Do thou but, 
 1 chaste Lucina, favour the infant-boy, by whom first the 
 1 Iron Race shall cease, and ike Golden Race arise in all 
 ' the world. Now thy Apollo reigns. While thou too, 
 1 Pollio, art Consul, this so great glory of the age will 
 ' appear, and the renowned months begin to roll. Under 
 ' thy conduct whatever vestiges of our guilt remain, they 
 1 being done away, shall free the nations from fear for 
 ' ever. He shall share the life of Gods, shall see Heroes 
 ' associated with Gods, and himself be seen by them; and 
 ' he shall rule the peaceful globe with his Father's 
 1 virtues. 
 
 " And, Boy, the earth will produce to you profusely 
 " her first little offerings without culture, creeping ivies 
 " with ladie's glove, and Egyptian beans mixed with 
 " smiling holly. The goats of themselves shall bring 
 " home their udders distended with milk; nor shall the 
 " herds fear huge lions. The very cradle shall pour 
 " thee forth fresh flowers; and the serpent shall die ; 
 " and the poisonous plant shall die," &c. 
 
 This then is the substance of the Cumaean 
 Sybil's prophecy in a very homely dress, as far 
 as the translation goes. We may collect from it, 
 and say, in a few words, that he, of whom it 
 spake as the extraordinary personage who was 
 to come was to have universal sway, and to 
 purge the earth of the guilt of sin, and to be the 
 author of great blessings to mankind. But to 
 say no more than this is to take too little notice 
 of such a prophecy, and I shall therefore quote 
 
149 
 
 what the learned Bishop Horsely says concern- 
 ing it. " But," says the Bishop, " what is most 
 worthy of remark, is the description which the 
 Heathen Poet gives of the extraordinary person 
 that he expected ; of his origin, of his achieve- 
 ments, and the good consequences of his appear- 
 ance, which is such, that if any illiterate person 
 who was to hear this poem read in an exact trans- 
 lation with the omission only of the names of 
 heathen deities, and of allusions to profane mytho- 
 logy, which occur in a few passages, any illiterate 
 person who was to hear the poem read with these 
 omissions, which would not affect the general 
 sense of it, if he had not been told before that it 
 was the composition of an heathen author, would 
 without hesitation pronounce it to be a prophecy 
 of the Messiah, or a poem at least upon that sub- 
 ject, written in express imitation of the style of 
 the Jewish poets. " The learned Prelate then 
 proceeds to give us his own notion of the sub- 
 stance of it, in the following words. " The object 
 of the Sybilline Oracles, as well as the Messiah 
 of the Jews, was to be of heavenly extraction, 
 the high offspring of the Gods, the great seed 
 of Jupiter. He was to strike an universal peace, 
 and to command the whole world ; and in this 
 universal government he was to exercise his 
 
150 
 
 lathers virtues. He was to abolish all violence 
 and injustice, to restore the life of man to its 
 original simplicity and innocence, and the con- 
 dition of man to its original happiness. He was 
 to abolish the causes of violent death ; and all 
 death considered as a curse is violent. He was 
 to kill the serpent, and purge the vegetable 
 kingdom of its poisons. The blessings of his 
 reign w T ere to reach even to the brute creation ; 
 for the beasts of the forest were to lose their 
 savage nature, that the ox might graze in se- 
 curity within sight of the lion." In fact the 
 child to be born was to come as a deliverer from 
 physical and moral evil. See Horseley's nine 
 sermons, p. 18. 19. 23. 
 
J5I 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 The subject farther considered — this prophecy 
 of divine original — and applicable to Jesus 
 Christ — and to him only — most probably a 
 tradition from the prophecy relative to the 
 " seed of the woman " — very striking similar- 
 ity between them. 
 
 Dr. Horseley is of opinion that this prophecy 
 of the Cumaean Sybil ( notwithstanding- it bears 
 her name) was of divine original, and that it 
 was strictly applicable to the Messiah. When we 
 consider who the learned prelate was, his vast 
 erudition, the giant strength of his mind, and 
 the time he gave to the study of the holy scrip- 
 tures, and his laborious researches in order to 
 explain them, his opinion on this as well as on 
 all other scriptural subjects ought to have more 
 than ordinary weight. He speaks thus upon it. 
 " I have now established my fact, that from the 
 
152 
 
 first ages of profane history to the very time of 
 our Saviour's birth, explicit predictions of him 
 were extant in the Gentile world, in books which 
 were holden in religious veneration, and which 
 were deposited in their Temples. The matter 
 of these prophecies, and the agreement of the 
 imagery of their language with what we find in 
 the prophecies of holy writ, is / think a suf- 
 ficient argument of their divirie original. Ob- 
 serve, I affirm not in general of the Sybilline 
 books that they were divine ; much less do I 
 affirm that the Sybils were women who had the 
 gift of prophecy. I believe that they were fabu- 
 lous personages, to whom the ignorant heathens 
 ascribed the most ancient of their sacred books, 
 when the true original of them was forgotten. 
 But the existence of these imaginary prophet- 
 esses, and the authority of the writings ascribed 
 to them, are distinct questions. Whether these 
 books contained prophecies of Christ is a ques- 
 tion of fact in which the affirmative is support- 
 ed by the highest historical evidence. That 
 these prophecies, wherever they might be found, 
 coidd be of no other than divine original, the 
 matter and the style of them is in my judgment 
 an irrefragable argument." 
 
 Upon the above quotation I have now to ob- 
 
153 
 
 serve, that I fully coincide with the learned 
 prelate in his opinion that the prophecy of the 
 Cumaean Sybil, of which we have given a 
 translation as it stands in Virgil, was of divine 
 original, and also that it was strictly applicable 
 to the Messiah. But I may go farther and say 
 that it was applicable not only to no other per- 
 son who appeared in the world about the time 
 when the Messiah was born, but that it was ap- 
 plicable to no other person that ever trod upon 
 our earth. The only person living at that time, 
 to whom this prophecy could have applied with 
 any thing like a seeming propriety, was Augus- 
 tus ; but, did it fit him ? No. There was one 
 part however of the prediction which was veri- 
 fied in his reign, but this only for a time. The 
 Temple of Janus was shut three times, which 
 had not been the case for seven hundred years 
 before, and when it was last shut, the Romans 
 were at peace with all the world. It must also 
 be acknowledged that Augustus was himself an 
 amiable man in the litter part of his life, and the 
 patron of learned men ; but this had nothing to 
 do with morals, except that we may indulge a 
 hope, that learning has a tendency to remove 
 prejudices, to give men a more correct notion of 
 things, and to make them mix more agreeably 
 
154 
 
 and harmoniously in society with each other. 
 But he was not, in the sense of this prophecy, the 
 beginner of a reign of righteousness, or " the 
 great deliverer from moral evil." He did not re- 
 move "what remained of the vestiges of guilt," 
 and thus " free the nations from fear for ever; " 
 nor did he do away any of the national vicious 
 customs of his own times, as a first step to re- 
 store them to their former simplicity and • inno- 
 cence as in the golden age. He never took away 
 one idol from the temples as preparatory to the 
 worship of the true God. He allowed the bloody 
 games, the gladiatorial and other cruel and 
 wicked shows, to continue in crowded Amphi- 
 theatres for the sport of the Roman people. Nor 
 did he endeavour by a new, I mean purer system 
 of education to do away the prejudices of the 
 rising generation, and thus to prepare them for 
 the happier age, which had been predicted. 
 
 I shall now say a few words in addition to 
 what Bishop Horseley has just said relative to 
 this prophecy, as having been of divine original. 
 And first, let me ask this question, where did the 
 Cumaean Sybil get it ? Or rather, did she fabri- 
 cate it herself? This is impossible, for it con- 
 tained such an exact description of the Messiah, 
 and of the glorious character and consequences 
 
155 
 
 of his reign, between five and six hundred years 
 before he came, that no one but God himself, or 
 one who had been divinely inspired, could have 
 uttered it. But perhaps some one may say, the 
 Sybil herself might have been inspired. This 
 would have been contrary to what we know to 
 have been God's usual proceeding in such cases. 
 He never employed heathens, as Dr. Horseley 
 contends in another place, or men in the habit of 
 sacrificing to devils, to unfold his gracious de- 
 signs beforehand to his creatures. But if the 
 Cumaean Sybil was not herself an inspired per- 
 son, and yet the prophecy was of divine original, 
 what was it, and from whence did it come? 
 There can be no doubt, I think, that it must have 
 been a prophecy which had come down to the 
 patriarchs by tradition, many hundred years be- 
 fore the Sybil was born, and which had been 
 preserved by their descendants by the same 
 means (tradition either oval or written*) till her 
 time, when by some means or other it fell into 
 her hands. And now, having stated thus much, 
 I have only one other question to propose ; do 
 
 * Writing in some shape or other was known in the time of Job. 
 " Oh, that my words were now written ! Oh that they were printed in a 
 book ! That they were graven with an iron pen, and lead in the rock 
 for ever !" 
 
156 
 
 we know of any prophecy, which must have 
 come down to the patriarchs, to which this of 
 the Cumaean Sybil can be likened? I think there 
 is one, namely, that which relates to " the seed 
 of the woman" when the serpent was cursed ; 
 and which was the first prophecy that God ever 
 delivered to man; and I think the similarity so 
 great, that every reader will be struck with it, 
 when a fair comparison is made between them. 
 I shall therefore now put down what it has 
 occurred to me to say on this subject. 
 
 We gather from the prophecy of the Cumaean 
 Sybil, as it has been handed down to us by 
 Virgil, that there was a time in the beginning of 
 things, when men lived in a state of innocence 
 and happiness, and this time was distinguished 
 by men of after ages by the name of the golden 
 age. We gather from it again, that after this, 
 crime and violence found their way into the 
 world and disordered it; and that this new age, 
 so different from the former, was called the iron 
 age. The prophecy goes on to state that a child 
 should come into the world at a future clay, who 
 should have universal sway, the effect of which 
 would be the doing away of all the vestiges of 
 the guilt of sin, and the restoration of men to the 
 state or condition, which they had enjoyed in the 
 primitive or golden times. 
 
157 
 
 We come now to the prophecy of God. We 
 gather from Moses, that there was a time in the 
 beginning of things, when God created Adam, 
 and that he made him in his own image, which 
 was that of holiness, and that he put him in a 
 garden in which to live, and that he lived there 
 in innocence and happiness. We gather from 
 Moses again, that in a course of time Adam fell 
 from his first estate, and that he introduced sin 
 and all its attendant evils into the world, having 
 been led astray by the seducing words of his 
 wife, as she had been before, by the enticing 
 words of Satan, in the form of a serpent. The 
 prediction then stated that a child should be 
 born into the world at some future time, from the 
 seed of the woman, who had been thus deceived, 
 who should bruise the head of this serpent, that 
 is, destroy the power of Satan, and thus deliver 
 men from the guilt of sin, and restore them to 
 the condition, which Adam had once enjoyed in 
 Paradise. These then are the two prophecies, 
 and wherein do they differ in substance? It is 
 true indeed that the serpent is not mentioned in 
 the Sybilline (as in the other) prophecy as an 
 agent in the destruction of the happiness of man, 
 but only as a common reptile of the field. How 
 this difference arose I cannot say, I cannot tell 
 
158 
 
 for example how much the original prophecy 
 might have been misconceived, or how much it 
 might have gained or lost in words or meaning 
 by passing from mouth to mouth through so 
 many generations till it came into the hands of 
 the Cumaean Sybil. One thing however is very 
 remarkable and ought not to be forgotten, namely, 
 that in both cases the serpent was to be 
 destroyed. 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 The subject further considered — conjectures as 
 to the way in which this prophecy was pre- 
 served — and how it found its way to the 
 Cumaan Sybil and the Capitol at Rome. 
 
 Let us suppose then that it is true that the 
 prophecy of the Cumsean Sybil was a tradition 
 from the prophecy of God, when he cursed the 
 serpent, a new question arises, namely, how or 
 where did this Sybil obtain it, and how did it 
 
 Y 
 
159 
 
 find its way into the temple of the Capitol at 
 
 Rome ? 
 
 It would be of some importance in the con- 
 sideration of this subject if we could know, how 
 this prophecy was understood by Adam and the 
 first men and their children; but Moses has 
 given us no information on this head, and we 
 must make therefore our own conjectures upon 
 it. My own conjecture is this. In the first 
 place Adam would know, and this indeed to his 
 sorrow, that he had broken the command of God, 
 and that he had therefore sinned, and brought 
 sin into the world, and that for this conduct he 
 had been turned out of Paradise and degraded, 
 and that he was then living under the sentence 
 which God had pronounced against him for his 
 disobedience. He would know also that this 
 prophecy related to himself and to Eve and to 
 their posterity, and to the deceiver also. He 
 would know moreover that there would be con- 
 stant enmity between the deceiver and the seed 
 of the woman, and that in the conflicts which 
 would arise between them the woman's seed 
 would have the advantage (for the deceiver, being; 
 condemned from this time to creep on his belly 
 on the ground, could only bite the heel of his 
 adversary, while his adversary from his erect 
 
160 
 
 posture and the position of his arms could bruise 
 the head of the deceiver) and that ultimately the 
 seed of the woman would triumph. But Adam 
 could not know the contents of other prophecies, 
 that is, of those which inspired men did not de- 
 liver till many hundred years after his death. 
 He could not know for instance that when God, 
 in cursing the serpent, confined himself to the 
 seed of the woman saying nothing of the seed of 
 the man, he meant the seed of one of Eve's de- 
 scendants who should be a pure virgin. The 
 prophecy however must have been very consoling, 
 as far as it was understood, both to Adam and 
 Eve in their very forlorn condition ; for they 
 would collect from it undoubtedly something like 
 a deliverance of themselves or their descendants 
 from the curse at some future time, that is from 
 the power of him, who had been the cause of 
 their ruin ; and so far it would afford them a 
 ground of hope ; but they would be much in the 
 dark about the particular application of the pro- 
 phecy as to which of their posterity would be 
 first delivered, and also as to the time when the 
 deliverance woidd take place; and this darkness 
 would keep them anxiously attentive to every 
 event, which might seem to be connected with 
 the completion of it. 
 
161 
 
 This was, I should suppose, pretty much the 
 state of Adam's mind on contemplating- the pro- 
 phecy in question ; and if so, we may be sure 
 that he would take the greatest possible care 
 that it should be preserved by his children and 
 childrens' children, all of whom it so much con- 
 cerned. It would therefore be carefully pre- 
 served, as far as means could be devised to per- 
 petuate it, by the members of the church of Adam. 
 It would be carried by Noah over the waters of 
 the flood, and he would communicate it to his 
 children in the most impressive manner with a 
 view that they should do their best to preserve 
 it also. He would place it no doubt among the 
 records of his own church, and have it committed 
 to memory and frequently repeated, as there 
 could be no other means in those early times of 
 preserving it. It could not fail therefore of being 
 known to all the families of the world when living 
 in the plain of Shinar. But if it were known to 
 these, and if moreover it were held in veneration 
 by them, they would carry it with them when 
 they separated from each other at the time of 
 what is usually called the dispersion ; for the 
 same motives, which had induced them to en- 
 deavour to keep it in remembrance thus far, would 
 continue to influence them. Hence in process 
 
162 
 
 of time, when each family had so increased in 
 numbers as to have become a tribe or petty na- 
 tion, we should probably find this prophecy in 
 the custody of the memories of their respective 
 priests ; for this was the way in which sacred 
 and other important records were preserved 
 among nations, where letters had not been intro- 
 duced. Nor is it any objection to this that these 
 families went off afterwards into Idolatry; for 
 idolatrous nations had their priests as well as 
 those, which worshipped the true God, and the 
 duty of perpetuating the national traditions would 
 continue to be confided to these. The priests 
 then of the different tribes would carry this 
 prophecy with them on the tablets of their mem- 
 ory wherever their tribes migrated. When they 
 learnt the use of letters they would commit them 
 to writing ; and afterwards when they became 
 settled and built cities and temples, they would 
 deposit their written records in the latter. Hence 
 the same prophecy might be found in differ- 
 ent temples in very different and distant parts 
 of the world, according as the descendants 
 of Shem, Ham and Japhet had brought it 
 thither in their wanderings from Shinar. And 
 that the heathen temples were the deposi- 
 taries of patriarchal traditions is well known. 
 
163 
 
 I had occasion to state in the last chapter what 
 Dr. Horseley has said on this subject, " that 
 from the first ages of profane history to the very 
 time of our Saviour's birth, explicit predictions 
 of him were extant in the Gentile world, in 
 books which were ever holden in religious vene- 
 ration, and which were deposited in their tem- 
 ples" The learned Jacob Bryant, in his mas- 
 terly work called "a system of Ancient Mythol- 
 ogy" confirms this over and over again. He 
 gives us also some curious particulars of some of 
 these temples. He tells us, on the authority of 
 Abydenus and Berosas, " that there had been 
 delineated in some ancient temple an hieroglyphi- 
 cal description of the Creation, as well as of the 
 destruction of mankind by a deluge. Such de- 
 scriptions were either painted upon the walls, 
 or engraved on obelisks and sacred pillars." 
 Mythol. v. 3. p. 131. Mr. Bryant gives us also 
 an account of a tradition found by some Grecian 
 in an Egyptian temple of great antiquity, and 
 which the Greek preserved by translating it into 
 his own language. He then gives us this re- 
 cord or tradition, as it came to him, in its Greek 
 dress, but translates it for the benefit of his rea- 
 ders. The part of it which I now mean to 
 copy, runs thus. 
 
164 
 
 " But when the judgments of the Almighty God 
 " Were ripe for execution ; when the Tower 
 "Rose to the skies upon Assyria's plain, 
 " And all mankind one language only knew; 
 "A dread commission from on high was given 
 "To the fell whirlwinds, which with dire alarm 
 " Beat on the Tower, and to its lowest hase 
 " Shook it convulsed. And now all intercourse, 
 " By some occult and over-ruling power, 
 " Ceas'd among men : by utterance they strove 
 " Perplexed and anxious to disclose their mind; 
 " But their lips failed them; and in lieu of words 
 "Produc'd a painful bubbling sound: the place 
 " Was hence called Babel ; by th' Apostate crew 
 "Nam'd from th' event. Then sever'd far away 
 " They sped uncertain into realms unknown ; 
 "Thus kingdoms rose and the glad world was filled." 
 
 Mythology, vol. 4. p. 100. 
 
 From this tradition, which gives an interest- 
 ing account of the building- of Babel, and the 
 confusion of tongues, and the dispersion of man- 
 kind having been found in an ancient Egyptian 
 temple, and from the preceding tradition relative 
 to the creation and destruction of mankind by a 
 deluge, having been found on the walls of anoth- 
 er of the most ancient temples, we shall not be 
 at a loss to conjecture where the patriarchal re- 
 cords were usually deposited. But to put the 
 matter out of all doubt I shall bring to the re- 
 
165 
 
 collection of the reader a fact which I stated 
 but a little while ago. It happened, as I 
 then said, that the Capitol at Rome was burnt, 
 and that the Sybilline prophecies, which had 
 been kept there, perished in the flames, and 
 that the Roman Senate sent ambassadors to dif- 
 ferent parts of the world to endeavour to replace 
 them. Now where did these ambassadors go 
 with the hope of finding copies of them ? None 
 knew better than heathens where heathen 
 traditions were to be found at that time. The 
 ambassadors therefore, we find, directed their 
 course to those countries, where the most an- 
 cient temples then existed, and there they found 
 what they wanted. This affords a proof, that 
 the ancient temples were the depositories of the 
 ancient patriarchal traditions, and also of the 
 truth of a remark, which I made only a few 
 lines back, and which was this, that if my con- 
 jectures were true relative to the Sybilline pro- 
 phecy, the same prophecy might be found in 
 different temples in very different and distant 
 parts of the world according as the descendants 
 of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, had brought it 
 thither in their wanderings from Shinar. 
 
 Having said thus much, and having travelled 
 thus far I believe on safe ground, I may now 
 
166 
 
 give something- like an answer to the question 
 which has been proposed, "where did the Cu- 
 maean Sybil get the prophecy which bears her 
 name ? That she was not an inspired woman, 
 and therefore that the prophecy was not her own 
 we have already shown. And it might be shown, 
 that it was not possible for her to have got it 
 from the books of Moses , or the other scriptures,, 
 in her time. She could therefore have only come 
 to the knowledge of it from some of those patri- 
 archal traditions, which had found their way 
 into some of the heathen temples. And this 
 conjecture will receive additional strength from 
 a new consideration, I mean that of the station, 
 which she is said to have filled during the latter 
 part of her life ; for she was indisputably one of 
 the Sybilline priestesses, and it was the office of 
 these to take care of the memorials which were 
 deposited in the temples, over which they re- 
 spectively presided. But if this were the case 
 all the records in that particular temple, to which 
 she belonged, would be open to her inspection 
 every day ; and she could not but know the con- 
 tents of all of them. She might indeed have 
 taken copies of them if she pleased. In this way 
 it was I presume that she became possessed of 
 the prophecy in question. The particular tern- 
 
in? 
 
 pie, however, over which she presided is nowhere 
 mentioned that I know of; but it is probable 
 that it was in some part of Asia ; for though his- 
 torians are divided as to the particular place of 
 her birth, most of them agree in saying- that she 
 was born on that continent. And now for two 
 or three historical disclosures, which will throw 7 
 light upon a very important part of the subject, 
 namely, how this prophecy found its way to Rome 
 at the early period which has been mentioned. 
 The first is, that this same Sybil left her abode 
 in Asia, wherever it was, and went afterwards 
 into Italy. The second is, that when she was in 
 Italy she resided in a sacred cavern near Cumae 
 in Campania, from which circumstance she was 
 called the Cumsean, to distinguish her from the 
 other Sybils, rather than from Cumae in iEolia, 
 where it would be against a preponderance of 
 evidence to say that she was born. The third 
 is, that an old woman supposed to be the same 
 woman, offered this very prophecy with other 
 oracles to Tarquin the Second. She went to the 
 king himself, as Dionysius tells the story, with 
 nine books of oracles, for which she demanded 
 three hundred pieces of gold. Tarquin refused 
 to give her that price. She then burnt three of 
 the nine, and offered him the remaining six at 
 
168 
 
 the same rate. This being again rejected by the 
 king, who thought the woman mad, she burnt 
 three more of these books, still however requiring 
 the same sum as at first. Tarquin, moved at 
 this strange procedure, consulted the Augurs, 
 who, when their divinations were performed, ac- 
 quainted him with the impiety of which he had 
 been guilty by refusing a treasure sent him from 
 heaven, and commanded him to give whatever 
 the Sybil might ask. After this the king pur- 
 chased them, and lodged them in the temple of 
 the first Capitol, as before stated. This then, is 
 the way, according to Dionysius Halycarnasseus, 
 a most respectable author, in which the Sybilline 
 books were introduced into Rome ; nor does the 
 circumstance of the bargain between the king 
 and the woman throw any discredit on the ac- 
 count ; for there can be no doubt that both priest 
 and priestesses of these temples frequently made 
 a trade of their office by selling copies of tradi- 
 tions or other sorts of records in their possession, 
 nay even that they went farther by forging others ; 
 though, in the present case forgery is out of the 
 question, because the prophecy, which we have 
 now had so long under our consideration, carries 
 with it its own testimony that it was of divine 
 original. 
 
169 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 Whether Jesus Christ, after having been upon 
 our earth, fully answered the character, 
 which had been given him by the different 
 prophecies before mentioned. 
 
 A question, and a very important one, now 
 comes before us for solution, which is, wh ether 
 Jesus Christ after he came upon our earth, ful- 
 filled the meaning of the different prophecies, 
 which we have shewn to have been in circulation 
 in different parts of the world concerning the 
 great personage, who was to come. We have 
 already shown, that they were not applicable to 
 Augustus Caesar, nor to any other person of his 
 time. To solve this I shall feel it right to go 
 over these prophecies again in a very concise 
 manner, and to try to reduce the substance of 
 all of them to a few words, and then to make 
 these few words the standard, by which the case 
 may be properly tried and decided. 
 
170 
 
 It has already appeared, that the worldly- 
 minded among- the Jews, of whom by far the 
 greater part of that nation consisted, were of 
 opinion that their Messiah was to come in the 
 character of a conqueror, that is, a military con- 
 queror, or of a military deliverer or a restorer 
 by force of arms, of that which had been lost. 
 But certain events, which occurred after his 
 crucifixion and death, prove beyond the power 
 of contradiction, that they had taken an entire- 
 ly false view of his character ; for, in the first 
 place, Jesus Christ never took up arms on any 
 occasion ; nor did he deliver his countrymen 
 from the Roman yoke ; nor did he restore the 
 throne of David to its ancient splendour. So 
 for was this from being the case, that the Ro- 
 mans under Vespasian destroyed Jerusalem and 
 the temple itself in so complete a manner, that one 
 stone was not left upon another ; and when they 
 took the city again, many years afterwards when 
 it had been rebuilt, they not only led away cap- 
 tive all the inhabitants, who had survived the 
 siege, but all the inhabitants of Judaea, men, 
 women and children, and transported them to 
 other countries, so that from this time they were 
 broken as a nation, and they have been fugitives 
 ever since in different parts of the earth. It is 
 
17) 
 
 clear then that all the Jewish prophecies con- 
 cerning the Messiah or him who was to come, 
 are to be taken in a spiritual sense. Thus, if 
 he was to come as a conqueror, he was to be a 
 conqueror over Satan, if as a deliverer, then he 
 was to come as a deliverer from moral evil, and 
 if as a restorer, then he was to be the restorer 
 of the image of God in man which had been lost. 
 With respect to the Samaritans, it has appeared 
 that they took an entirely correct view of the 
 subject. Their Messiah was to come upon earth 
 as a teacher or preacher of divine things, and 
 as a deliverer from the bondage of sin, and as 
 the Saviour of the world. With respect to the 
 people of the east, their opinion was, that a 
 person was to spring from Judaea, who should 
 govern the whole world. This worldly notion 
 they gathered from the Jews, or they gave this 
 worldly interpretation to texts in some of the 
 Jewish prophecies, which, during the Babylo- 
 nish captivity, might have fallen into their hands ; 
 but we have already proved that such an inter- 
 pretation was false, historical facts standing up 
 against it. With respect so the Romans, I be- 
 lieve that their vanity led them to consider the 
 Sybilline prophecy in a worldly sense, and even 
 to apply it to themselves. They thought no 
 
172 
 
 doubt that a child should be born among them- 
 selves, who should hold universal dominion. 
 But the Sybilline prophecy says no such thing 
 in a worldly sense. It states this dominion to 
 be wholly spiritual. The power of sin and guilt 
 were to be done away, and men were to be re- 
 stored to that innocence and happiness which were 
 the characteristics of the golden age. And now 
 having gone over these prophecies again in a 
 concise manner we may ask, what is the sub- 
 stance or meaning of all of them in a few words 
 when put together and taken in a spiritual 
 sense ? I think that a few words extracted from 
 a single verse of Daniel's prophecy (c. 9. v. 24.) 
 would contain and fit them all. The Messiah 
 according to Daniel was to come, " To put an 
 end to sin, and to make reconciliation for in- 
 iquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness." 
 These words will include the ideas of a conquer- 
 or, deliverer, and restorer as just explained, 
 as well as the ideas of a teacher, a preacher, 
 and a Saviour, all of which epithets or charac- 
 ters have been found in the different prophecies 
 which have been cited as applicable to the great 
 personage who was to come. I shall take them 
 therefore as the standard to which I shall prin- 
 cipally refer in endeavouring to solve the pre- 
 sent question. 
 
173 
 
 And first I may observe that Jesus Christ 
 began his reign as a teacher or preacher of 
 righteousness. The very first words in his first 
 discourse to the people who flocked about him 
 were characteristic of the object of his coming. 
 " Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," 
 that is, (as the Greek word for " Repent," pro- 
 perly means,) " be truly sorry for your past sins 
 and become new creatures, for the new kingdom 
 or dispensation, of which your prophets have 
 fore-warned you, is now at your doors." And 
 what did he labour to effect? I answer to put an 
 end to sin in every possible way, both in thought, 
 word, and deed, and to cultivate universal 
 righteousness. Again, his life was entirely con- 
 sistent with his doctrines ; he was spotless as to 
 sin, and in the habitual exercise of every virtue. 
 Again, he gave up his life as a sacrifice or pro- 
 pitiation for the sins of the world. Thus, in all 
 respects, as far as his own person was concerned, 
 he came up to the standard which has just been 
 laid down. But I must follow him a little further. 
 It was necessary that the kingdom which he had 
 begun, should be kept up, and enlarged, so that 
 all might partake of its benefits. For this pur- 
 pose, he chose * Twelve Apostles, and commanded 
 
 * When Judas had destroyed himself, Matthias was chosen to fill his 
 place, after this Paul was added to their number. 
 
71 
 
 these to go into all the world, and preach his 
 gospel to every creature, promising them at the 
 same time his holy spirit to cheer, and comfort, 
 and assist them in their labours. 
 
 Let us now go to the Apostles and see what 
 these did towards extending and perpetuating 
 the kingdom of their Lord and Master. It ap- 
 pears that for about twelve years after his ascen- 
 sion they confined themselves pretty much, in 
 the discharge of their duties, to Jerusalem and 
 Palestine, (see Echard's Eccles. History, vol. 1. 
 p. 272.) but that at length after the vision of 
 Peter (Acts. c. 11 and c. 12) they resolved upon 
 carrying into execution his great commission 
 whereby they were to spread themselves as teach- 
 ers in the different parts of the earth, as far as 
 it was known to be then peopled. It is generally 
 affirmed by the ancients, that they agreed among 
 themselves what part of the w r orld each should 
 take. According to this division Peter went into 
 Pontus, Galalia and those other provinces of the 
 lesser Asia, at first confining his labours to the 
 Jews in those parts. Andrew had those vast 
 northern countries of Scythia and Sogdiana com- 
 mitted to his portion ; though afterwards he is 
 supposed to have returned towards Greece, and 
 to have founded the bishopric of Byzantium. 
 
 A A 
 
I 
 
 John's portion was partly the same with Peter's, 
 namely, the lesser Asia. Philip had the upper 
 Asia appointed him with some parts of Scythia 
 and Colchis. The hither India, commonly called 
 Arabia Felix, was allotted to Bartholomew, into 
 which parts he carried the Gospel of Matthew. 
 Matthew himself preached the Gospel in the 
 Asiatic Ethiopia by Chaldsea, Persia, and Par- 
 thia ; but Parthia was more particularly allotted 
 to Thomas, who also preached to the Hyrcanians 
 Bactrians and Indians. James the less, being 
 Bishop of Jerusalem, continued principally in that 
 city with so much amiable goodness and discre- 
 tion, that his greatest enemies had a veneration 
 for him. Simon (Zelotes) had for his portion 
 Egypt, Cyrene, Lybia, and Mauritania. Jude had 
 Syria and Mesopotamia, and Matthias Cappado- 
 cia and the remainder of Colchis. This is the 
 best account I am able to give of the disposal of 
 the Apostles for the accomplishment of their great 
 work in the different parts of the world. That 
 it is accurate no man living can say ; but that it 
 is not very far from the truth may be inferred 
 from this circumstance ; that there is respectable 
 historical evidence to show that some of the Apos- 
 tles did actually preach the gospel in the countries 
 which we have here allotted to them. Thus for 
 
176 
 
 example we have just said that Peter went into 
 Pontus, Galatia, and those other provinces of the 
 lesser Asia. Now we know from his epistle to 
 " the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Ga- 
 latia, Asia, Cappadocia and Bithynia " that he 
 preached and made many converts there. We 
 have just said again, that a part of Parthia was 
 allotted to Thomas who also preached to the 
 Hyrcanians, Bactrians and Indians. Now we 
 find u that this Apostle, according to the tradition 
 of the Church in Origen's days, preached in 
 Parthia, which contained all Persia ; and some 
 have given us a catalogue of the several people 
 in that kingdom to whom he preached, namely, 
 the Medes, Persians, Carmanians, Hyrcanians 
 and Bactrians. St. Chrysoston also says of this 
 Apostle, that being encouraged by a divine vision, 
 he travelled forward into the Indies to Maliapur 
 and the country of the Brachmans, where after 
 many travels and labours he converted Segamo 
 the prince of the country with many others. " 
 Echard Eccles. History, vol. 2. p. 395. We 
 have just said again, that the hither India, com- 
 monly called Arabia Felix, was allotted to Bar- 
 tholomew. Now we find that shortly after De- 
 metrius, Bishop of Alexandria, had entered upon 
 his spiritual office in the reign of Commodus, 
 
177 
 
 some ambassadors from the hither India desired 
 him to send along with them some worthy and 
 excellent person to preach the Christian Faith in 
 those countries. The Bishop appointed Pantae- 
 nus, a very able and pious man, who notwith- 
 standing all the apparent hardships and difficul- 
 ties joyfully undertook the mission. In this 
 journey we are informed, that he met with 
 several of the Indians, who retained the know- 
 ledge of Christ preached to them long since by 
 the Apostle Bartholomew ; whereof not the least 
 evidence was his finding St. Matthew's Gospel 
 written in Hebrew, which Bartholomew had left 
 behind him, and which, St. Jerome says, Pantae- 
 nus afterwards brought back with him to Alex- 
 andria. Echard. Eccles. History v. 2. p. 524. 
 
 We may now proceed with the solution of 
 the question. It has already appeared that Jesus 
 Christ, as far as his own person was concerned, 
 answered all that all the prophecies concentra- 
 ted had said concerning him. It remains there- 
 fore now to see, what the Apostles did in their 
 turn to perpetuate and extend his kingdom, or 
 rather what were the effects of their preaching 
 upon those who heard them. Did it dispel 
 prejudices ? Did it overcome superstition ? Did 
 it make a change in men's lives and conduct ? 
 
178 
 
 Did it beget new principles in the heart, which 
 had a tendency "to put an end to sin and to 
 bring in everlasting righteousness ? " The first 
 remarkable circumstance which occurred after 
 our Saviour's ascension ( for it was not till then 
 that his reign or kingdom begun ) was on the 
 day of Pentecost, when the spirit of God was 
 poured out and given in such a surprising 
 manner. This was followed by another circum- 
 stance equally remarkable, namely, that the 
 Apostles by means of their preaching added three 
 thousand converts to the church in one day ; that 
 is, the different Apostles preached in different 
 parts of the city of Jerusalem in one day, and 
 this extraordinary number of converts was the 
 result of their preaching. Now this is a case in 
 point, and the first of the sort that occurred in 
 the new dispensation or kingdom. Three thou- 
 sand persons altered their views, and parted 
 from their prejudices on this one occasion. But 
 the account which follows renders this part still 
 more interesting. It is said of them, (these con- 
 verts,) " and they continued stedfastly in the 
 Apostle's doctrines and fellowship ; " Acts. c. 2. 
 v. 42 ; that is, they were no hypocrites. They 
 did not go back from their professions. They 
 did not even waver. They clung to the doctrines 
 
179 
 
 which the Apostle's had taught them and which 
 these had received from Christ himself; and they 
 kept up a communion with the Apostles and 
 with each other for their own religious improve- 
 ment. 
 
 But it may be said that the persons just men- 
 tioned were principally, if not wholly, Jews, 
 men, who had a knowledge of God before, and 
 whose lives were decent and respectable when 
 compared with those of the Gentiles, and that 
 these Gentiles were the people to whom we 
 ought rather to have directed our attention. It 
 may be said also that it would have been more 
 to the point to inquire what was the effect of the 
 preaching of the Apostles upon men who were 
 Idolaters, and whose lives were stained by all 
 the vices that the infirmities of human nature 
 could produce. This is certainly true ; and we 
 shall therefore confine ourselves for the future 
 as far as we can, to the case of the Gentiles. 
 And here the first thing which strikes us is an 
 account which Peter gives of his flock, who 
 were scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cap- 
 padocia, Asia and Bithynia. These must have 
 been, taking them all together, considerable in 
 point of number, and moreover most of them Idol- 
 aters or Heathens. Now Peter tells us, what 
 
ISO 
 
 were some of the vices of the heathen-world, (F 
 mean, of the common vices) or of the way in 
 which they who had been converted by him in 
 these parts, had been living-. In a letter which 
 he addressed to them as their Pastor we find 
 that "in times past" they had "wrought the will 
 of the Gentiles," 1. Peter, c. 4. v. 3- 4. that they 
 had walked in lasciviousness ; " (lewdness and 
 impurity) in lusts ; (the indulgence of strong 
 irregular passions and desires of various sorts) 
 in " excess of wine ; in revellings ; (lascivious 
 feastings, with drunken songs) banquetings 
 (feasts where both eating and drinking were 
 carried to excess, accompanied by many disor- 
 ders) and abominable idolatries ;" (the abomi- 
 nations practiced at their idol feasts, where they 
 not only worshipped the idol, but did so with 
 the most obscene and abominable rites.) This 
 was indeed the general state of the heathen- 
 world ; and with this monstrous wickedness 
 Christianity had every where to contend. But 
 the Apostle tells his flock, that they were not 
 then implicated in these charges, for that they 
 had forsaken their evil ways, and this to the 
 astonishment of those who remained among 
 them unconverted, who could not conceive how 
 it could happen that they should have given up 
 
SI 
 
 so many gratifications. " Wherein, they think it 
 strange," says the Apostle "that ye run not with 
 them to the same excess of riot." But if these 
 once idolatrous people had changed their course 
 of life, what must have been their character when 
 the Apostle addressed his first letter to them. 
 They must have become pure in their thoughts, 
 chaste in their conversation and conduct, sober 
 and abstemious. They must have brought their 
 passions under subjugation. They must have 
 broken off evil habits. They must have forsa- 
 ken bad company. They must have been the 
 very opposite of what they once were. They 
 must have formed within the circle of their own 
 society an entirely new world. What a wonderful 
 and glorious change was this ; inasmuch as men, 
 who had been brought up from their infancy in 
 the grossest and most abominable vices, threw 
 aside, difficult as the struggle must have been, 
 all their wicked practices, and gave a proof of a 
 renewed heart by walking afterwards in holi- 
 ness of life ! 
 
 In the same manner as the principles of Christ's 
 new kingdom, namely, the kingdom of righteous- 
 ness, triumphed over the vicious prejudices and 
 passions of the converts made by his Apostle 
 Peter in the lesser Asia, so they triumphed over 
 
1JS-2 
 
 the vicious prejudices and passions of the con- 
 verts made by his Apostle Paul at Corinth. 
 " Know ye not" says St. Paul to the latter 
 (1 Cor. c. 6. v. 9, 10, 11,) " that the unrighteous 
 shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? Be not 
 deceived ; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor 
 adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of them- 
 selves with mankind, nor thieves nor covetous, 
 nor drunkards nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall 
 inherit the kingdom of God. And such were 
 some of you." Here is a catalogue of the crimes 
 in which the Corinthians had lived when they 
 were heathens, but mark the change which 
 followed the Apostle's preaching. " But now," 
 adds he, " ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, 
 but ye are justified in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus, and by the spirit of our God." 
 
 In looking over the Acts of the Apostles we find 
 that a circumstance occurred while St. Paul was 
 at Ephesus, which, though apparently trivial 
 and generally but little noticed, is yet of great 
 importance in the case before us. The Apostle, 
 it appears, had resided for a considerable time 
 in that city, during which he had preached often 
 and performed many miracles, so that great num- 
 bers were converted by him. Now it happened 
 that among those, who believed, there wasacer- 
 
L83 
 
 tain description of people who gained their living 
 by practising the magic arts. It is said of these, 
 " many also of them, which used curious arts, 
 brought their books together, and burned them 
 before all men : and they counted the price of 
 them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. 
 So mightily grew the word of God, and prevail- 
 ed." Acts c. 19. v. 19, 20. This transaction 
 was very honourable to the magicians, for the 
 burning of their books publicly, probably in the 
 public market-place, was neither more nor less 
 than a public confession of their guilt, or that they 
 had been knowingly imposing upon the credulity 
 of their fellow-men for gain. Indeed it could 
 only have arisen from a deep conviction that their 
 practices were contrary to the spirit of the doc- 
 trine which they had learned from the Apostle 
 Paul. I say a deep conviction, first, because by 
 burning their bocks they must have made a great 
 pecuniary sacrifice, and secondly, because no 
 other reason can be assigned why they destroyed 
 them, than that the fraudulent arts and processes 
 contained in them should be no longer learnt and 
 perpetuated. Here then was a triumph of the 
 principles of the new kingdom over delusion and 
 the powers of darkness. These arts had origi- 
 nally sprung from idolatry, having been prac- 
 
184 
 
 tised in the time of Moses among those nations, 
 Egyptian, Canaanitish and other nations which 
 had left the true God ; -and having been kept up 
 both by the priests and the people under the 
 notion of demoniacal interference, they had a 
 tendency to keep the mind in a superstitious bon- 
 dage, and thus hinder it from moral improvement. 
 After this an event took place, which made a 
 noise throughout the whole world. The great 
 oracle at Delphi became silent. It refused to 
 give its answers any longer to those, who sought 
 its advice. There were several other oracles in 
 different parts of the world; but this at Delphi 
 was of the greatest antiquity and renown. The 
 greatest kings and potentates consulted it. The 
 greatest philosophers visited it for the like pur- 
 pose, private families flocked to it also for its 
 counsel. People went to it from all parts, all 
 anxious to know the future, and no distance de- 
 terred them. By means of these consultations 
 they who belonged to it had amassed prodigious 
 wtiMt, and yet none were made wiser by the 
 answers it gave. Many on the other hand had 
 reason to wish that they had never submitted 
 their affairs to its judgment; for it gave such 
 equivocal answers, that no one could understand 
 them, and yet every one was desirous of turning 
 
185 
 
 their ambiguity in his own favour. But this was 
 not the worst part of the story, for when men 
 found that they had been deceived, they could 
 not blame the oracle, because the answer which 
 it gave, had a double meaning. This institution 
 then, which had deluded mankind for so many 
 ages at length expired, and at about the time I 
 have mentioned, that is after the Apostles had 
 begun to preach in different parts of the world, 
 and not before. Indeed the date of the downfall 
 of this oracle may be fixed within a few years ; 
 for the first writer who mentions it, was the poet 
 Lucan. He laments it in his " Pharsalia" as one 
 of the greatest misfortunes of that age, the age 
 in which he lived, that the Delphic oracle which 
 he represents as one of the choicest gifts of the 
 Gods, was become silent. 
 
 " • non ullo ssecula dono 
 
 " Nostra carent majore Deum, quam Delphica Sedes 
 " Quod sileat " 
 
 Now Lucan was born about the year 39 im^re 
 t, and died about the year 65 of the Chris- 
 tian iEra, aged only 27. How this Institution 
 came to be broken up is no where mentioned 
 either by the Greek or Roman writers. It has 
 been often said that this oracle ceased to speak 
 
18(i 
 
 when Jesus began to preach, as if liis preaching 
 had miraculously silenced it. But this is not 
 correct if the preceding- statement be true ; nor 
 do we want any miracle to account for its down- 
 fall, except the miraculous effect which the doc- 
 trines of the Apostles always had upon the minds 
 of those who embraced them heartily. If the 
 people of Ephesus had been so impressed by 
 these doctrines as to believe the magical arts 
 practised there to have been a delusion, I do 
 not see why the people of Phocis, where the ora- 
 cle was, and the country round about it, should 
 not have been impressed by the same doctrines 
 (if the same had been preached to them) so as 
 to believe that the oracle at Delphi was a delu- 
 sion also. Certain it is that no christian convert 
 could have consulted this oracle after his con- 
 version, any more than he could have joined in 
 a sacrifice to the Heathen Gods. Every man 
 so converted would have looked upon all those, 
 who had any concern in the management of it 
 as Daemons, or as men impiously putting them- 
 selves in the place of God, who alone had a 
 knowledge of the future. And here I cannot 
 help observing, that Paul had established a 
 large church of christian converts at Corinth, 
 and another at Phillippi, and a third at Thessalo- 
 
JS7 
 
 nica, before the oracle had ceased. Now Pho- 
 cis was situated in the middle of a large tract of 
 country between the three, though at a consider- 
 able distance from each. Here then would be 
 many thousands of persons of the most amiable 
 lives, who not only would have no communication 
 with this oracle but who would hold it, and in- 
 duce others to hold it, in abhorrence ; and my 
 own opinion is, that, whenever it ceased to speak, 
 it did not so cease on account of any miracle for 
 the purpose but because the opinions of these 
 three great bodies of christians which surrounded 
 Phocis having become known, namely, that the 
 answers of the oracle could only have been de- 
 lusion, the people in these parts refused any 
 longer to consult it; and these consultations 
 would be less and less frequent not only in these 
 parts but every where else, as Christianity made 
 its way in the world. 
 
 We have now to mention two or three other 
 great events, which were the effects of the 
 preaching of the Apostles and their successors; 
 but these did not take place till Christianity had 
 attained a greater growth. It was not indeed to 
 be expected either that the Apostles or their suc- 
 cessors should be able to blow away the long- 
 rooted prejudices and superstitions of ages at a 
 
 
INN 
 
 single breath. Ignorance was to be first done 
 away; then knowledge to be put in its place; 
 and then time allowed for conviction to follow. 
 It was sufficient that the gospel had been spread 
 beyond all expectation, and that, wherever it had 
 been spread, it had led to the dereliction of vi- 
 cious habits and to the pursuit of a virtuous 
 course of life. In the first hundred years of the 
 christian iEra it had been spread through the 
 greatest part of Europe, Asia, and Africa, ex- 
 tending from the British Isles to the farthest 
 Indies ; nor was it confined to cities and the most 
 populous places ; it was seen in the towns and 
 in the country villages also. Pliny, who was 
 governor of Pontus, Bithynia and other parts of 
 Asia Minor was obliged to write to the Emperor 
 Trajan concerning those christians, who were 
 then living within his own government, in answer 
 to an Imperial Edict. In this letter he confirms 
 the account which has been just given in all its 
 parts, as far as his knowledge of Asia Minor was 
 concerned. He tells the Emperor, that the 
 christians there were very numerous. They 
 were of all ranks ages and sexes. The conta- 
 gion of their superstition had overspread not 
 only cities, but towns and country villages, but 
 he thought that he might be able to cure it. 
 
189 
 
 They had done mischief to the Pagan religion, 
 inasmuch as the temples of the Gods had begun 
 to be deserted, and the sale of victims for the 
 sacrifices to be diminished, but he hoped to put 
 a stop to these evils He had executed those 
 who had been brought before him on the charge 
 of being christians, whenever they had confessed 
 themselves to have been of that persuasion. 
 The whole sum and substance however of the 
 accusation against these people lay in this, that 
 they were wont upon a set solemn day to meet 
 together before sun-rise, and to sing among 
 themselves a Hymn to Christ, as a God; and 
 oblige themselves by an oath not to commit any 
 wickedness, but to abstain from theft, robbery, 
 adultery, to keep faith, and to restore any pledge 
 entrusted to them. After this they retired, and 
 met again at a common meal, at which there 
 was nothing extraordinary or criminal. 
 
 Such was the state of things at the end of the 
 first century. I shall now pass, as quickly as I 
 can, to the end of the second, and then to the 
 end of the third, that I may introduce in their 
 proper places those other great events, to which 
 I have alluded as so many other effects of the 
 preaching of the Apostles and their successors, 
 or of the doctrines of the new kingdom. Dr. 
 
1 90 
 
 Echard in his Ecclesiastical history winds up the 
 second century in the following words, Vol. 2. 
 p. 539, "The christian religion," says he, "had 
 now diffused itself through all the known parts 
 of the world ; but more fully and triumphantly 
 in the vast Roman Empire, where it was most 
 violently opposed and met with the most terrible 
 conflicts. Christians were now in the cities, 
 towns, and villages, in the camp, in the senate, 
 in the palace and in all places, except the Pagan 
 temples and theatres, and that in such numbers 
 and multitudes that Tertullian assures us, that if 
 they had unanimously retired to any other country 
 the Empire would have become a mere desert 
 and solitude." 
 
 The same writer describes the state of the 
 Christian Church at the end of the third century 
 or at the beginning of the fourth in an equal- 
 ly concise manner. "We are now arrived," 
 says he, (vol. 2. p. 661.) "at the fourth century 
 of the Christian Church, the beginning of which 
 was attended with the most terrible storm and 
 conflicts that ever were known, and with no less 
 glorious conquest and triumph ; so that Christ- 
 ianity first vanquished all human powers, and then 
 obliged them to be real protectors. But before 
 this noble advantage Cod thought fit to permit 
 
 c c 
 
ID I 
 
 such a furious wind as should purge all the rub- 
 bish from his Church and winnow all its chaff. 
 The Christians, with some inconsiderable inter- 
 ruptions, had now enjoyed forty years peace and 
 prosperity, from the end of the Valerian perse- 
 cution ; in which space they increased to an 
 extraordinary degree, filled the imperial palaces, 
 and obtained the best offices in the state ; so 
 that, asEusebius observes, it is impossible to de- 
 scribe the vast assemblies, the numerous congre- 
 gations, and the multitudes that thronged in every 
 city to embrace the faith of Christ ; for which 
 reason they were no longer satisfied with the old 
 edifices, but erected spacious churches from the 
 very foundations, throughout all the cities in the 
 empire." 
 
 I have now brought the reader to the place 
 to which I have been for some time aiming- to 
 carry him. I have now prepared him for those 
 other great events, which followed the silencing- 
 of the heathen oracles, and which the preaching- 
 of the gospel by the Apostles and their succes- 
 sors alone produced. It will be seen by what 
 has been just said, that the Christians at the end 
 of the third century were spread over all the 
 parts of the Roman Empire in such numbers, 
 that they formed a very considerable portion, of 
 
192 
 
 the inhabitants of the known world. I mean by 
 this to say, that the Christians must have had at 
 this particular time, in consequence of their 
 great numbers and the integrity and usefulness 
 of their lives, a great share in the formation of 
 public opinion on many subjects. Now it is well 
 known, that from the very beginning of their as- 
 sociation as a religious body they had, up to the 
 time we are now speaking of, separated them- 
 selves in a manner from the w T orld, and that they 
 had discarded all those opinions and practices of 
 the w r orld, which they believed to be either in 
 themselves or in their effects contrary to the will 
 of God. 
 
 Among the customs then in fashion they had 
 condemned that of going to the theatres, the rea- 
 sons for which may be seen in Tertullian and the 
 early christian writers ; but above all they view- 
 ed with the deepest pain, mourning and horror, 
 some of those spectacles which gave the greatest 
 pleasure to the Roman people. These were 
 those cruel and bloody games, where poor prison- 
 ers of war were exposed in crowded amphithea- 
 tres to fight with wild beasts till one or the other 
 was destroyed, and this solely for the amusement 
 of those who attended them ; nor did they view 
 with less horror those other tragical games. 
 
 \ 
 
L93 
 
 where people of the same description were made 
 to fight for the same purpose, till one of them 
 killed the other, unless perchance one of the 
 combatants, feeling himself sure of being van- 
 quished, appealed to the mercy of the spectators, 
 when these turned their thumbs either to the 
 right or the left, as a signal either to save him 
 or despatch him according as he had afforded 
 them sport. Now the Christians considered the 
 destruction of life at these games as neither more 
 nor less than the most deliberate and wanton 
 murder and that every person, who was volun- 
 tarily a spectator of it, was a sharer in the crime. 
 They considered also that the tendency and effect 
 of the games themselves upon the minds of the 
 spectators was to engender and keep up a fero- 
 cious disposition, which unfitted them for the 
 performance of those tender duties which Christ- 
 ianity enjoined, and lay in the way of their moral 
 improvement. This was the state of things at 
 the time mentioned ; but afterwards, every new 
 year having added thousands of converts to the 
 christian faith, christian principles began to 
 have great weight in the state, and then both of 
 these horrible spectacles began to decline. 
 Here then was another triumph of Christianity 
 over the wicked institutions of the world. 
 
194 
 
 But we are now to have the pleasure of wit- 
 nessing other, and these most important effects 
 of the preaching of the Apostles and their suc- 
 cessors. The two customs just mentioned were 
 wholly of a civil nature. They had not been 
 kept up for any religious purpose whatever; 
 but the tide, which was now likely to sweep 
 them away, began in process of time to acquire 
 so much additional strength from new tributary 
 streams constantly pouring into it from all parts, 
 as to threaten to wash away the foundations, as 
 well as all that then remained of Idolatry itself. 
 And first the augural College at Rome began to 
 totter. The Augurs and Soothsayers there, and 
 every where else where the gospel was preached, 
 began to fall into discredit. No christian con- 
 vert could believe, that God had given to these, 
 or to any other men, the power of prognostica- 
 ting future events, either by the inspection of 
 the entrails of animals slaughtered for the pur- 
 pose, or by the flight of birds ; but that the 
 exercise of their art was an impious presumption 
 that they had more than human knowledge, and 
 a profanation of their intellectual powers. At 
 this time, another effect became apparent. The 
 temples of the Gods began to be visibly deserted ; 
 for no christian would set his foot within them. 
 
193 
 
 and a great portion of the Roman people were 
 then Christians ; among whom, were even per- 
 sons who filled offices in the state. At length it 
 pleased God to convert the heart of Constantine 
 himself, who after the death of Maxentius was 
 sole Emperor. From this moment, a new Era 
 began. Christianity was proclaimed the reli- 
 gion of the State. Thus fell idolatry, which 
 had enchained the minds of men for more than 
 two thousand years and had been productive 
 during all this time of the most degrading, bru- 
 tal, and barbarous practices. It fell not by vio- 
 lence or by the sword, but by the mild and 
 persuasive eloquence of the ministers of the new 
 kingdom. After this, new and great results fol- 
 lowed at different intervals of time. The temple- 
 worship was abolished by law, and the revenues 
 belonging to it were appropriated to other and 
 better purposes. The Priests witli their nume- 
 rous attendants were dismissed. The images of 
 the Gods were either broken or removed. The 
 college of Augurs also was broken up and its 
 revenues and priesthood dealt with in the like 
 manner. The heathen magistrates also were 
 put aside and replaced by Christians ; amd a- 
 mong the vicious customs which received their 
 death blow, were at length those bloody games 
 
96 
 
 of which wc have just spoken, which had so 
 long disgraced the Romans as a civilized people. 
 We come now to the solution of the question, 
 whether Jesus Christ did or did not answer the 
 character which the different prophecies had 
 given of some great personage who was to ap- 
 pear upon earth much about the time when he 
 himself came into the world. We have already 
 seen what those prophecies were. We have 
 also examined their contents, and we have 
 brought the meaning of all of them within such 
 a narrow compass, that it may be expressed in 
 the following words, " that he was to establish 
 a new kingdom upon earth, the administration 
 of which should have a constant tendency to 
 put an end to sin and to produce everlasting 
 iHghteousness." Now was this the case? W r e 
 have only to know two things to be enabled to 
 return an answer ; first, what the moral state of 
 the world was when Jesus Christ came into it, 
 and secondly, what it was afterwards. When 
 he came into the world all men living, except a 
 handful of Jews, were Idolaters. St. Paul 
 speaks of them at this time in the following 
 words. " They were filled with all unrighteous- 
 ness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, 
 maliciousness ; full of envv, murder, debate, 
 
197 
 
 deceit, malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, ha- 
 ters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, invent- 
 ors of evil things, disobedient to parents ; with- 
 out understanding, covenant breakers, without 
 natural affection, implacable, unmerciful." (Ro- 
 mans c. 1. v. 29. 30. 31.) This was a general 
 picture of the lives of the heathens, with a few 
 exceptions at the time mentioned. It was drawn 
 by one, who had had great opportunities of 
 knowing their character. Paul, though a Jew 
 by parentage, was yet bred up among the hea- 
 thens of Cilicia. From this time to his Apostle- 
 ship, he could not have helped knowing the 
 character of others of the same description ; but 
 after he had become an Apostle, whose duty it 
 was in a more especial manner to preach to the 
 heathens, he had still greater opportunities of 
 becoming acquainted with them. Could he 
 have been at Rome, Athens, Corinth, Philippi, 
 Thessalonica, Colosse, Ephesus and the country 
 round about it, and not have known how the 
 heathens were living in all the different ranks or 
 gradations of society ? 
 
 Such then was the moral state of the heathens, 
 when the Apostles of Jesus Christ carried his 
 gospel to them; but what was it afterwards? 
 what was it after they had received the Apostle's 
 
198 
 
 doctrine and fellowship? It is not necessary for 
 me to repeat here by way of proof facts that 
 have been already mentioned, I mean those great 
 and important changes in morals, which I have 
 been careful in specifying as having taken place 
 from the first preaching of the gospel to the time 
 of Constantine the Great. Suffice it therefore to 
 say, that in the course of between three and four 
 centuries idolatry was extirpated, more or less, 
 in the different countries of the then known 
 world ; that wicked institutions of a public na- 
 ture were abolished; and that many millions of 
 individuals were brought to forsake sin and to 
 walk in the paths of righteousness. We are 
 compelled to acknowledge after all these state- 
 ments that no other person than Jesus Christ, 
 of all the persons who have ever been upon our 
 earth, answered the prophecies in question. 
 
 THE END, 
 
 IPSWICH. PltlNTKl) BY S. P1PEK. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 15 line 7 for Oukelos read Onhelos. 
 
 23 line 6 for he read we. 
 
 34 line 1 8 for Zophaz read Zophar. 
 
 39 line 16 for murmer read murmur. 
 
 44 line 14 for Sabceism read Sabaism. 
 
 49 line 3 from the bottom for Sfcrc? read Serug. 
 
 86 line 3 {or give read ^t/y^. 
 
 Part II. 
 118 line 4 from the bottom for oft read in. 
 168 line 18 lor priest read priests. 
 178 line 6 for begun read began. 
 185 lines 5 and 6 from the bottom omit the words before 
 
 Christ. 
 190 line 23 for conflicts read conflict.