indirectly, with various references to the customs and manners of thofe

times.

Now here I obferve, firft, that in fact we do not ever find, that forged or falfe accounts of things fuperabound thus in particularities. There is always fome truth where there are confiderable particularities related, and they always feem to bear fome proportion to one another. Thus there is a great want of the particulars of time, place, and perfons, in Manetho's account of the Egyptian dynafties, Ctefias's of the Affyrian kings, and thofe which the technical chronologers have given of the ancient kingdoms of Greece; and, agreeably thereto, thefe accounts have much fiction and falfhood, with fome truth: whereas Thucydides's hiftory of the Peloponnefian war, and Cæfar's of the war in Gaul, in both which the particulars of time, place, and perfons, are mentioned, are univerfally efteemed true to a great degree of exactness.

Secondly, a forger, or a relater of falfhoods, would be careful not to mention fo great a number of particulars, fince this would be to put into his readers hands criterions whereby to detect him. Thus we may fee one reafon of the fact mentioned in the laft paragraph, and which in confirming that fact confirms the propofition here to be proved.

Thirdly, a forger, or a relater of falfhoods, could fcarce furnish out fuch lifts of particulars. It is eafy to conceive how faithful records kept from time to time by perfons concerned in the tranfactions fhould contain fuch lifts; nay, it is natural to expect them in this cafe, from that local memory which takes ftrong poffeffion of the fancy in those who have been prefent at tranfactions; but it would be a work of the higheft invention, and greatest stretch of genius, to raise from nothing fuch numberless particularities, as are almoft every where to be met with in the fcriptures. The account given of memory, imagination, and invention, in the foregoing part of these obfervations, fets this matter in a strong light.

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There is a circumftance relating to the Gofpels, which deferves ticular notice in this place. St. Matthew and John were apoftles; and therefore, fince they accompanied Chrift, muft have this local memory of his journeyings and miracles. St. Mark was a Jew of Judea, and a friend of St. Peter's; and therefore may either have had this local memory himself, or have written chiefly from St. Peter, who had. But St. Luke, being a profelyte of Antioch, not converted perhaps till feveral years after Chrift's refurrection, and receiving his accounts from different eye-witneffes, as he fays himself, could have no regard to that order of time, which a local memory would fuggeft. Let us fee how the Gofpels anfwer to thefe pofitions. St. Matthew's then appears to be in exact order of time, and to be a regulator to St. Mark's and St. Luke's, fhewing St. Mark's to be nearly fo, but St. Luke's to have little or no regard to the order of time in his acCount of Chrift's miniftry. St. John's Gofpel is, like St Matthew's, in order of time; but as he wrote after all the reft, and with a view only of recording fome remarkable particulars, fuch as Chrift's ac

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tions before he left Judea to go to preach in Galilee, his difputes with the Jews of Jerufalem, and his difcourfes to the apostles at his laft fupper, there was lefs opportunity for his local memory to fhew itself. However, his recording what paffed before Chrift's going into Galilee, might be in part from this caufe, as St. Matthew's omiffion of it was probably from his want of this local memory. For it appears, that St. Matthew refided in Galilee, and that he was not converted till fome time after Chrift's coming thither to preach. Now this fuitableness of the four Gofpels to their reputed authors, in a circumftance of fo fubtle and reclufe a nature, is quite inconfiftent with the fuppofition of fiction or forgery. This remark is chiefly taken from Sir Ifaac Newton's chapter concerning the times of the birth and paffion of Chrift, in his comment on Daniel.

Fourthly, if we could fuppofe the perfons who forged the books of the Old and New Teftaments, to have furnished their readers with the great variety of particulars above mentioned, notwithstanding the two reasons here alledged against it, we cannot however conceive, but that the perfons of those times when the books were published, muft, by the help of thefe criterions, have detected and expofed the forgeries or falihoods. For thefe criterions are so attefted by allowed facts, as at this time, and in this remote corner of the world, to establifh the truth and genuineness of the fcriptures, as may appear even from this chapter, and much more from the writings of commentators, facred critics, and fuch other learned men as have given the hiftorical evidences for revealed religion in detail; and by parity of reason, they would fuffice even now to detect the fraud, were there any whence we may conclude, à fortiori, that they must have enabled the perfons who were upon the spot, when the books were published, to do this; and the importance of many of these particulars, confidered under Prop. VI. would furnish them with abundant motives for this purpofe. And upon the whole, I infer, that the very great number of particulars of time, place, perfons, &c. mentioned in the fcriptures, is a proof of their genuinenefs and truth, even previously to the confideration of the agreement of these particulars with hiftory, natural and civil, and with one another, of which I now proceed to treat.

PROP. IX.

THE AGREEMENT OF THE SCRIPTURES WITH HISTORY, NATURAL AND CIVIL, IS A PROOF OF THEIR GENUINENESS AND

TRUTH.

THUS the hiftory of the fall agrees in an eminent manner both with the obvious facts of labour, forrow, pain, and death, with what we fee and feel every day, and with all our philofophical inquiries into the frame of the human mind, the nature of focial life, and the origin of evil, as may appear from thefe papers amongst other writings of the fame kind. The feveral powers of the little world within a man's own breaft are at variance with one another, as well as those of the great world; we are utterly unable to give a com

plete

plete folution of the origin of the evils which flow from thefe difcords, and from the jarring of the elements of the natural world; and yet there are comfortable hopes, that all evil will be overpowered and annihilated at laft, and that it has an entire fubferviency to good really and ultimately, i. e. though the "ferpent bruise our heel," yet we fhall bruife its head."

It cannot be denied, indeed, but that both the hiftory of the creation, and that of the fall, are attended with great difficulties. But then they are not of fuch a kind as intimate them to be a fiction contrived by Mofes. It is probable that he fet down the traditional account, fuch as he received it from his ancestors; and that this account contains the literal truth in fhort, though fo concealed in certain particulars through its shortnefs, and fome figurative expreffions made use of, that we cannot yet, perhaps never fhall, interpret it fatisfactorily. However, Mr. Whifton's conjectures concerning the fix days creation, seem to deserve the attention of future inquiries; and there is great plaufibility in fuppofing with him, that the first chapter of Genefis contains a narrative of the fucceffion of visible ap

pearances.

One may suppose alfo, that there is a typical and prophetic fenfe to be discovered hereafter, relative perhaps to the fix millenniums, which are to precede a seventh fabbatical one; and that the words are more accommodated to this sense than to the literal one, in fome places, which I think holds in many of the prophecies that have double fenfes. However, there is no appearance of any motive to a fraud, either in the history of the creation or fall, nor any mark of one. And the fame fhortnefs and obfcurity which prevents our being able to explain, feems alfo to preclude objections. If we fuppofe thefe hiftories to have been delivered by traditional explanations that accompanied hieroglyphical delineations, this would perhaps account for fome of the difficulties, and help us to conceive how the hiftories may be exact, and even decypherable hereafter. The appellations of the tree of life, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and of the ferpent, feem to favour this fuppofition. At the utmoft, one can make no objections against these hiftories, but what are consistent with the first and loweft of the fuppofitions above mentioned concerning divine infpiration.

Natural history bears a strong teftimony to Mofes's account of the deluge, and fhews that it must have been univerfal, or nearly fo, however difficult it may be to us, either to find fources for fo great a body of waters, or methods of removing them. That a comet had fome fhare in this event, seems highly probable from what Dr. Halley and Mr. Whiston have observed of this matter: I guess also partly from the fuppofition, that fome part of the tail of a comet was then attracted by the earth, and depofited there, partly from the great fhortening of human life after the flood, and partly from the fermenting and inebriating after the flood, that a great change was made at the time of the flood in the conftitution of natural bodies, and particularly in that of water. And it feems not improbable to me, that an enlargement of the refpective fpheres of attraction and repulfion,

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repulfion, and of the force of these, in the small particles of water, might greatly contribute to account for fome circumftances of the deluge mentioned by Mofes. For, by the increase of the sphere, and force of attraction, the waters fufpended in the air or firmament in the form of a mift or vapour before the flood (see Gen. ii. 5, 6.) might be collected into large drops, and fall upon the earth; and their fall might give occafion to rarer watery vapours, floating at great diftances from the earth in the planetary and intermundane spaces, to approach it, be in like manner condenfed into large drops, and fall upon it. This might continue for forty days, the force with which the rare vapours approached the earth decreafing all the latter part of that time, and being at the end of it overpowered by the contrary force of the vapours raised from the earth, now covered with water, by the action of the fun, and of the wind, mentioned Gen. viii. 1. For it is evident that the wind has great power in raifing watery particles, i. e. putting them into a ftate of repulfion; and the wind here confidered would be far ftronger than that which now prevails in the Pacific Ocean, fince the whole globe was one great ocean during the height of the deluge. The ceffation of the rain, and the increafe of the sphere, and force of repulfion, above fuppofed, would in like manner favour the afcent of vapours from this great ocean. And thus the precedent vapours might be driven by the fubfequent ones into the planetary and intermundane fpaces, beyond the earth's attraction. However, fince the quantity of the fubfequent vapours muft perpetually decrease by the decreafe of the furface of the ocean, a limit would be fet to the afcent of the vapours, as was before to their defcent.

According to this hypothefis, the ftate of the waters, which was fuperinduced at the deluge, may both be the caufe of the rainbow, i. e. of drops of a proper fize for this purpofe, and exempt us from the danger of a fecond deluge. For a fresh intermixture of like cometical particles could not now fuperinduce a new state. The rainbow may therefore be a natural fign and evidence," that the waters fhall no more become a flood to deftroy the earth."

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As to the breaking up the fountains of the great deep, mentioned Gen. vii. 11, though no fatisfactory account has been given of this hitherto, yet furely there is great plaufibility in fuppofing, that the increased attraction of a comet, confequent upon its near approach to the earth, might have fome fuch effect, and at the fame time contribute to produce fuch changes in the earth, as a mere deluge could

not.

Civil hiftory affords likewife many evidences which fupport the Mofaic account of the deluge. Thus, firft, we find from Pagan authors, that the tradition of a flood was general, or even univerfal. Secondly, the paucity of mankind, and the vaft tracts of uninhabited land, which are mentioned in the accounts of the firft ages, fhew that mankind are lately fprung from a small stock, and even fuit the time affigned by Mofes for the flood. Thirdly, the great number of fmall kingdoms and petty ftates, in the first ages, and the late rife of the great empires of Egypt, Affyria, Babylon, &c,

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concur to the fame purpose. Fourthly, the invention and progress of arts and sciences concur likewife. And this laft favours the Mofaic hiftory of the antediluvians; for as he mentions little of their arts, fo it appears, from the late invention of them after the flood, that those who were preserved from it were poffeffed of few.

It has been objected to the Mofaic hiftory of the deluge, That the ark could not contain all the animals which are now found upon the earth, with the proper provifions for them during the time of the deluge. But this, upon an accurate computation, has been proved to be otherwife; fo that what was thought an objection, is even fome evidence. For it is extremely improbable, that a perfon who had feigned the particular of the ark, fhould have come fo near the proper dimenfions. It is to be confidered here, that the feveral fpecies of both plants and brute animals, which differ from each other by fmall degrees, feem to be multiplied every day by the varieties of climates, culture, diet, mixture, &c. alfo, that if we fuppose an univerfal deluge, the ark, with the entrance of the animals, &c. feem neceffary alfo. we can trace up the firft imperfect rudiments of the art of fhipping amongst the Greeks, there could be no fhipping before the flood; confequently no animals could be faved. Nay, it is highly improbable, that even men, and domeftic animals, could be faved, not to mention wild beafts, ferpents, &c. though we should fuppofe that the antediluvians had fhipping, unless we fuppofe alfo they had a divine intimation and directions about it, fuch as Mofes relates; which would be to give up the caufe of infidelity at once.

For as

It has been objected likewife, That the Negro nations differ fo much from the Europeans, that they do not feem to have defcended from the fame ancestors. But this objection has no folid foundation. We cannot prefume to fay what alterations climate, air, water, foil, cuftoms, &c. can or cannot produce. It is no ways to be imagined, that all the national differences in complexion, features, make of the bones, &c. require fo many different originals; on the contrary, we have reafon from experience to affert, that various changes of this kind are made by the incidents of life, juft as was obferved in the laft paragraph of plants and brute animals. And, with respect to the different complexions of different nations, Dr. Mitchell has fhewn with great appearance of truth, Phil. Tranf. No. 474, that thefe arife from external influences. It will confirm this, if it be found, that the Jews, by refiding in any country for fome generations, approach to the complexion of the original natives. At the fame time we muft obferve from the hiftory of diftempers, that acquired difpofitions may be tranfmitted to the defcendants for fome generations; which is perhaps one of the great truths intimated in the account of the fall. And thus the children of Negroes may be black, though born and bred up in a country where the original natives are not

fo.

A third objection is, That it is difficult to account for the original of the Americans, and for the wild beafts and ferpents that are found in that quarter of the world, according to the Mofaic hiftory. But to this one may answer, first, that America may be

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now