now contiguous to the North-eaft part of Afia. Secondly, that it might have been contiguous to other parts of our great continent for fome centuries after the deluge, though that contiguity be fince broken off. Thirdly, that the firft failors who ventured out of the Streights, or others, might be driven by ftrefs of weather and their own ignorance, firft within the influence of the trade-winds, and then to fome part of America. One can offer nothing certain on either fide, in refpect of thefe points. However, it feems to me, that many cuftoms found amongst the Negroes and Americans are ftronger evidences that they are of the fame original with the Afiatics and Europeans, than any which have yet appeared to the contrary. And, upon the whole, I conclude certainly, that the Mofaic account of the deluge is much confirmed by both natural and civil hiftory, if we embrace the fift and loweft hypothefis concerning divine infpiration; and has very strong prefumptions for it, according to the fecond or third.

If we could fuppofe the high mountains in South America not to have ben immerged in the deluge, we might the more eafily account for the wild beafts, poisonous ferpents, and curious birds of America. Might not the ark be driven round the globe during the deluge? And might not Noah be aware of this, and obferve that it had been immerged fifteen cubits in water? And may not the Mofaic account be partly a narrative of what Noah faw, partly the conclufions which he muft naturally draw from thence? Thus the tops of fome of the highest mountains might efcape, confiftently with the Mofaic account. The future inquiries of natural hiftorians may perhaps determine this point.

The next great event recorded in Genefis is the confufion of languages. Now the Mofaic account of this appears highly probable, if we firft allow that of the deluge. For it feems impoffible to explain how the known language fhould arife from one ftock. Let any one try only in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Enghh. The changes which have happened in languages fince hiftory has been certain, do not at all correfpond to a fuppofition of this kind. There is too much method and art in the Greek and Latin tongues, for them to have been the inventions of a rude and barbarous people; and they differ too much from Hebrew, Arabic, &c. to have flowed from them without defign. As to the Chinese, it is difficult to make any probable conjectures about it; partly from its great heterogeneity in refpect of other languages, partly becaufe learned men have not yet examined it accurately. However, the most probable conjecture feems to be, that it is the language of Noah's poftdiluvian pofterity; the leaft probable one, that it could have flowed naturally from any known language, or from the fame ftock with any; which it muft have done, if we admit the deluge, and yet reject the confufion of languages.

The difperfion of the three fons of Noah into different countries, related in the tenth chapter of Genefis, comes next under confideration, being a confequence, not the cause, of the diversity of languages,

Now

Now here antiquaries and learned men feem to be fully agreed, that the Mofaic account is confirmed, as much as can be expected in our prefent ignorance of the ftate of ancient nations. And it is to be obferved of all the articles treated of under this propofition, that we who live in the North-west corner of Europe, lie under great difadvantages in fuch refearches. However, fince thofe who have ftudied the Oriental languages and hiftories, or have travelled into the Eaftern parts, have made many difcoveries of late years, which have furprifingly confirmed the Scripture accounts, one may hope and prefume, that if either our learned men be hereafter fuffered to have free access to those parts, or the natives themselves become learned, both which are furely probable in the highest degree, numberlefs unexpected evidences for the truth of the Scripture hiftory will be brought to light.

Let us next come to the ftate of religion in the ancient poftdiluvian world, according to Mofes and the fucceeding facred hiftorians. The poftdiluvian patriarchs then appear to have worshipped the one Supreme Being by facrifices, but in a fimple manner, and to have had frequent divine communications. By degrees their pofterity fell off to idolatry, worshipped the fun, moon, and stars, deified dead men, and polluted themselves with the moft impure and abominable inftitutions. The Ifraelites alone were kept to the worship of the true God, and even they were often infected by their idolatrous neighbours. Now all this is perfectly agreeable to what we find in Pagan hiftory. The idolatries of the Pagans are acknowledged on all hands. It appears alfo from Pagan hiftory that they grew up by degrees, as the Scriptures intimate. All the Pagan religions appear to have had the worship of one God fuperior to the reft, as their common foundation. They all endeavoured to render him propitious by facrifice; which furely cannot be an human invention, nor a cuftom, which, if invented in one nation, would be readily propagated to another. They all joined mediatorial and inferior, alfo local and tutelar deities to the one God. And they all taught the frequency of divine communications. Hence the Pagan religions appear to be merely the degenerated offspring of patriarchal revelations, and to infer them as their caufe. Hence the pretences of kings, lawgivers, priefts, and great men, to infpiration, with the credulity of the multitude. That there had been divine communications, was beyond difpute; and therefore all that reluctance to admit them, which appears in the prefent age, was over-ruled. At first there were no impoftors. When therefore they did arife, it would not be eafy for the multitude to diftinguish between those who had really divine communications, and thofe who only pretended to them; till at laft, all real inspiration having ceafed amongst the Gentile world, their feveral religions kept poffeffion merely by the force of education, fraud in the priefts, and fear in the people; and even thefe fupports began to fail at laft, about the time of Chrift's coming. And thus many things, which have been thought to weaken the evidences for the Scripture accounts, are found to ftrengthen them, by flowing naturally from that ftate of religion in ancient times, and from that only which the Scripture delivers.

A far

A farther confirmation of the fame Scripture accounts of the flood, dispersion of mankind, and patriarchal revelations, may be had from the following very remarkable particular: it appears from hiftory, that the different nations of the world have had, cæteris paribus, more or lefs knowledge, civil and religious, in proportion as they were nearer to, or had more intimate communication with, Egypt, Palæftine, Chaldæa, and the other countries, that were inhabited by the most eminent perfons amongst the first defcendants of Noah, and by those who are faid in Scripture to have had particular revelations made to them by God; and that the first inhabitants of the extreme parts of the world, reckoning Palæftine as the centre, were in general mere favages. Now all this is utterly inexplicable upon the footing of infidelity, of the exclufion of all divine communications. Why fhould not human nature be as fagacious, and make as many difcoveries, civil and religious, at the Cape of Good Hope, or in America, as in Egypt, Palæftine, Mefopotamia, Greece, or Rome? why fhould Palatine fo far exceed them all, as it did confeffedly? Allow the Scripture accounts, and all will be clear and eafy. Mankind, after the flood, were firft difperfed from the plains of Mefopotamia: fome of the chief heads of families fettled there, in Palæftine, and in Egypt. Palestine had afterwards extraordinary divine illuminations bestowed upon its inhabitants the Ifaelites and Jews. Hence its inhabitants had the pureft notions of God, and the wifeft civil eftablishment. Next after them come the Egyptians and Chaldeans, who, not being removed from their firit habitations, and living in fertile countries watered by the Nile, Tigri, and Euphrates, may be fuppofed to have preferved more both or the antediluvian and poftdiluvian revelations, alfo to have had more leifure invention, and a more free communication with the Ifraelites and Jews, than any other nations: whereas thofe fmall parties, which were driven farther and farther from each other into the extremes of heat and cold, entirely occupied in providing neceflarics for themfelves, and alfo cut off by rivers, mountains, or diftance, from all communication with Palaeftine, Egypt, and Chaldæa, would lofe much of their original stock, and have neither inclination nor ability to invent more.

Let us now confider the hiftory of particular facts, and inquire what atteftations we can produce from Pagan hiftory for the Scripture accounts of Abraham, and his pofterity the Ifraelites and Jews. We cannot expect much here; partly becaufe thefe things are of a private nature, if compared to the univerfal deluge; partly because the Pagan hiftory is either deficient, or grofsly corrupted with fable and fiction, till we come to the times of the declenfion of the kingdoms of Ifrael and Judah. However, fome faint traces there are in ancient times, and many concurring circumftances in fucceeding ones; and, as foon as the Pagan records come to be clear and certain, we have numerous and ftrong confirmations of the facred hiftory. Thus the hiftory of Abraham feems to have tranfpired in fome measure. It is alfo probable, that the ancient Brachmans were of his pofterity by Keturah, that they derived their name from him, and worshipped the true God only. Mofes is mentioned by many Heathen writers, and

the

the accounts which they give of his conducting the Ifraelites from Egypt to Canaan are fuch as might be expected. The authors lived fo long after Mofes, and had fo little opportunity or inclination to know the exact truth, or to be particular, that their accounts cannot invalidate the Scripture hiftory, though they do a little confirm it. The expulfion of the Canaanites by Jofhua feems to have laid the foundation of the kingdom of the Shepherds in the Lower Egypt mentioned by Manetho, and of the expulfion of the natives into the Upper Egypt; who, after fome centuries, drove the shepherds back again into Canaan about the time of Saul. The Canaanites mentioned by St. Auftin and others, upon the coaft of Afric, may be of the fame original. See Newton's Chronology, page 198. We may conclude from the book of Judges, that there were many petty fovereignties in the neighbourhood of Canaan; and it appears from Pagan hiftory, as Sir Ifaac Newton has rectified it, that the first great empire, that of Egypt, was not yet rifen. When David fubdued the Philiftines or Phænicians, Cadmus and others feem to have fled into Greece, and to have carried letters with them, which the Philiftines had probably learnt, about a generation before, from the copy of the law found in the ark taken from the Ifraelites. After Solomon's temple was built, the temple of Vulcan in Egypt, and others in other places, began to be built in imitation of it; juft as the oracles of the Heathens were imitations of God's communications to the Ifraelites, and particularly of that by Urim and Thummim. Shifhak, who came out of Egypt in the fifth year of Rehoboam, is the Sefoftris of Herodotus; and this point, being fettled, becomes a capital pin, upon which all the Pagan chronology depends. Hence Herodotus's lift of the Egyptian kings is made probable and confiftent. As we advance farther to the Affyrian monarchy, the Scripture accounts agree with the profane ones rectified; and when we come ftill farther to the era of Nabonaffar, and to the kings of Babylon and Perfia, which are pofterior to this æra and recorded in Ptolemy's canon, we find the agreement of facred and profane hiftory much more exact, there being certain criterions in the profane history for fixing the facts related in it. And it is remarkable, that not only the direct relations of the hiftorical books, but the indirect, incidental mention of things in the prophecies, tallies with true chronology; which furely is fuch an evidence for their genuineness and truth, as cannot be called in queftion. And, upon the whole, it may be obferved, that the facred history is diftinct, methodical, and confiftent throughout; the profane, utterly deficient in the first ages, obfcure and full of fictions in the fucceeding ones; and that it is but just clear and precife in the principal facts about the time that the facred history ends. So that this corrects and regulates that, and renders it intelligible in many inftances, which muft otherwife be given up as utterly inexplicable. How then can we fuppofe the facred hiftory not to be genuine and true, or a wicked impofture to rife up, and continue not only undifcovered, but even to increase to a moft audacious height, in a nation which of all others kept the most exact accounts of time? I will add one remark more :

This

This fame nation, who may not have loft fo much as one year from the creation of the world to the Babylonifh captivity, as foon as they were deprived of the affiftance of prophets, became most inaccurate in their methods of keeping time, there being nothing more erroneous than the accounts of Jofephus, and the modern Jews, from the time of Cyrus, to that of Alexander the Great; notwithstanding that all the requifite affiftances might eafily have been borrowed from the neighbouring nations, who now kept regular annals. Hence it appears, that the exactness of the facred history was owing to the divine affiftance.

It is an evidence in favour of the Scriptures, allied to thofe which I am here confidering, that the manners of the perfons mentioned in the Scriptures have that fimplicity and plainnefs which is alfo afcribed to the first ages of the world by Pagan writers; and both of them concur, by this, to intimate the novelty of the then prefent race, i. e. the deluge.

Befides thefe atteftations from profane hiftory, we may confider the Jews themselves as bearing teftimony to this day, in all countries of the world, to the truth of their ancient hiftory, i. e. to that of the Old and New Testaments. Allow this, and it will be eafy to fee how they fhould fill perfift in their attachment to that religion, those laws, and thofe prophecies, which fo manifeftly condemn them, both in paft times, and in the prefent. Suppofe any confiderable alteration made in their ancient hiftory, i. e. any fuch as may answer the purpofes of infidelity, and their prefent ftate will be inexplicable.

The books of the New Teftament are verified by hiftory, in a manner ftill more illuftrious; thefe books being written, and the facts mentioned therein tranfacted, during the times of Auguftus, Tiberius, and the fucceeding Cæfars. Here we may

obferve,

First, that the incidental mention of the Roman emperors, governors of Judæa, and the neighbouring provinces, the Jewish highpriefts, fects of the Jews, and their cuftoms, of places, and of transactions, is found to be perfectly agreeable to the hiftories of those times. And as the whole number of thefe particulars is very great, they may be reckoned a full proof of the genuineness of the books of the New Teftament, it being impoffible for a perfon who had forged them, i. e. who was not an eye and ear witnefs, and otherwife concerned with the tranfactions as the books require, but who had invented many hiftories and circumftances, &c. not to have been deficient, fuperfluous, and erroneous. No man's memory or knowledge is fufficient for fuch an adaptation of feigned circumftances, and efpecially where the mention is incidental. Let any one confider how often the beft poets fail in this, who yet endeavour not to vary from the manners and customs of the age of which they write; at the fame time that poetry neither requires nor admits fo great a minuteness in the particular circumftances of time, place, and perfons, as the writers of the New Teftament have defcended to naturally and incidentally.

Secondly,