CH. XVIII, authority of the book of Genefis: which gives occafion to the Atheists to look upon it no otherwise than as learned men do on the greatest part of legends.

The prophetical spirit acts in two manners.

The firft is, by way of revelation, in refpect of thofe things the prophet hath no knowledge of. Thus the Evangelift St. John had foretold thofe events which we read of in the Revelations for thofe events being all hidden under the fhadows of futurity, it was impoffible for him to have foretold them, unless the spirit of God had immediately revealed them to him.

The fecond is, by way of direction, in refpect of those things with which the Prophets was himself acquainted, either because he was an eye-witness of them himself, or because he learnt them from those who were fo.

Now this direction of the fpirit confifts in the guiding the Prophet fo as that he may write of his fubject, just as it was either fpoken or done, Thus the Evangelifts St. Matthew and St. John drew up an abridgment of thofe fermons of our Saviour which they had heard, and of thofe miracles which they had feen.

And thus St. Luke and St. Mark have written of thofe things which they had heard from thofe that were eye-witneffes of them, as St. Luke particularly tells us.

Now I affirm, that when Mofes wrote the book of Genefis, he had only the fecond fort of prophetical influences, and not the first; although in our difputes against Atheists, to convince them by arguments from matters of fact, we may confider him only as an hiftorian, who might have written his book without any other particular direction, and might have preserved it in the memory of those ancient events which were then generally known.

Now, what fide foever Divines may take in their disputes against the Atheists, I may eafily establish my affertion: firft, because it is not neceffary to fuppofe an entire revelation, where tradition being diftin&t enough, is fufficient to preferve a clear remembrance of all thofe facts,

Now it cannot be denied, but that the tradition concerning the creation and the promife of the Meffiah was of this nature, efpecially if we confider the little extent of it, and the immediate fucceffion of Mofes's ancestors, down to himself,

Secondly, if Abraham's and Jacob's travels through fo many places were, as I have obferved already, very useful to give them a further view of the common belief of all the feveral nations defcended from Noah, and of their agreement in this tradition, it were unjust to fuppofe that Mofes's forty years fojourning in the country of Midian, and that too when he was forty years old, and confequently had that ripeness of age and judgment as is fitteft for fuch obfervations, did not ferve to acquaint him. with the feveral paffages he records of Abraham, as well as of the feveral divifions of his pofterity.

Thirdly, we may obferve in the book of Genefis a way of writing very different from that which we fee in the greatest part of Exodus, and in the following books; for whereas God fpeaks to him in those latter books, which he always did vivâ voce. (And the Jews have wifely

obferved,

obferved, that herein confifted Mofes's advantage above the other Prophets, to whom God was used to fpeak only in dreams and visions.) He ufes commonly thofe words, And the Lord fpake unto me. He marks out the place where God fpoke to him, as well as the time and occafion of God's fpeaking to him, which he does not in his book of Genefis.

Fourthly, the book of Genefis is not divided into feveral revelations, as all prophecies are, wherein the feveral returns of the holy Spirit of God are all exactly fet down; which was abfolutely neceffary, not only to eafe the reader, who might be tired if he was to carry a long feries of predictions in his mind at once, as if it were only one fingle vifion or revelation, but alfo to condefcend to the nature of the minds of men: for, according to the rules of probability, we cannot suppose them to be filled with fo many differing ideas at the fame time, but a great confufion must neceffarily follow.

But fuppofing that these obfervations fhould be thought infufficient, yet thofe that follow will feem capable of convincing the minds of all. There are in the book of Genefis certain characters of its being written in that way which I fpeak of. Firft, one needs only juft look into that book, and he will fee that the ancienteft facts, which are thofe of which we most deure a particular account, are there defcribed in a very short and concise manner. The hiftory of 1656years is all contained in eight chapters; there are no actions defcribed therein with more circumftances than only fome few of the most important, the remembrance whereof was ftill fresh amongst them. The hiftory of Lamech's polygamy, and the murders of which he was guilty, is there fet down fo compendiously, that it is very obscure.

Secondly, one fees that he speaks more copiously of all that had been tranfacted near his time: he explains and mentions all the particulars and circumftances thereof. He speaks fo fhortly of Melchifedeck, that it is doubted to this day whether he was not the Patriarch Shem, or fome other faithful worshipper of the true God fettled in the land of Canaan; whereas he fets down at length all the particulars of the hiftory of Abraham, of Ifaac, and of Jacob, whose last oracles, which he spoke on his death-bed, he carefully records.

Thirdly, he defcribes with the fame exactnefs all the genealogies of the Edomites, their feveral tribes, and the names of their heads and captains, &c. as when he speaks of thofe of the people of Ifrael, which indeed he could eafily do, having lived forty years of his life amongst thofe nations, as well as he had other forty years amongst the Ifraelites.

Thofe who maintain the contrary opinion, muft of neceffity fuppofe, firft, That tradition is of no ufe at all to preferve the idea of any illuftrious action.

Secondly, That in Mofes's time there were none who knew any parti culars of the hiftory of the flood, &c. of the tower of Babel, of the divifion of tongues; though we fee plainly, both by the nature of the facts themfelves, in which all nations were concerned, and by Mofes his defcription, that the generality of mankind were fufficiently inftructed in them already.

Thirdly, It must be fuppofed that Mofes hath fet down the manner

how

how that tradition was infallibly preferved fo carefully to no purpose, though he took notice of all the circumstances neceflary for that effect. Fourthly, They must suppose that Mofes, whilft he fojourned in the land of Midian, heard nothing either of their original and pedigree, nor yet of the other neighbouring nations who were defcended from Abraham, although all thefe nations valued themfelves upon their being defcended from that Patriarch, and kept up their feveral pedigrees, by which they could trace their original with the fame care as the Ifraelites did theirs, becaufe they had the fame pretenfions that the Ifraelites had. Laftly, We muft abfolutely take away the authority of the oracles recorded by Mofes in Genefis. Thefe oracles promife to Abraham the poffeffion of the land of Canaan for his pofterity, and threaten the Canaanites with feveral curfcs. Jacob by his will bequeathed Sichem to the tribe of Jofeph: he exprefsly marks out the country which one of the tribes was to poffefs; he gives a defcription of the character and rank of every tribe. The accomplishment of thofe oracles, though never fo exac and admirable, is of no manner of confequence, if we fuppofe that these particular predictions were abfolutely unknown in Abraham's family; whereas their accomplishment, which he carefully deferibes from time to time, is the moft folid demonftration which can be desired, to establish the divinity of thofe revelations, as well as of Mofes his other books,

С НА Р. XIX.

An Anfwer to an Objection which may be drawn from the Hiftories of the EGYPTIANS and CHALDEANS, concerning the Antiquity of the World.

WHA

WHAT I have already reprefented is fufficient to prove that Mofes writ nothing in the book of Genefis, but what was then generally known by all the world. And I know nothing that can be objected with any probability, but what we read in the most ancient authors concerning the Egyptian and Chaldean hiftory, and in the modern ones concerning that of China. We must then examine both the one and the other with attention, that we may leave no difficulties in fo important a fubject.

All that the Atheifts can object against the hiftory of Mofes, concerning the epocha of the creation of the world as he had fixed it, is what Diodorus Siculus relates, that in the time of Alexander the Great there were fome Egyptians that reckoned up three and twenty thousand years from the reign of the fun to Alexander's time, and that thofe who reckoned leaft, yet reckoned fomewhat more than ten thousand years; which account exceeds the antiquity which Mofes afcribes to the world in the. book of Genefis, by many ages, where he reprefents the creation as a fact which happened fome few years more than two thousand five hundred

before

before he wrote that book. How then did Mofes write of things univeraby fally acknowledged by all the world? And they may here further aggravate what the fame Diodorus hath obferved, that the hiftory of the Egyptians was not written like that of the Greeks; amongst whom, those who came firft wrote their own hiftories, every man according to his own private humour, which caufed that great variety amongst their hiftorians: whereas amongst the Egyptians none wrote but by public authority, the priests alone having that particular employment referved for them, to write their hiftories in their feveral generations.

This objection is eafily confuted in two words: in fhort, how could the Egyptians have always had men to write their hiftories by public authority in all their fucceeding generations, feeing there were, as Diodorus obferves, fuch ftrange and vaft divifions amongst themselves? If there were but two or three ages difference, more or lefs, nobody would look upon it as a material exception against the hiftory of fuch a long series of time; but who can imagine that thofe men who differ no less than thirteen thousand years in their accounts of the duration of the fame interval of time, had yet certain hiftories upon which these things were grounded?

This fhews fufficiently, that as Varro, the greateft fcholar the Romans ever had, hath divided antiquity into fabulous and hiftorical, which he begins from the first Olympiad, leaving all which went before to the fabulous part, fo we muft of neceffity make the fame diftinction in the matter of the antiquities of Egypt.

But I intend to do fomething more, and to confider this Egyptian history with a little more attention; out of which, I think, I may draw good arguments to confute the vanity of thofe paffages in it oppofed to Mofes, and to confirm the authority of his book of Genefis, and the truth of the chiefeft tranfactions recorded in it.

I fhail not at prefent take notice, that although the Egyptians, about their latter times, have maintained that the elements were eternal, yet they have fufficiently acknowledged that the world had a beginning, feeing they make no mention of any thing before their thirty Dynafties, which in all did at the most amount to no more than 36525 years.

Neither do I think neceffary to mention here that they have fufficiently acknowledged the beginning of mankind, fecing they held that men were first born in Egypt; although they endeavoured to make good their pretenfions by that fottifh affertion of the eafy production of frogs out of the mud of their fens, as the fame Diodorus tells us.

But there are three things which I must here take notice of, because they do moft certainly decide the question.

The first is, That by that long reign which they afcribe to their gods and heroes, there is nothing eife meant but the motion of the ftars, and nothing like a real kingdom. That prodigious number of years does not relate to the duration of the world, as if it had fubfifted so long; but to the return of the fun, and the moon, and the five other planets, and of the heavens, to the fame point from whence, according to the opinion of the Egyptians, they first began their courfe: in a word, it is only the great aftronomical year, about which, as Ariftotle tells us, the ancients have had fo many differeut opinions, and the Egyptians have fo

little agreed, as the hiftory of their antiquities, related by Diodorus, plainly fhews. One thing evidently proves what I here alledge, which is, that they have reckoned up but fifteen Dynafties to Jupiter, the laft of the heroes, that is to fay, but fifteen perfons to Jupiter, who is Ham the third ion of Noah.

This comes very near Mofes's calculation, who reckoneth Noah as the tenth man from Adam: for it is very likely that thofe ignorant people, after a long procefs of time, have joined Cain and Ahel with Shem and Japhet, and Mifraim the fon of Ham, which makes up the fixteen Dy nafties; except we choose to say that the Egyptians thought fit to join the feven generations of Cain to thofe before the flood, which comes very near to the fame account. All this, according to the fantaftic notions of those ancient people who deified the first men, and gave them afterwards the names of fome ftars, to imprefs upon their pofterity a greater veneration for them; and in particular, according to the groundless imagination of the Egyptians, who were refolved to maintain that the first men were formed in their own country. And in fhort we find that thofe Dynafties for the moft part, if we except thofe of Vulcan and of the fun, have been but of a very fhort continuance, and even fhorter than that which Mofes afcribes to the lives of the ancient Patriarchs, which we have already fet down.

The fecond thing that is obfervable in the confutation of this falfe antiquity, if one would take what the Egyptians have related of their Dynafties before Menes, and Jupiter the last of their heroes, in a hiftorical fenfe, is, that there are ftill fufficient marks of the newness of the world, as Mofes hath defcribed it, in the remaining fragments of the true Egyp tian hiftory.

First, We fee that Egypt hath conftantly carried the name of Ham amongst the Gentiles, as well as in the holy Scriptures. It was called fo in Plutarch's time: the Egyptian Thebes was called Hammon No Ezech. 30. which is the name of the Egyptian Jupiter, as the heathen authors Herodotus and Plutarch teftify. Now it is vifible that all this was for no other reafon but because Egypt had fallen to the fhare of Ham, Noah's third fon, who fettled there, and whofe pofterity did afterwards people Africa, and gave it their feveral names, as Mofes particularly obferves.

Secondly, One fees that Egypt hath more particularly borne the name of Mizraim, which it bears ftill, and which was given to it, in refpect of one of its parts, because of Mizraim the fon of Ham. And it would be ridiculous for one to imagine that those characters given by Mofes, had been allowed of in the world, except he had had good grounds to defcribe their original in the fame manner as he hath already done.

Thirdly, One fees that all the Dynasties of Egypt, that is to fay, all the feveral branches of the kings who have reigned over the feveral parts of Egypt, did all acknowledge Menes for their common founder.

This Menes being the fame with that Mizraim of Mofes, as I fhall fhew hereafter; it is visible that the Egyptians, who in all likelihood have afcribed to Menes what they might more juftly have afcribed to Jupiter Hammon, because they would diftinguish their kings from heroes, have exactly followed the ideas of Mofes, in reprefenting one as the com

mon