have taken a north-westerly course towards Europe, passing the Caspian and the Black Sea, north, and many of them crossing the Wolga, and continuing their route, in process of time, along Poland and Germany, up the Danube, and other rivers of magnitude.” a

If we admit the doctrine of the Triads, "That the first settlers of Britain came hither after a long and devious voyage by sea;" in that case we may assert, that there did not exist any particular nautical obstacle to prevent a colony coming from Asia to Britain. A modern author asserts, that they were the precursors of the Phoenician mariners. About the period of their migration from Asia, the art of navigation had attained a degree of perfection which is astonishing. Sesostris, king of Egypt, had built, not only a formidable navy of 400 ships for his expedition against Colchis, but also a very large vessel of cedar 280 cubits long; being nearly twice as large as any of the first-rates of Great Britain. The Phoenicians, as we have noticed, traded in tin from this country, which article was used by the Midianites and Arabians, as stated by the authority of the ancients. The learned Fuller asserts, that the Phoenicians were well acquainted with the use of the magnet, without the aid of which the voyage could not easily be performed; but the knowledge and use of which they endeavoured by all possible means to conceal from others. Dr. Hide, in his Religion of the ancient Persians, shows, that the Chaldean Jews mention the loadstone in their oldest private writings, and that the Arabians understood its uses; who, at the present day, by the help of it, still traverse extensive deserts, nor can any of them tell when this practice commenced. What Homer says is in point:

a Well's Geography, published by Taylor.

"No pilots' aid Phoenician vessels need,
Themselves instinct with sense securely speed;
Endued with wondrous skill, untaught they share
The purpose and the will of those they bear;
To fertile realms and distant climates go,

And, where each realm and city lies, they know :
Swiftly they fly, and through the pathless sea,

Though wrapt in clouds and darkness, find their way."

Odyss. lib. viii.

The Ionians of Asia Proper, the sons of Javan, were expert mariners, and the first among the Greeks that undertook long voyages, which they performed in galleys of fifty oars. In the time of Cyrus the Great, they were in the bay of Cadiz; a and soon after they defeated the combined fleets of the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians, consisting of an hundred and twenty sail. early acquainted with the coasts and islands of Europe. The voyagers from Asia to Britain could call and rest at several places, such as Tan-is in lower Egypt, Algiers in Africa, Gades in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal, &c. so that the difficulty of the voyage, with a compass on board, appears not to have been very considerable.

They were

The exact period when this colony came and established itself in Britain is not agreed among writers on this subject. Davies, the author of the Celtic Researches, intimates, that" Spain, and even Britain, were probably colonized by those who were born within a century of the flood." Hughes, in his Hora Britannicæ, conjectures, that "the world in general, and its continents and islands, may be supposed to be well inhabited before the time of Moses, and our island to have received its first inhabitants within five centuries of the flood." He asserts, that the Cymry were in possession of the island,

or rather some part of it, long before the time Homer flourished in Greece, and Samuel was prophet in Israel, and Sylvius Æneas was living in Italy. He considers himself supported in this opinion by Dr. Borlase, in the Introduction to his Antiquities of Cornwall, where he "We says, e may well suppose that our island remained uninhabited, until four or five centuries after the flood.” Mr. Samnes states as his opinion, that it was seven or eight hundred years after the flood, before any part of this island was inhabited. Whitaker, who believes that Britain was originally inhabited by the Gauls, in his Genuine History of the Britons, fixes the first migration across the channel about a thousand years before the advent of our Saviour; or, about that period of sacred history which embraces the reigns of David and Solomon among the Jews. He also supposes, that the neighbouring continent continued to send supplies, as its population increased, during the space of four or five centuries. The conclusions to which these authors have come, being so wide of each other, we can only say with certainty, that the first colony to Britain came at a very early period.

RELIGION.-St. Cyril of Alexandria is fully of opinion, "that all men, from Adam to the days of Noah, worshipped that God who by nature is one;" and the reason he assigns is, "because no man is by Moses accused as a worshipper of other gods, and impure demons.” The learned in general consider idolatry to have originated with Ham, the son of Noah. Nimrod, the son of Chus, the son of Ham, is represented, says the learned Bryant, as a powerful monarch of great renown, the founder of the city Babylon, and the first that instituted among the Chaldeans the worship of fire. The confusion of language, and the dispersion at Babel, were remarkable.

events. We cannot suppose this defection general, that all the sons of men were concerned in it. The dispersion at Babel, and the confusion was partial, and related only to the house of Chus and their adherents. For they had many associates, probably out of every family; apostates from the truth, who had left the stock of their fathers, and the religion of the true God, that they might enlist under the rule of the Cuthites, and follow their rites and worship. For when Babel was deserted, we find among the Cuthites of Chaldea, some of the line of Shem, whom we could scarcely have expected to have met in such society. Here were Terah, and Nahor, and even Abraham, all upon forbidden ground, and separated from the family to which they belonged. The great fear of the sons of Chus was, that they might be divided and scattered abroad; they therefore built the tower of Babel as a landmark to repair to, as a token to direct them; and it was most probably an idolatrous or high altar, dedicated to the host of heaven, from which they were never to be long absent.a

Of Abraham, the father of the faithful, who was called by Divine Providence from Ur in Chaldea, God himself says, "I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord." The correctness of the faith of Isaac, is also given by divine testimony. Concerning Ishmael, and the other children of Keturah, it is said, that Abraham "gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, (while he yet lived,) eastward, unto the east country," that is, Arabia Deserta; and where, there is every reason to believe, they adored the God of

a

Bryant's Ancient Mythology, vol. iv. p. 43.

Third edit.

their renowned father, and established a pure worship. In Phoenicia, Abimelech, the king of the Philistines believed in God, was favoured with a heavenly vision, and pleaded religiously the righteousness of his nation. Sir Isaac Newton imagines, that the Philistines continued in the true religion till the death of Melchisedec; but that afterwards they began to embrace idolatry, which spread thitherward from Chaldea, and probably increased apace after the departure of Joseph's brethren with their families into Egypt. The king of Salem, a Canaanite, was the priest of the most High God in the country where he lived: and we have no intimation that the religion of the inhabitants was different from that of Abraham. When Abraham went to Egypt, God sent judgments on the family of Pharoah, because of Sarah his wife; and the king of Egypt appears to have been in nowise a stranger to the true God, but to have had the fear of him before his eyes, and to have been influenced by it in all his actions. If we search the antiquities of Egypt, we shall find in their remains as correct notions of God, as are to be met with in the antiquities of any other people. Heathen writers inform us, that the Egyptians were at first worshippers of the true God.a

These were

certainly their first principles, and as long as they adhered to these, so long they preserved the knowledge of the true religion. Had not this been really the case, the patriarch Joseph, long after this time, when he flourished at the head of the Egyptian ministry, would certainly not have married into the family he did. With justice, therefore, has the celebrated Grotius remarked, "That in the age of Joseph no certain traces of idolatry are to be

a De Iside et Os. p. 359. Eus. Præp. Ev. lib. i. c. 10.