indeed: but yet this makes way, that the fame may the more eafily be credited of God, who is to be thought either to work by the mediation of thofe Agents, or elfe out of his wifdom to permit them when they bring to pafs any fuch thing. For in well ordered Kingdoms there is nothing done against the Statutes and common Laws, but by the arbitrament or permillion of the Supreme Governours.

SECT. XIII.

Specially among the Jews whereunto credit may be given, by reafon of the long Continuance of their Religion.

NOW

OW that there have indeed been fome miracles feen, though the credit of other Hiftories fhould be queftionable, yet it is manifeft enough in the Jewish Religion: which albeit, it hath long been deftitute of all human helps, yea, expofed to contempt and fcorn; yet for all that, hath ftill continued almoft in all the Climates and parts of the World, even unto this day; whereas all other Religions (faving the Chriftian, which is the Perfection, as it were, of the Jewish) have either vanifhed, as foon as the Imperial Power and Authority was withdrawn whereby they were fupported, as all the Paganih: or elfe are ftill perpetually upheld by the fame Power and Authority, as Mahumetanifm. Now if it be demanded why the Jewish Religion hath taken fuch deep root in the hearts of the Hebrews, as that it

cannot

cannot thence be eradicated? no better reason can be given or conceived than this; namely, that those Jews that are now alive did from their Parents, as thofe Parents from their Progenitors, and fo upward, until the times of Mofes and fofbua, receive thofe Miracles mentioned in Scripture,by certain and conftant Tradition,which miracles were done chiefly at the departing out of Egypt, and in their journey through the Wilderness, and entrance into the Land of Canaan, whereof their Ancestors were then Eyewitneffes. Nor is it at all credible, that it could otherwise have come to pafs, that a People who were fufficiently ftiff-necked, and of a ftubborn difpofition, fhould take upon them a Law burdened with fo many Rites; or that wife Men, out of the many marks of Religion, which humane reafon could have invented, fhould chufe Circumcifion; which could not be received without very great pain; nor retained without the derifion of all ftrangers; and had nothing in it to recommend it, fave only this, that God was its Author.

SECT. XIV.

Alfo by the truth and antiquity of Mofes bis Story.

Efides, The writings of Mofes, wherein those miracles are recorded to pofterity, do gain the greateft credit thereunto; not only because it was always a fettled opinion, and conftant report amongst the Hebrews, that this fame Mofes C

was

was commended by the Oracle of God to be a Leader of the People; but also because it is manifeft enough, that he neither affected his own glory, nor defired their riches; forafmuch as himfelf reveals his own faults and delinquencies, which he might have concealed; and also he affigned the dignity of his Kingdom and Priesthood unto ftrangers, whence his own Pofterity was brought to the common condition of Levites. By all which it appears, that he had no reafon to forge untruths: Neither doth he use any diffembling or alluring language, fuch as commonly colours over a lye; but he speaks after a plain, ingenuous manner, according to the quality of the thing he treats of.

Add hereunto the undoubted Antiquity of the Books of Mofes, to which no other Writings are therein comparable: An argument whereof is, for that the Grecians (from whom all kinds of learning were derived to other Heathens) do confefs they receive their very Letters from others; which Letters of theirs have no other order, or name, or ancient form, than that of the Syriack or Hebrew Tongue: As alfo for that the most ancient Grecian Laws, whence the Romans collected theirs, had their Original from the Laws of Mofes.

SECT.

SECT. XV.

And by the Teftimony of many

Gentiles.

Oreover, befides thefe, there are many teftimonies of fuch as were Aliens from the Jewish Religion, which declare that the most ancient reports which paffed for truth among all Nations, were agreeable to what Mofes hath related in his Writings. Thus what things he related concerning the beginning of the World: The fame are found alfo recorded in the most ancient Hiftories of the Phoenicians, which are collected by Sancuniathon, and tranflated by Philo Biblius; and partly also found amongst the Indians and Egyptians. Hence it is that in Linus, Hefiod, and many of the Grecians, mention is made of a Chaos, which fome have intimated by the name of an Egg; alfo of the making of living Creatures, and laft of all of Man according to a Divine Image; and of Man's dominion over other Creatures: All which may be read in fundry Authors, and at laft in Ovid, who tranfcribed them out of the Greek Writers. That all things were made by the Word of God, was confeffed even by Epicharmus, and the Platonicks; and before them by a moft ancient Writer (not of those Hymns, which now go under that name, but) of thofe Verfes which Antiquity called Orphean Verfes; not because they had Orpheus for their Author, but because they fummarily comprised his Doctrine. Empedocles acknowledged that the Sun was not the primitive light, but a fit receptacle of light. Aratus and Catullus think that above the sphere

or orb of the Stars there is a Divine Habitation, wherein Homer imagined there was perpetual light.

That of all things, God was the moft ancient, because not begotten; the World most beautiful, because the work of GOD: and that darknefs was before the light, were all the doctrines of Thales, out of the ancient Learning: The last point whereof is found in Orpheus and Hefiod; whereupon the Gentiles, that are commonly fuperftitious in following old fashions and cuftoms, do number their particular times by nights, not by days. It was the opinion of Athenagoras, that all things were ordered and disposed by the higheft intelligence; of Aratus, that the Stars were made by God; and after the Grecians, of Virgil, that life was infufed into things by the Spirit of God and that Man was formed of Clay, is devered by Hefiod, Homer, and Callimachus: Laftly, Maximus Tyrius affirms, that by the common confent of Nations, it is agreed, there is but one Supreme God, which is the caufe of all things. And the memory of the finishing the Creation in feven days fpace, was preferved, not only among the Greeks and Italians, by the honour they gave to the Seventh Day, (as we learn out of Jofephus, Philo, Tibullus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Lucian) but among the Gauls and Indians, who all diftinguished their time, by Weeks, i. e. feven days; as we are taught by Philoftratus, Dion Caffius, Fuftin Martyr; and the most ancient Names of the Days of the Week.

Moreover, the Agytians taught, that Man, at the beginning, led his life in all fimplicity, being naked in his body, and not afhamed: Whence came the Poets fiction of the golden age, which

was