better a Pen. There is an Excellency in every Part of our Religion separately confider'd, but the strength and vigour of each Part is in the Relation it has to the rest, and the several Parts must be taken altogether, if we would have a true Knowledge, and make a just Estimate of the Whole. But that which I made my more particular Care, and which, I thought, the more requir'd my Pains, because I had not observed it to be much insisted upon by others, was to shew the Necessity of a Divine Revelation, the insufficiency of Natural Religion, and the Imperfections and Errors of Philofophy, as well as the manifest Falshood of the Religions both of the Heathens and of the Mahometans; and moreover to prove, that befides all other Things requifite to a Divine Revelation, the Religion delivered in the Old and New Testament has received a full Promulgation in all Parts of the World. From these Foundations thus laid and fecur'd, we have no less than a Demonstration for the Truth of our Holy Religion. We are often told by those that are no Friends to our Religion, that we must by all means take great Care of not being deceived through the Prejudices derived from our Edu cation, but I believe it would be found upon Enquiry, that such Men are so far from being prejudiced in Favour of our Religion, that their Prejudices lie extremely against it. For, besides the Corruption of Humane Nature always inclining to Error and Vice, tho A they they had the Principles of Christianity instill'd into them in their tender Years, yet they could learn them then only as confess'd Truths, to be receiv'd for Articles of Faith and Rules of Life. But the first thing probably to which they have set themselves with any Application, was the reading of Heathen Authors, and when perhaps they have studied Philofophy and other Humane Learning for many Years, but never considered Divinity, as a Science, and have searched into it no farther, nor have any other Notion of it, than what they were taught in their Childhood or Youth, they look back upon their first Instructions as groundless, and fit only for Children, because they find little or nothing of them in those Authors, with whom they have been so long converfant, and whom upon many Accounts they have so just Reason to admire. This seems to be the Case of many who have read ancient Heathen Authors, without the Regard, which ought always to be had to That, which is acknowledg'd by All; who have made any due Enquiry into these Things, to be the best Learning and of greatest Antiquity; and is no where to be had but from the Scriptures. Others there are, who have often heard of the Names of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and of Tully, Seneca, and other Famous Writers; they find them frequently quoted, and commonly with Commendation, feldom to difcover any Fault in them: unless it be in their Notions of Natural Philosophy, where Religion feems to be less concerned. They have heard too of the A3 Greek Greek and Latin Historians, and these, for any thing that they know or consider, may be as Faithful and as Ancient as the best. But tho' all these Authors have indeed very many Excellencies, yet we must not fo far mistake, as to think all things Excellent which they deliver. I shall therefore, besides what I have already observed, make some farther Reflections in this place, both upon the History, and upon the Philosophy of Heathen Nations, and then I hope I may be allowed to expoftulate with the Adversaries of our Religion, concerning the Unreasonableness of their Proceedings, before I come to give a short Account of my present Undertaking. I. Whatever knowledge almost we have now left of the Antiquities of other Heathen Nations, it comes conveyed down to us by the Greek Authors; and yet there is perhaps no Nation, which generally had a worse Reputation in matters of History, not only by common Fame and the Invectives of Satyrists, but from the Censures of the best Writers, and the Accusations which the Historians made one of another, as a Jofephus shews of many whose Works are now loft. b Thucydides himself could not escape free from Censure, who complains of the negligence and unfaithfulness of the other Greek Historians, and he is thought to point particularly at Herodotus, whom Plutarch expofed in a set Discourse: tho' much indeed has • Vid. Joseph. contr. Apion. lib. i. Thucyd. lib. i. C. 20, 21. been been said in Vindication of Herodotus, by H. Stephens and Joac. Camerarius; and the Discoveries of Modern Travellers confirm many things in this History, which were formerly thought incredible. • Strabo has observ'd, that the Greeks knew little of the most Famous Nations of Afia, except the Persians, and that Homer knew nothing of the Empire of the Affyrians or Medes, but that he has omitted the mention of the Magnificence of Babylon, Nineveh, and Ecbatane, tho he took notice of the Egyptian Thebes, and of the Wealth both of that Place and of a Phenicia. Sallust suspected that the Athenians too highly magnified their own Actions. e Quintilian compares the Greek Historians to Poets, for the Liberty which they commonly took. f Arrian, upon the different Account given by Aristobulus, and Ptolemeus Lagi, of the Death of Callifthenes, remarks, that the most credible Historians, who accompanied Alexander, disagreed in the relation of things, which were publick, and could not be unknown to them. And there is in & Vofpifcus a severe Charge against the Historians in general, that there is none of them, who has not falfified in some thing or other, particularly that as to Livy, Sallust, Tacitus and Trogus Pompeius, it might • Strab. Geogr. lib. xv. d Sallust. Bell. Catilin. • Græcis Hiftoriis plerumque Poeticæ fimilis eft licentia. Quint. 1. ii. c. 4. f De Exped. Alex. 1.4. • Neminem Scriptorum, quantum ad Historiam pertinet, non ali quid esse mentitum, Vopisc. in Aureliano. be be clearly proved upon them. And h Pliny has furnished us with an instance of great Partiality in the Roman Histories, which conceal that Porfena in his League with the People of Rome, obliged them to make no use of Iron, but for the Tilling of the Grounds: This, Pliny confeffes, was an express Article of that League: And how unlike is the Roman to the Jewish History in this very Instance? For in the Scriptures we find it twice mentioned, that the Ifraelites were reduced to that Condition, that they were permitted to have no Weapons of War, Judges v. 8. 1 Sam. xiii. 19. But the Roman Historians had more regard to the Honour of the Roman Name than to Truth. And it is no Commendation of the same Historians, that they take fo little notice of the Jews, and say so little to their Advantage, when they do speak of them, fince Jofephus has proved the Leagues between the Jews and the Romans, and the Privileges granted them by the Romans, be-yond all Denial, from the Tables then extant wherein they were contained. Dionyfius Halicarnaffeus differs in many things from Livy, and the other Roman Authors. And Polybius, contrary to the known Story of In fædere, quod, expulfis Regibus, Populo Romano dedit Porfema, nominatim comprehenfum invenimus, ne ferro, nifi in Agriculturâ, uterentur. Plin. Nat. Hift. lib. xxxiv. c. 14. Tacent id H ftorici, ut pudendum Victori poftea Gentium Populi; at Plinius ingenue fatetur. Grot. ad I Sam. xiii. 19. * Γεγόυνος 7 υπαρχόντων ἁπάντων ἐνκραλεῖς, κλιπό λεως αὐτῆς μυώας έπια κνειδώσαντες, τέλΘ έθλουτί κι με χάρι 1 |