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ligence, and the author must have been prior to his work.

These truths afford a strong argument in favour of divine revelation, and of those facred volumes, in which they are contained. These volumes were intrufted to the care of a particular people, among whom only the knowledge of the true God was in its original purity preferved, when the reft of the world was immerfed in darknefs. And when another difpenfation took place, this knowledge was more precisely defined by the facred writers, and more generally diffused for the benefit of mankind. From hence we may judge of the divine authority of those writings, in which only this great truth is to be found.

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Of the Knowledge of God in the Gentile World.

I am fenfible, that there are perfons who maintain, that the knowledge both of God and his attributes, was well known to the ancients. This has been spoken in a very unlimited manner, without any regard either

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to time or place. Hence we are led to infer, that this divine knowledge was to be difcovered at all times, and among all nations. But when we come to inquire, who these ancients were, we find them to be only the people of Greece and its colonies, who bore but a small proportion among the kingdoms of the earth. And when we look into the time, we find it to be a few years before the birth of Socrates, which is comparatively late in the era of mankind. Hence, though light at this period might have dawned upon them, yet the greater part of the wide world was under a total eclipfe, without all hopes of day. This was the cafe both at that time, and for ages antecedent, excepting only the family of the felected people. Hence, what is urged by these writers, does not at all take off from the neceffity of revelation, and the interpofition of divine goodness for the improvement and falvation of man. fides, this knowledge did not originate among the Grecians; it was imported,

*

Origen contra Celfum, L. 6. p. 288. edit. Cantab.

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and but partially received, and not duly maintained. Thofe, who like Plato, did adopt it, seem to have used it merely as a fpeculative point, fo that it had little influence upon their lives or morals, no more than a theorem of Euclid or Diophantus. Hence they indulged like others in all the gratifications which the world afforded, followed the base worship of their country, and engaged at the rites of the most vile and obfcene deities. How partially and imperfectly it took place, may be seen in a Treatife of * Cicero concerning Providence, and the Nature of the Gods. The perfons, who are introduced as speaking upon this fubject, were well verfed in the learning and philosophy of their country, and all the accumulated knowledge of Greece; yet though the subject was of such importance, and the speakers fo knowing, Cicero gives us at the close this unfatisfactory account, that one of them feemed nearer to the truth, and the other had more the femblance of truth: but to the truth itself they never

L. 3. C. 39. p. 1246. Gronov.

attained.

attained. The Grecian writers undoubtedly at times difclofe fome excellent doctrines which taken fingly and detached, cannot fail of exciting our admiration. But they generally fhew that they borrowed them, by their not comprehending their true purport; which they ruin by their fubfequent comment. Thus in an early treatise, ascribed to one of the first-rate philofophers, mention is made of the Creation, and of that Power, by which it was created; and the whole in terms not unworthy of Mofes *. It is an ancient tradition transmitted univerfally, that all things were from God, and conftituted by him. Nor is there any Being in the world that is fufficient to maintain itself, when deprived of his falutary help. From hence one would judge, that this writer had a just notion of the Deity and his attributes, and especially of his infinite power. But he witnesses the contrary very foon. He accordingly tells us, that God refides in the chief and highest part of the world, enjoying the prin

* Aristotle de Mundo, C. 6. § 2 and 3.

cipal feat above all others. And he defcribes him as a local and limited being: that he acts first, and more fully, upon those bodies, that are nearest to him: and then upon others farther off; his influence and power being inversely as his distance. He proceeds to inform us, that all enjoy this influence more or lefs: but that the inhabitants of the earth are least affected, as being the farthest of all; and this is the cause of that debility and uncertainty to which they are liable, and of all the diforders which prevail among them. From hence we are taught that this influence, which, he says, penetrated every where, barely reached the furface of the earth; at leaft it went very little farther. Thofe, therefore, who lived near the poles, must have enjoyed the bleffing obliquely, and in the fame proportion as they did the light of the fun. They must have been one half of the year mental twilight or total darkness. But thefe notions of the ancients were bafe and low. How very different are the words of the

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C. 3. at the end.

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