Julian's, which may give us a just idea of this matter, and of the emulation raised among the Pagans, by the excellency of the Christian morals b.

II. To go a step farther backwards, it is reasonable to think, that from the time that the Hebrew Scriptures had been translated into Greek, either in whole or in part, (277 years, at least, before Christ,) I say, from that time it is reasonable to think, that the Pagans improved their theology and morality, more or less, by them. It has indeed been suggested by a learned writer, that even the Greek version of the Seventy was altogether unknown to the learned Pagans for many years after, or entirely neglected by them. But his reasonings on that head are short of proof, and have been, in a great measure, confutede; so that I need not say more of them.

III. I am next to observe, that though it were supposed that the Pagans never read the Scriptures, yet they might become acquainted, in some degree, with the Jewish doctrines, by conversing with Jews dispersed into distant quarters. And if Pythagoras, or Plato, or Aristotle, or others, learned something of the Jewish theology or morality this way, it comes to the same thing in the main; for then they owed such knowledge, in the last resort, to Divine revelation.

IV. But supposing that those or other Pagans had neither read the Jewish Scriptures, nor conversed directly

Julian. ad Arsacium Pontif. Galat. Epist. xlix, p. 429. edit. Lips.

< Ptolemæus Rex Ægyptijussit conscribi, atque poni in templum, ut venientibus de Achaia, atque aliis provinciis, philosophis, poetis, et historiographis cupientibus, legendi copia non negaretur. Unde et maxime argumenta sumentes philosophi, poetæ, atque historiographi, sicuti voluerunt, ad sua Paganitatis mendacia transtulerunt, aliisque nominibus rudes puerorum animos edocentes, legem Dei divinam irritam seculo facere properarunt, impietatisque semina in sono verborum, in periculosis sententiis confirmarunt; quorum causa dicebat et Dominus, fures atque latrones eos fuisse in omnibus, atque ab omnibus cognoscendos. Philastr. de Hæres, cap. cxxxviii. p. 305. Conf. Clem. Alex. 366, 368.

d Hody de Bibl. Text. p. 101.

e See Basnage's Hist. of the Jews, lib. v. cap. 6. sect. 16. p. 417. lib. vi. cap. 5. sect. 9. p. 490.

with Jews; yet if they had conversed with Egyptians, or Persians, or Phoenicians, or Chaldæans, or others that had been before instructed by the Hebrews, they might in that way come at the knowledge of revealed truths. The Egyptians had many opportunities, at various times, of imbibing the Jewish principles, and adopting their rites f. The Persians also, especially from the time of Cyrus, (536 years before Christ,) had, or might have had a competent knowledge of the true God, and the true religion from the Jews, and might communicate the same to others. Accordingly, some learned men have thought that Pythagoras fetched his knowledge of Divine things from thence, taking them from the Magians, and particularly from Zoroastres 5, that is, at second hand from the Jews. The Phoenicians likewise, being near neighbours to the Hebrews, might learn many things of them, and convey the same to the Greeks or other nations. And thus some learned men account for what Orpheus and Linus may have written consonant to Scripture doctrine h.

Add to this, that it has been generally the method of Divine providence, from the time that the Jews grew up to be a people, to notify the true God, and the true religion by them, to the princes and potentates of the world, either in the very capital of their empire, as at Nineveh, Babylon, &c. or in such place and manner as should render the thing most notorious. It cannot be doubted, but that the fame of the true God and true religion must have spread, that way, over a great part of the Gentile world. The several public edicts of Artaxerxesi, Darius k, Cyrus', the elder Darius m, and of Nebuchadnezzar ", makes the

↑ See Witsii Ægyptiaca, lib. iii. cap. 12. p. 261,—&c. See Prideaux, Connect. part i. b. iv. p. 228, 229.

h Cum Phonicibus vetus Atticæ incolis, Ionum antiquissimis, intercessisse commercium Grotius docuit. Linum a Phoenice venisse tradunt veteres : et Orpheus sua a Phoenicibus hausit; Phoenices ab Hebræis. Wits. Ægypt p. 174. Vid. Grot. de Verit. Rel. Christian. lib. i. cap. 16. p. 32.

supposition unquestionable; to say nothing of other princes before and after them.

V. Another channel of conveyance was tradition down from Abraham, who was the grand restorer of true religion, before sunk in Chaldæa, (and perhaps in several other places,) and father of many and great nations. He has this testimony given him by God himself, in Genesis. “I "know him, that he will command his children and his "household after him, and they shall keep the way of the "Lord, to do justice and judgment P." We want ancient history to inform us more particularly how religion was scattered about the world by this means; only we may be certain in the general, that so it was. If the whole nation of the Assyrians were the posterity of Abraham, so called from Ashurim 9, descended from Abraham by Keturah, (as an ancient writer in Josephus asserts, and a learned moderns now lately has undertaken to maintain,) we may then the more easily account for the quick repentance of the Ninevites, upon the warning given them by a single prophet of Israel, as well for their manner of expressing their repentance; not like idolaters, but true worshipperst: they had not altogether forgot the religion of their fathers. This, I say, may be a probable account of that remarkable affair; unless we choose rather, as some do ", to resolve it all into the acquaintance they before had with the nation of the Jews, and the awful sense they were under of the

r

• See Postscript to second part of Scripture Vindicated, vol. vi. p. 171, &c. P Gen. xviii. 19. 1 Gen. xxv. 3.

r-Joseph. Antiq. Jud. lib. i. cap. xv. p. 44. edit. Havercamp.

• Joh. Frider. Schroerus. Imperium Babylonis et Nini, sect. ii. p. 105, &c. t See Jonah iii. 5, 8, 9. Matt. xii. 41.

u Etenim cum Nineve emporium fuerit per totum orientem celeberrimum, et cum ipsis Judæis quoque incolis ejus commercia intercesserint, religionis Judaicæ profecto ignari esse non poterant.- -Atque istud sane eo mihi fit verisimilius, quod Jonæ divinam iram annuntianti statim habuerint fidem, et ad ejus præscriptum mores suos composuerint. Credisne, si religionem Judaicam, aut pro inepta habuissent, aut falsa, aut nulla ejus imbuti fuissent notitia, eos virum Judæum mandata numinis ad eos perferentem tam facile fuisse admissuros? Næ, qui istud asseruerit, indolem hominum parum explo. ratam habet. Budd. Parerga. p. 426. Compare Lowth on Jon. iii. 3.

many wonderful works God had wrought for that people. But I proceed.

come this

VI. There is yet another more general way by which revealed religion, in some of the principal heads or articles of it, has been diffused through the world; I mean tradition delivered down from Noah, or from the first parents of the whole race, who received it immediately from God. The doctrine of one true God supreme might probably way, and be so diffused to all mankind. The like may be said of the doctrine of an overruling providence, and of the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments. These general principles, so universally believed and taught in all ages and countries, are much better referred to Patriarchal tradition, than to any later and narrower source y. I know not whether the same observation might not be as justly made of some other doctrines; as of the creation of the world 2, and corruption of human naturea, and perhaps of several more of slighter consideration.

Besides doctrines, there have been common rites and customs derived very probably from the same general

* Discat ergo Faustus, vel potius illi qui ejus literis delectantur, monarchiæ opinionem non ex gentibus nos habere; sed gentes non usque adeo ad falsos Deos esse delapsas, ut opinionem amitterent unius veri Dei, ex quo est omnis qualiscunque natura. Augustin. cont. Manich. lib. xx. cap. 19. p. 345.

y Certum est multos ritus et traditiones Ethnicorum longe antiquiores esse ecclesia Judaica, ideoque a Judæis eos hæc non desumpsisse, sed potius a communi fonte, nempe a patriarchis; quorum multi, ut Terachus Abrahami pater, in idololatriam degenerarunt. Nihilominus multas retinuerunt traditiones laudabiles: ut de uno Deo cæteris omnibus superiore, de immortalitate animarum, et de judicio post mortem secuturo, ac de virtute heroica. Has traditiones multo probabilius esse videtur eos ab antiquissimis patriarchis, Japheti, Chami, imo et Semi posteris idololatricis accepisse, quam a Judæis. Antiquissima Ægyptiorum et Romanorum templa sine imaginibus fuere: decimas Cabiris datas fuisse constat ex Dion. Halicarnassensi. Cumberlund. Origin. Antiq. p. 451. Conf. Witsii Ægyptiaca, lib. ii. cap. 15.

z Vid. Witsii Ægyptiaca, p. 170-174. Grotius de Verit. R. Ch. lib. i. cap. 16.

a Vid. Buddæi Selecta Juris N. et Gent. p. 242-244. Huetii Quæst. Alnet. lib. ii. cap. ix. p. 165.

source, because widely (or in a manner universally) spread among mankind; such as the custom of sacrifices, and of some regard paid to one day in seven, and of dedicating a tenth or tithe to God.

That sacrifices were a part of the Patriarchal religion, not owing to human invention, but to Divine appointment, has been so often and so strongly argued, and the pretences to the contrary so fully and so justly exploded, that there remains but little room for dispute upon that head.

As to the sacredness of the seventh day, there appear footsteps of it among the earliest nations; though the reason of the thing was not sufficiently understood by the Gentiles in later times. Aristobulus c, Philod, Josephus, take notice of the universality of the notion and practice, and it is by them made use of as an argument to show, how the Pagans had borrowed from the Hebrews. They might better have said, how both had borrowed from the same common fountain of Patriarchal tradition. And this will be the best way of compromising the dispute between such moderns as pretend that the Hebrews borrowed the custom of reckoning time by weeks from the Egyptians £, and those, on the other hand, who say, with more probability, that the Egyptians borrowed it from the Hebrews8. The truth seems to be, that neither borrowed from each other, in this particular, but that both of them drew

Vid. Johann. Meyer. Diatribe de Festis, cap. i. per tot. Sam. Basnag. Exercit. Historico-crit. p. 676. Buddæi Select. Juris Nat. p. 231, &c. Eccles. Apostol. p. 141. Carpzovii Introduct. ad Libr. Bibl. par. i. p. 111, &c. Frid. Bucheri Antiq. Bibl. p. 388. Shuckford's Sacred and Profane Hist. vol. i. p. 79, &c.

< Aristobulus apud Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. xiii. cap. 12. p. 667. d Philo de Vit. Mos. lib. ii. p. 656, 657. De Mund. Opif. p. 20.

• Οὐδ ̓ ἔστιν οὐ πόλις Ελλήνων οὐδετισοῦν, οὐδὲ βάρβαρος, οὐδὲ ἕν ἔθνος, ἔνθα μὴ τὸ τῆς ἑβδομάδος, ἣν ἀργοῦμεν ἡμεῖς, τὸ ἔθος οὐ διαπεφοίτηκε. Joseph. contr. Apion. lib. ii. cap. 39. p. 494. Conf. Theoph. Antioch. ad Autol. lib. ii. cap. 17. p. 134. Clem. Alex. Strom. v. p. 713.

f Marsham. Can. Chron. sect. ix. Spencer de Leg. Hebr. lib. i. cap. v. p. 73, 74.

g Joh. Meyer de Festis, cap. v. p. 105. Witsii Ægyptiaca, 241, 242.