done by such Beings, we conceive God does by them, or wisely permits them to do them; in the same Manner as in well-regulated Kingdoms, nothing is done otherwise than the Law directs, but by the Will of the Supreme Governour.

SECT. XIV.

But more especially amongst the Jews, who ought to be credited upon the Account of the long Continuance of their Religion.

NOW that some Miracles have really been seen, (though it should seem doubtful from the Credit of all other Histories) the Jewish Religion alone may easily convince us: Which though it has been a long Time destitute of human Assistance, nay exposed to Contempt and Mockery, yet it remains (a) to this very Day, in almost all Parts

of

(a) To this very Day, &c.] Hecateus concerning the Jews, which lived before the Time of Alexander, has these Words: "Though they be severely reproached by their Neighbours "and by Strangers, and many Times harshly treated by the "Persian Kings and Nobility; yet they cannot be brought off "from their Opinion, but will undergo the most cruel Tor"ments and sharpest Deaths, rather than forsake the Religion "of their Country." Josephus preserved this Place, in his first Book against Appion; and he adds another Example out of the said Hecatæus, relating to Alexander's Time, wherein the Jewish Soldiers peremptorily refused to assist at the repairing the Temple of the God Belus. And the same Josephus has very well shown, in his other Book against Appion, that the firm Persuasion of the Jews of old, concerning God's being the Author of their Law, is from hence evident, because they have not dared, like other people, to alter any Thing in their Laws; not even then, when in long Banishments, under foreign Princes, they have been tried by all Sorts of Threatenings and Flatteries. To this we may add something of Tacitus about the Proselytes: "All that are converted to them, do the like; "for the first Principle they are instructed in, is to have a Contempt of the Gods; to lay aside their Love to their

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"Country,

of the World; when (a) all other Religions (except the Christian, which is as it were the Perfection of the Jewish) have either disappeared as soon as they are forsaken by the Civil Power and Authority (as all the Pagan Religions did); or else they are yet maintained by the same Power as Mahometanism is: For, if any one should ask, whence it is that the Jewish Religion hath taken so deep Root in the Minds of all the Hebrews, as never to be faced out; there can be no other possible Cause assigned or imagined than this, that the present Jews received it from their Parents, and they from theirs, and so on, till you come to the Age in which Moses and Joshua lived: They received, I say, (b) by a certain and uninterrupted Tradition, the Miracles which were worked, as in other Places, so more especially at their coming out of Egypt, in their Journey, and at their Entrance into Canaan; of all which, their Ancestors themselves were Witnesses. Nor is it in the least credible, that a People of so obstinate a Disposition could ever be persuaded any otherwise, to submit to a Law loaded with so many Rites and Ceremonies; or that wise men, amongst the many Distinctions of Re

"Country, and to have no Regard for their Parents or Bre "thren." That is, when the law of God comes in Competition with them; which this profane Author unjustly blames. See further what Porphyry has delivered about the Constancy of the Jews, in his Second and Fourth Books against eating of living Creatures; where he mentions Antiochus, and particularly the Constancy of the Essenes amongst the Jews.

(a) All other Religions, &c.] Even those so highly commended Laws of Lycurgus, as is observed by Josephus and Theodoret.

(b) By a certain and uninterrupted Tradition, &c.] To which we give Credit, because it was worthy of God to institute a Religion in which it was taught that there was one God the Creator of all Things, who is a spiritual Being, and is alone to be worshipped. Le Clerc,

ligion which Human Reason might invent, should choose Circumcision; which could not be performed (a) without great Pain, and (b) was laughed at by all Strangers, and had nothing to recommend it but the Authority of God.

SECT. XV.

From the Truth and Antiquity of Moses. THIS also gives the greatest Credit imaginable to the Writings of Moses, in which these Miracles are recorded to Posterity; that there was not only a settled Opinion and constant Tradition amongst the Jews, that this Moses was appointed by the express Command of God himself to be the Leader and Captain of this People; but also because (as is very evident) he did not make his own Glory and Advantage his principal Aim, but He himself relates those Errors of his own, which He could have concealed; and delivered the Regal and Sacerdotal Dignity to others (permitting his own Posterity to be reduced only to common Levites.) All which plainly shew, that he had no Occasion to falsify in his History; as the Style of it further evinces, it being free from that Varnish and Colour, which uses to give Credit to Romances; and is very natural and easy, and agreeable to the Matter of which it treats. Moreover, another Argument for the undoubted Antiquity of Moses's Writings, which no other Writings can pretend to, is this, that the Greeks (from whom all other

(a) Without great Pain, &c.] Philo says, It was done with very great Pain.

(b) Was laughed at, &c.] Thing laughed at by every body: are called Cropt, Eircumcised,

The same Philo says, It was a
Whence the Jews, by the Poets,
Fore-skinned.

Nations

Nations derived their Learning) own, that they (a) had their Letters from Foreigners; which Letters of theirs have the same Order, Name (b) and Shape, as the Syriac or Hebrew: And further

(a) Had their Letters, &c.] Herodotus in his Terpsichore says, "That the Ionians had their Letters from the Phanicians, "and used them, with very little Variation; which afterwards "appearing, those Letters were called Phænician (as they ought "to be) from the Phænicians bringing them into Greece." He calls them,

The Phoenician Characters of Cadmus.

And Callimachus;

Cadmus, from whom the Greeks
Their written Books derive.

And Plutarch calls them Phænician or Punic Letters, in his Ninth Book, and Third Prob. of his Symposiacks, where he says, that Alpha, in the Phænician Language, signifies an Or, which is very true. Eupolemus, in his Books of the Kings of Judæa, says, "That Moses was the first wise Man, and that "Letters were first given by him to the Jews, and from them "the Phænicians received them;" that is, the ancient Language of the Jews and Phænicians was the same, or very little different. Thus Lucian: He spake some indistinct Words, like the Hebrew or Phoenician. And Charilus in his Verses concerning the Solini, who, he says, dwelt near the Lake, I suppose he means Asphaltites,

These with their Tongues pronounced Phoenician Words. See also the Punic Scene of Plautus, where you have the Words that are put in the Punic Language twice, by reason of the double Writing; and also the Latin Translation; whence you may easily correct what is corrupted. And as the Phænician and Hebrew Language were the same, so are the ancient Hebrew Letters the same with those of the Phanicians. See the great Men about this Matter. Joseph Scaliger's Diatriba of the Eusebian Year clɔ lɔcxvii. and the First Book, Ch. X. of Gerard Vossius's Grammar (and particularly Sam. Bochart, in his Chanaan.) You may add also, if you please, Clement of Alexandria, Strom. Book I. and Eusebius's Gospel Preparation, Book X, Chap. 5.

(b) And Shape, &c.] He means the Samaritan Letters, which are the same as the Phænician, as Lud. Capel, Sam. Bochart, and others have shown. I also have treated of the same in French, in the Biblioth. Select. Vol. XI. Le Clerc.

still, the most ancient (a) Attick Laws, from whence the Roman were afterwards taken, owe their Original to the Law of Moses.

SECT. XVI.

From Foreign Testimonies.

TO these we may add the Testimony of a great Number, who were Strangers to the Jewish Religion, which shows that the most ancient Tradition among all Nations, is exactly agreeable to the Relation of Moses. For his description of the Original of the World is almost the very same as in

(a) Attick Laws, &c.] You have a famous instance of this, in Thieves that rob by Night, which we have treated of in the Second Book of War and Peace, Ch. I. Sect. 12. and another in that Law, which Sopater recites, Let him that is nëxt a-kin possess the Heiress; which is thus explained by Terence:

There is a Law, by which Widows ought to be married to the next Kinsmen, and the same Law obliges these Kinsmen to marry them.

Donatus remarks upon this Place thus: That the Widow should be married to the next Kinsman, and he marry her, is the Attick Law, viz. taken from the Law of Moses, in the last Chap. of Numbers, which we shall have Opportunity of speaking more of afterwards. A great many other Things may be found to this Purpose, if any one search diligently for them: As the Feast in which they carried Clusters of Grapes, taken from the Feast of Tabernacles; the Law that the High Priest should marry none but a Virgin, and his Countrywoman; that next after Sisters, Kinsmen by the Father's Side should inherit: Wherefore the Attick Laws agree with many of the Hebrew, because the Atticks owe many of their Customs to Cecrops, King of Egypt; and because God established many Laws amongst the Hebrews, very much like those of the Egyptians, to which they had been accustomed, only reforming such Things as were bad in them; as we have often observed in our Notes upon the Pentateuch, and before, as John Spencer in his Book about the Ritual Laws of the Jews. Le Clerc.

the