whom they represented as notorious liars, thieves, adulterers, &c. though they had some mythology hid under all that.

And as men were their gods, so they made the first man to be father of the gods, and called him Saturn, not begot by any man, but the son of Colus and Vesta; that is, of heaven and earth. And his maiming his father with a steel scythe, was to show how heaven itself is impaired by Time, whom they painted with wings and a scythe, mowing down all things. And Saturn eating up his own children, was only to express how Time devours all its own productions and his being deposed by Jupiter his son, shows, that Time, which wears away all other things, is worn away itself at last.

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Several of the heathen authors have given us the mythology of their gods, with which I will not detain you. They expressed every thing, and worshipped every thing under the name of a god, as the god of sleep, of music, of eloquence, of hunting, drinking, love, war, &c. They had above thirty thousand of them; and in what they told of them, and as they described them, they often traced the sacred story.

Ovid begins his Metamorphoses with a perfect poetical version of the beginning of Genesis: Ante Mare et Tellus. Then goes on with the history of the creation; the formation of man out of the dust of the earth, and being made after the image of God, and to have dominion over the inferior creatures. Then he tells of the general corruption, and the giants before the flood, when the earth was filled with violence; for which all mankind, with the beasts

and the fowl, were destroyed by the universal deluge, except only Deucalion and Pyrrha his wife, who were saved in a boat, which landed them on the top of Mount Parnassus; and that from these two the whole earth was re-peopled. I think it will be needless to detain the reader with an application of this to the history of the creation set down by Moses, of the flood, and the ark wherein Noah was saved, and the earth re-peopled by him, &c.

And Noah was plainly intended likewise in their god Janus, with his two faces, one old, looking backward to the old world that was destroyed; the other young, looking forward to the new world that was to spring from him. So that even their turning the sacred history into a fable, is a confirmation of it. And there can be no comparison betwixt the truths of the facts so attested, as I have showed, and the fables that were made from them.

Lastly, as to the Mahometan religion, it wants all the evidences we have mentioned; for there was no miracle said to be done by Mahomet, publicly and in the face of the world, but that only of conquering with the sword. Who saw his Mesra, or Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and thence to heaven in one night, and back in bed with his wife in the morning? Who was present and heard the conversation the moon had with him in his cave? It is not said there was any witness. And the Koran, miracles to prove

c. vi. excuses his not working any his mission. They say that Moses and Christ came to show the clemency and goodness of God, to which miracles were necessary; but that Mahomet came to show the power of God, to which no miracle was needful but that of the sword.

And his Koran is a rhapsody of stuff, without head or tail, one would think written by a madman, with ridiculous titles, as the chapter of the Cow, of the Spider, &c. And their legends are much more senseless than those of the Papists; as of an angel, the distance betwixt whose two hands is seventy thousand days' journey. Of a cow's head with horns, which have forty thousand knots, and forty days' journey betwixt each knot: and others, which have seventy mouths, and every mouth seventy tongues, and each tongue praises God seventy times a-day, in seventy different idioms. And of wax candles before the throne of God, which are fifty years' journey from one end to the other. The Koran says, the earth was created in two days, and is supported by an ox, which stands under it, upon a white stone, with his head to the east, and his tail to the west, having forty horns, and as great a distance betwixt every horn as a man could walk in a thousand years' time. Then their description of heaven is a full enjoyment of wine, women, and other like gross sensual pleasures.

When you compare this with our Holy Scriptures, you will need no argument to make you see the difference. The heathen orators have admired the sublime of the style of our Scriptures; no writ ing in the world comes near it, even with all the disadvantage of our translation, which being obliged to be literal, must lose much of the beauty of it. The plainness and succinctness of the historical part, the melody of the Psalms, the instruction of the Proverbs, the majesty of the Prophets, and above all, that easy sweetness in the New Testament, where

the glory of heaven is set forth in a grave and moving expression, which yet reaches not the height of the subject; not like the flights of rhetoric, which set out small matters in great words. But the Holy Scriptures touch the heart, raise expectation, confirm our hope, strengthen our faith, give peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which is inexpressible. All which you will experience when you once come to believe; you will then bring forth these fruits of the Spirit, when you receive the word with pure affection, as we pray in our Litany.

But, Sir, if there is truth in the Koran, then the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God; for the Koran says so, and that it was sent to confirm them, even the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament; and it expressly owns our Jesus to be the Messiah. At the end of the fourth chapter it has these words: "The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, is a Prophet, and an Angel of God, his Word and his Spirit, which he sent to Mary." Büt it gives him not the name of the Son of God, for this wise reason, chap. vi. "How shall God have a son, who hath no wives ?" born of a pure virgin, without a man, by the operation of the Spirit of God. And in the same chapter this Mahomet acknowledges his own ignorance, and says, "I told you not that I had in my power all the treasures of God, neither that I had knowledge of the future and past, nor do affirm that I am an Angel: I only act what hath been inspired into me: is the blind like him that seeth clearly ?" And after says, "I am not your tutor, every thing hath its time, you shall hereafter understand the truth.”

Yet it owns Jesus to be

This is putting off, and bidding them expect some other after Mahomet. But our Jesus said, he was our tutor and teacher, and that there was none to come after him. Mahomet said he was no Angel, but that Jesus was an Angel of God. But when God bringeth Jesus into the world, he saith, "Let all the Angels of God worship him." And he made him Lord of all the Angels. Mahomet knew not what was past or to come; but our Jesus knew all things, and what was in the heart of every man, which none can do, but God only; and foretold things to come to the end of the world. Mahomet

had not all the treasures of God: but in Jesus are hid "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

Again, Mahomet never called himself, the Messiah, or the Word, or Spirit of God, yet all these appellations he gives to our Jesus. There were prophecies of Jesus, which we have seen: were there any of Mahomet?-None; except of the "false Christs and false Prophets," which Jesus told should come after him, and bid us beware of them, for that they should deceive many.

D. But if Mahomet gave thus the preference to Christ in every thing, and said that his Koran was only a confirmation of the Gospel; how came he to set it up against the Gospel, and to reckon the Christians among the unbelievers ?

C. No otherwise than as other heretics did who called themselves the only true Christians, and invented new interpretations of the Scriptures. The Socinians now charge the whole of Christianity with