Mifery, Sorrow, Labour, and Death. Here then will be also a double Description of the Effects of Sin, the plain and emblematical. And, what is still worse, in this Circumstance the plain Description goes firft; for it is not till after the Sentence paffed upon the Sinners, that their Expulfion out of Paradife is related. So that when we have been inftructed in all the fatal Effects of this Sin in the cleareft and fimpleft Manner, we are then presented with the Emblem of them: as if the Author, imagining he had been too explicit, intended to lead us back from Light to Darkness. Sure fuch Profufion of Language, and fuch alternate Endeavours to fhew and conceal the fame Thing, does but ill agree with the Conciseness and Elegancy of Mofes, or with the Nature of any one regular Defign. BUT let us now place this Account in another Point of View, and confider it as defigned to give Light into a very dark Part of History. That it was written partly with fuch a Purpose is, I think, plain, from its standing as a very confiderable and a very interefting Part in that which is generally acknowledged to be an History, the Pentateuch. I think it is undeniable that a true historical Account of the Creation and Fall would have anfwered every good Purpose that could be propofed from the most ingenious Fiction, and would have been free from every Difficulty with which the latter must neceffarily be attended. The Doctrines to be inculcated could not have been treated with equal Clear nefs nefs in an Allegory as in an Hiftory, nor could the Belief of the Facts, from whence the Doctrines were to be deduced, have been established upon an equally firm Authority. What then could determine the divine Wisdom, which infpired this Account, to prefer that Manner of doing it, by which our Information and Benefit was leaft confulted? Why did he wrap up those Doctrines in Obscurity which were to be of constant and common Ufe? And why did he hide from Us the Knowledge of his having created the World and its Inhabitants, of his just Dealings with the First of Mankind, his Bleffing their Innocency and punishing their Difobedience; why did he refuse to give his Sanction to these Truths, and yet require from Us a firm and effectual Belief of them? Or, if it be faid that He did not enlighten the Hiftorian in this Part of his Work, why did He here desert him, and abandon him to his own Weakness, where alone his natural Abilities were most unserviceable to him, where there were no Means of Knowledge to guide his Researches, and where no Force of human Genius could penetrate? Was it to try the Power of his Invention, and did the divine Spirit vouchfafe its Affiftance in finishing an History, and establishing a System of Doctrines, which had no better Foundation than in that? If the Genius of Mofes had been left to work for itself here, it is most likely that He would have given Us thofe Opinions which he had early imbibed amongst the Egyptians, and would have drawn drawn his Account of the Origin of Things from the fame Fountain whence all his human Knowledge was derived. But certainly he was under the divine Direction here as well as in other Parts of his Works. And, if he was, fince the Truth was fully known to the Holy Infpirer, and feems in all Refpects more fit to have been taught, what poffible Reason can be affigned for preferring Fiction, or what Cause can we have for imagining that Fiction was preferred? Things might have been as they are related: How then can We know that they were not fo? The Manner, in which the World and all Things in it were created, can be known to infinite Wisdom alone; and fince We have, under its Direction, a Creation described to Us, it is certainly the Height of foolish Presumption to say that Infpiration mocks Us, and does not give Us a true Account. The Account is given in plain defcriptive Language, and gives us as clear a Conception of the Beginning and Progrefs of the Creation, and of the Fall of Man, as Words can give: and the Hiftory is continued on without the least Intimation of what goes before being a Fable, without any Breach in the Connection, or any Change in the Language but what the Subject required. Where then, We must afk those who maintain the Beginning of the Mofaic Books to be a Fiction, does the Fiction end, and Truth take Place? For they are wrought up together with fuch Care, and inferted into each other in fo nice a Manner, that an ordinary Eye ; cannot distinguish between them. The Histories of the remoteft Ages, amongst the Greek and Roman Nations, are but very imperfectly known. In the Accounts they give of them, there is apparently a great Mixture of Fiction but then they do not pretend to Certainty in them, and the most ingenuous of their Writers always fpeak of them with Diffidence. They have their Fabulous Ages, and distinguish them from their Ages of true Hiftory. But this is not the Cafe with Mofes. He does not demand for himself the Venia Antiquitati, but speaks with as much Confidence, and as clear of all Referve, in the Beginning, as in the End of his History. He afferts as pofitively that Adam was, by his Creator, placed in Paradise, and banished out of it, as that the Children of Ifrael came into Egypt, and, after a long Refidence there, were led out of it under his Conduct. Whence then could this Confidence arife, but from a Consciousness that all he reported was Truth? And could this Consciousness be acquired, except he had derived his Knowledge of the Beginning of the World from the Fountain of all Truth? The Greek and Latin Hiftorians, when they are to trace up their History into the obfcurer Periods of it, tread with great Circumfpection. If any one should depart from this Method, and, while He was writing a serious Hiftory of the Roman Affairs, fhould affert with as little Hefitation, that Romulus was the Son of Mars, as that Auguftus was the Succeffour of Julius Cafar, we should certain certainly have his Authority, as far as it would go, for believing equally both these Points. Now Mofes fpeaks as diftinctly and as confidently of Adam, as of any Perfon that lived the nearest to his own Times. Why then should we believe his Account of Adam to be a Fiction, and the reft to be true? He tells us the Time of his Living, and the Length of his Life, and afcribes some very important Actions to him. He then proceeds to give an Account of his Sons, of the Length of their Lives and the most memorable Events in them. And thus he carries on the Thread of his History regularly, and continues it down, without Interruption, to his own Times. The Account is intire, without the least Flaw or Breach. The Chain of Chronology is particularly preferved to us in the Lives of the Perfons he writes of. The fame Air of Seriousness and Truth runs through the whole, the Facts of one Age are not more doubtfully spoken of than of another, nor is there any more Obscurity thrown upon one Part of the History than upon another. Have we not then his Authority as ftrong for believing what He records of one Age as of another? Why shall the Story, from which the History takes its Rife, be treated as a Fiction, when that which springs from it is held to be real? And why do we longer believe, upon the Authority of Mofes, what he tells us of the Pofterity of Adam, when we refolve all that he relates of Adam himself into Imagination? Where the Account is pursued fo regularly, and with |