*

but one fupreme God, whom they worship in their Minds, and look upon all thofe as profane who represent the Godhead with mortal and perifhing Matter, and in the Figure of Men. So far are they from fuffering Images in their Temples, that they do not fo much as admit them into the Cities where they dwell, and will not pay that complimental Flattery to the Statues of Kings and Emperors themselves; and this he has the Face to fay, when almoft in the fame Breath, in the very Page before, he had declar'd they had the Image of an Afs in their Temple. If this is not pugnantia fecum frontibus adverfis componere, I do not know what is. Again, as if he could not help blundering when he speaks of the Religion of the Jews, after he had done them the Juftice to fay, that they maintain'd the Unity of the Godhead, that they worshipped but one God, whom they thought an eternal and unchangeable Being, he foon after affigns them a Plurality of Gods; and faith, that before the Ruin of the Temple, a Voice was heard there, faying, excedere Deos, that the Gods were departing and forfaking the Place; and that a Noife was heard on their leaving it. A learned || Critick endeavours to bring him off, by saying, that he spoke Пanbuvimas, in the plural Number, more gentili, according to the Manner of Speaking of the Heathen. But I can

*

Judæi unum Numen intelligunt. Profanos, qui Deorum imagines, mortalibus materiis, in fpeciem hominum effingant: fummum fillud æternum, neque mutabile nec interiturum. Igitur nulla fimulacra urbibus fuis nedum Templis funt. Non Regibus hæc adulatio, non Cæfaribus honor. Ib. p. 672.

Tacit. & Hift. 1. 5. c. 3.

** Vifæ per cœlumconcurrere acies, rutilantia arma, & fubitò nubium igne collucere Templum. Expaffe repente delubri fores & audita vox major humanâ Excedere Deos, & fimul ingens motus excedentium. Tacit. Hift. 1. 5. c. 13. Edit. Gronovii.

Mr. Le Clerc,

not be of his Opinion, nor think fo favourably of an Author who commits fo many Errors and Miftakes, and can hardly take a Step without a Blunder or Fall. And yet fuch a Writer as this, who lived at fo great a Distance from the Time and Place where thofe Facts were transacted, shall, in the present Age, be thought to deserve greater Credit than Mofes and the Evangelifts, who were actually upon the Spot, and recorded what they faw with their own Eyes, and heard with their own Ears. And the falfe and malicious Accounts he gives of the Chriftians, fhall be preferred to that of Pliny, one of the best and wifeft Men of his Time, who was a Governor of a Province that was full of those of that Perfuafion, which deferves, for their Honour, to be written in Characters of Gold. I remember a few Years ago, when Mr. Gordon's elegant Tranflation of Tacitus came out, fome of our Unbelievers, who had not Learning enough to read the Original, triumph'd very much, and were greatly delighted with the Scorn and Contempt with which he treats the Laws and Religion of the Jews, and the scandalous Accounts he gives of the Chriftians. But it is common (as a very ingenious Writer has obferved) for Deifts, and Enemies to Reveal'd Religion, when they meet a Pagan Antiquity that contradicts and difcredits the Jewish History, to cry up a Greek Historian, as an Evidence to which nothing can be replied. An imperfect Hint of Herodotus, or Diodorus Siculus, tho' one lived a thoufand, the other fifteen hundred Years after the Point in Queftion, pick'd up from any lying Vagabond they met with in their Travels, fhall outweigh the Hiftory of Mofes, who wrote of his own People, and lived in the very Times he wrote of. But

Mr. Warburton's Divine Legation.

to

to turn the Tables, and apply the Teftimony of these very Writers, and others of Credit of the fame Nation, to the Confirmation of the Jewish Hiftory, and then nothing is more fallacious and uncertain than those ancient Records. I beg Leave to add to this Obfervation of Mr. Warburton, that fome of the Writers on the Side of Infidelity have not fcrupled to mangle, corrupt, and falfify fuch Paffages in ancient and modern Books that seem to pinch them, and to favour in the least the Caufe of Religion. There is but one poor little Paffage in the whole Account of Tacitus in favour of the Antiquity of the Rites and Religion of the Jews, which a Writer of Figure among them has wrefted from, and warped directly against them. Tar citus faith,* that these Rites of the Jews, however they were introduced at first, have Antiquity on their Side to fupport and defend them; which Mr. Blount, with great Ingenuity, tranflates in this Manner:+ Thefe Rites, however they were introduced at first, have no Antiquity for their Patronization, || and has the Modefty, without a Blufh, to refer his Readers to the very Paffage in that Hiftorian. With equal Candor and Sincerity the fame Writer has quoted a Paffage out of Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, in relation to the Ark, ** where that learned Man faith, "How all Kinds of Creatures, not only in "their Bulks, but with a Competency of Food "and Suftenance, might be preferved in the Ark, "and within the Extent of three hundred Cubits, "to a Reason, that rightly examines it, will ap66 pear very feasible." Thus the Words ftand in the Book itself, and in the Annotations upon it.

*Hi ritus quocunque modo inducti antiquitate defenduntur. + See Dr. Jenkins's Reasonableness, Pref. 1. Vol. I. p. 10. See Dr. Jenkins's Reasonableness of Christianity. Pref. to 2d Vol.

** Oracles of Reafon, p. 132.

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Bur

*

But this Gentleman, by a small Alteration, and flinging in the little Negative not, makes the Doctor fpeak quite otherways, and fay, "That to a "Reason that rightly examines it, it will not ap

pear very feasible"; which should set Men upon their Guard against the Quotations of thofe Gentlemen, and oblige them to go to the Spring-Head, and to confult the Originals themselves. I could make many other Remarks upon that unhappy Gentleman and his Performance, that has been fo much cried up by a Set of Men in our Days, but that I take no Delight in infulting the Memory, and trampling upon the Afhes of the Dead.

This brings to my Mind another very extraordinary Quotation in a late Book, intitled, An Enquiry into the Conftitution, Difcipline, &c. of the primitive Church; where the Author, quoting Ignatius, makes him fay, that Chriftian Deacons were [only] Minifters of Cups and Meats, 'Espèr 2 ποτηρίων καὶ βρωμάτων δίακονοι ; but unluckily omits the Negative, which makes a little Alteration in the Text, oμer, which stands in the very Edition of Voffius, to which he refers his Readers. By fuch Citations as thefe, by this Liberty, all the Paffages of the Ancients may be turned and warped like a Nofe of Wax, and be brought to prove the greatest Falfhoods and Abfurdities in Life, and that---Nil intra eft oleum, nil extra eft in nuce duri. Since the writing of this, I have met with a Paffage in an anonymous Letter to the present Archbishop concerning the Validity of Lay-Baptifm, and think myself obliged to do fome Juftice to the Writer of this Enquiry; I fay, fome Juftice; for if the Account of the Letter-Writer be really true and Matter of Fact, (as there feems to be no juft Reason to think otherways) that Gentleman

Religio Medici, 1. 1. p. 22.

cannot

cannot entirely be excufed. The Author of this Piece was long fuppofed, and has been known fince, to be the late Sir PK, the great Honour and Oracle of the Law, of whom it was hard to fay, when he pleaded at the Bar, whether the Judge and the Audience took more Pleafure and Delight in hearing him, or whether his Clients had more Joy and Affurance of Succefs in the Affairs which they committed to his Management and Care. But as no one made a greater Figure in his Profeffion, fo no one made a worse, and committed greater Errors and Mistakes, when he ventur'd out of it: I have just now mention'd one, which, in Charity, I am inclin'd to believe, was only an alia, or Overfight. I could give more Proofs out of the fame Book; as, where he speaks of Diocefan Epifcopacy, and endeavours to prove the Equality of Bishops and Priefts in the primitive Church. And thus it generally happens even with the greatest Men when they venture ultra crepidam, and do not keep within their true and proper Sphere. I could name fome learned Men here, who, for want of this, have loft fome Honour and Reputation they had juftly acquir'd; I mean, for want of confining themselves within the Bounds of their Profeffion, of following the old Rule, nofce teipfum, and measuring their Strength,

Quid ferre recufent, quid Valeant humeri,

An Answer was made by a very learned and judicious Divine to this Book in 1717, which Sir P- faw and read in MS before it was printed; and he had it in his Power to prevent the printing of it effectually, if he pleased. But fo far was he from that, that he gave up his own Book, which had just then had a fecond Edition, without asking his Confent, by one Bell, a Diffenting Bookfeller, thereunto moved

Cc 3