4

roglyphics was twofold; the one popular, and obvious made known to all, as poffibly geometry, arithmetic, and mufic; the other fecret and accounted holy, whereby the most im portant subjects of theology, phyfiology, and civil policy were represented. Whence originated the spalina papar, of facred letters, which Mofes certainly learned either when he was educated at the court of Pharaoh, as is most probable, or elfe, as Sir Ifaac Newton' fays, from his father-in-law. Pliny fays, "Literas femper arbitror Affyrias fuiffe, fed alii, apud Egyptios a Mercurio, ut Gellius: alii apud Syros repertas volunt. Anticlides in Egypto inveniffe quendam nomine Menona tradit." The opinion of Gellius is taken from Sanchuniatho in Eufebius, and alfo from Plato: Philo fays, that Taautus was the first who found a method of affifting the memory by the art of writing. Socrates is reprefented by Plato as faying, I have heard that a certain ancient God, to whom the bird Ibis is confecrated, au de oropa to dampon si λογισμού εύρειν, και

δε

πρωτον αρίθμοντε

και

TE

устрметры, και αςρονομίαν, ετι δε πετίειας και κιθείας, και raula, and whofe name is Thoth, was the first who invented numerical computation, the play of chefs and dice, and alfo letters. The fame author alfo fays, that Thoth made

the

the diftinction between vowels and confonants, mutes and liquids; and Kircher says, that this discovery was the confequence of fymbolic representations: omnes tamen in hoc confentiunt, plerafque ex facrorum animalium forma, inceffu aliarumq: corporis partium fitibus & fymmetria defumptas. Ita Demetrius Phalereus, qui feptem vocales affignans feptem diis confecratas ait, cæteras ex animalium forma defumptas. Eufebius astruit idem. Thus it appears, that it was a very univerfal opinion, that from the figure of Animals, or the different parts of them, letters were invented; and that their antiquity must have been very great; when they have been imputed to the wisdom of Thoth.

That letters were known in Arabia before the time of Mofes is almoft demonftrable from the writings of Job, who is the most ancient of all authors, whofe works have been transmitted to us in any tolerable degree of preservation. Job, T πολυκλείτα xas πολυμαίης, that illuftrious and learned Arab, in whofe hiftory many veftigia of ancient literature occur, is accounted more ancient than Mofes, and this is evident in a variety of inftances: A few remarks on this fubject cannot be confidered as foreign from the point in ques tion,

The first reafon affigned for the great an tiquity of Job is, that in his writings there is not the smalleft trace of the written law; that the precepts of Noah alone are by implication refered to, as thus:

1. Of Idolatry." If I beheld the fun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness." This fpecies of idolatry was by much the earliest, and in Arabia was called Sabeanism.

2. Of Blafphemy.-" And he rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings, according to the number of them all; for Job faid, it may be that my fons have finned, and curfed God in their hearts."

3. Of Homicide." If I rejoiced at the deftruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him, neither have I fuffered my mouth to fin, by wishing a curfe to his foul. If the men of my tabernacle faid, oh that we had of his flesh, we cannot be fatisfied."

4. Of Adultery.-" If my heart hath been deceived by a woman, or if I have laid wait at my neighbour's door.

5. Of Theft, of illicit Gain." If my step hath turned out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any blot hath cleaved unto my hands."

6. Of

6. Of Judgment.---(Job himself acting as a judge.) "Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherlefs, and him that had none to help him."

απο T8

Another corroborating circumftance is, that the age of Job being upwards of two hundred years, denotes a time previous to Mofes, who is faid to have died at a very great age, at one hundred and twenty; it being obferved as a very peculiar circumstance, that his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And it is the opinion of Chryfoftom, μακροβιωίαίου τούτον γεγονέναι, και υπερ τα διακοσια ετη βεβιωκέναι εδεις γαρ μετά τον νόμον τοσαυτα ζησας ιστορήται, " from this argument, that there is no inftance on record, that any person, after the law, had lived fo long as two hundred years." Befides, it was reckoned highly criminal by the law of Mofes, that any perfon fhould offer facrifice any where, but before the Ark of the Tabernacle of God.

The conduct of Job was not, in this instance, agreeable to the law, and yet he was accounted blameless. At what time Job lived, we may form fome idea from this circumftance; That Eliphaz, the Temenite, (companion to Job) was fon to Teman, the grand

fon

"

fon of Efau; and that he most probably lived about the intermediate time between the end of Genefis, and the beginning of Exodus.

Mr. Warburton, in his Divine Legation, endeavours to reduce the Book of Job, that venerable work of antiquity, to a ftate full worfe than that of Job himself, in the midst of his accumulated mifery; and for no other reason, than because it is fo full of fentiments of immortality; for no other reafon, I fay, becaufe hís affertions are totally foreign from the point he meant to prove, which was, that a future ftate was not taught by Mofes. For if, agreeably to his fentiments, references are made in the Book of Job to the writings of Mofes, it would be at least natural to fuppose, that those sentiments of futurity, which have given him fo much trouble to confute, were derived from the fame fource; which trouble he would have totally avoided, by embracing the opinion of Job's greater antiquity. But it would be rather treating Mr. Warburton ill, to pafs by his arguments on this fubject; and I am forry to fay, that he has affumed a mode of reafoning exceedingly weak and trifling, and fuch as he himself would never have borne from an opponent:

an

J