I.

SECT. rious traditions, which are the most confonant with the page of Scripture. By the whole thus combined, the moral certainty of the Mofaical hiftory of the flood appears to be established on a bafis fufficiently firm to bid defiance to the cavils of fcepticism. Let the ingenuity of unbelief first account fatisfactorily for this univerfal agreement of the pagan world; and she may then, with a greater degree of plaufibility, impeach the truth of the scriptural narrative of the deluge.

CHAP. V.

PAGAN ACCOUNTS OF THE PERIOD AFTER
THE DELUGE. I. TRADITIONS RESPECT-
ING NOAH AND HIS THREE SONS; I. SA-
TURN. 2. TARGITAUS. 3. MANNUS. 4. SA-
TYAVARMAN. II. THE TOWER OF BABEL;
1. THE SIBYL MENTIONED BY JOSEPHUS.
2. ABYDENUS FROM EUSEBIUS. 3. ALEX-
ANDER POLYHISTOR FROM SYNCELLUS.

4. APOLLODORUS. 5. HOMER. 6. HESIOD.
7. NIMROD. 8. HINDOO ACCOUNT. III. SO-
DOM AND GOMORRHA. IV. ABRAHAM;
1. MENTIONED BY BEROSUS, HECATEUS,
AND NICOLAUS DAMASCENUS. 2. EUPO-
LEMUS. 3. ARTAPANUS. 4. MELO. 5. THE
KORAN. V. ISAAC. VI. JACOB. VII. JO-
SEPH. VIII. MOSES. IX. THE PASSAGE
THROUGH THE RED SEA. CONCLUSION.

counts of

after the

IN confidering the events which took Pagan acplace pofterior to the era of the deluge, a the period certain degree of caution is neceffary to be deluge. used; in order to avoid the imputation of discovering coincidences between facred and profane history, which never existed, fave in the imagination alone. It appears highly probable, that the Gentile world might have

1.

SECT. have fome knowledge of the postdiluvian events mentioned in Scripture, down to a certain period: but we have very little cause to suppose, that they were much acquainted with the internal state of the kingdom of Ifrael, after it was finally established in the land of Paleftine. The reafon is obvious: while the greatest part of the tranfactions detailed in the other hiftorical books of Scripture concern merely the Ifraelites, and the petty kingdoms fituated immediately upon their frontiers; thofe, which are related in the Pentateuch, and which approach nearer to the time of the deluge, affect, more or less, the anceftors of all nations.

During the early ages, when a small portion only of the globe was inhabited, and when a wandering paftoral life was fo frequent throughout the Eaft; the knowledge of any fact would be more easily and more generally diffufed, and a traditional remembrance of the fame events would be carried into countries widely separated from each other. This ftate of things ceased foon after the Ifraelites became established in the promised land, and had been gradually undergoing a confiderable change

during

during fome time antecedent to that pe- CHAP.
riod. Such a circumftance, added to the V.
feclufion of the chofen people of God from
the rest of mankind, is fufficient to destroy
all probability of certain ethnical fables
being derived from fimilar events, which
happened during the existence of Ifrael as a
nation. The channel, through which tra-
ditions of Noah and his more immediate
defcendants may have been derived to the
Gentiles, is easily pointed out: but it will
perhaps be no eafy matter to enforce a ra-
tional conviction, that the facrifice of Iphi-
genia was borrowed from the history of
Jephthah's daughter; or that the Scrip-
tural Sampfon was the prototype of the
Grecian Hercules. The caufe of truth fre-
quently fuffers no less from the ill-judged
zeal of friends, than from the misrepre-
fentations of profeffed enemies. To re-
folve every Pagan tradition into fome cor-
refponding Scriptural event, is the height,
of folly and credulity: but, to deny all re-
femblance and all connexion between fa-
cred and profane antiquity, is more nearly
allied to a blind and indifcriminate fcep-
ticism, than to a difpaffionate fearch after,
historical veracity. The truth in this, as
in most other cafes, is equally removed

from

1

SECT. from the two extremes: and we may perI. haps venture to affert in general terms, that, as it is natural to expect coincidences between the Mofaical and Gentile accounts of the earlier poftdiluvian ages; fo, afterwards, either none are to be found, or if they be discovered, that we poffess no certainty of their being any thing more, than mere accidental resemblances.

This rule indeed is not entirely without exceptions. Events have fometimes occurred, even in fubfequent ages, of so remarkable a nature, that they appear almost irresistibly to have attracted the notice of the Heathen world. Some remembrance of the fun's standing still in the days of Joshua feems to have been preserved in several different quarters of the globe. It is said, that, in the days of Yaus, the seventh Emperor of China, the fun did not fet for the space of ten days, infomuch that a conflagration of the whole world was expected3. Martinius compares this event with the ftory of Phaethon, which may poffibly have an allufion of a fimilar nature; and Herodotus was informed by the

Mart. Hift. Sin. p. 37.

priests