as the state they describe is almost as unnatural as the fuppofition of men and other animals rising out of the mud of the Nile. Mofes has given us the rife of this tradition, and his account of the true origin and original state of mankind is fo natural, that many, nay most learned men, have taken it for granted, that natural reafon could have discovered it; but contrary to all the reason and experience in the world. An experiment indeed could never be made, because the knowledge, or the tradition of the creation, and of God, who made all, has been in the world fince ever there were men in it, and subsisted long by tradition before there was any philofopher to reafon upon it. It hath never been queftioned, that all the wifdom of the firft ages confifted in certain facts, handed down in the natural channel of tradition, from one age to another, which the conceited Greeks called the barbaric philofophy; and which their fucceffors, the moderns, have rejected as no philofophy at all, because it stands not on rational arguments and demonstrations, but only upon the authority of those who maintained the tradition, which which is rejected with disdain, as unwor'thy of a philofopher. It is a problem worth difcuffing, What state the world would be in if there were no knowledge left in it but what ftands on reafon and demonftration? As the knowledge of every fact which does not fall under our own obfervation must be rejected, and reason can discover none, there would be very little left for the wifeft of men to found their reafoning and demonstration upon, and the world would foon be funk into the abyss of ignorance and barbarity. How fuch a foolish position ever came to get footing among men pretending to reason, can be no way accounted for, but by the enormous pride of those who called themselves philofophers, and who, as they pretended to discover the causes of every event, despised the way of information and tradition, to which the meanest of the vulgar had as eafy accefs as the most learned; which yet every one must see is as natural, and greatly more fo, than what they pretend to. And what makes this yet more strange is, that the far greatest part even of their knowledge stood on facts, which they they neither did, nor could know any thing of, but by tradition and information. The Greeks originally had no knowledge among them but what they received from the traditions they gathered up among other nations. It was many ages downward ere they attempted to reafon on these points. Travelling was their course of education; and they who picked up the best or moft authentic traditional facts were called wife men. And by the obfcure accounts we have of thefe traditions, it appears, that there was more religion in them, and of courfe more perfect morality, than ever the philofophers could make out. But difdaining to receive facts which they could not account for, they tried to reafon upon them, and reafoned themfelves and their followers into the profoundest ignorance of God, and of what they had either to hope or fear from him. And one who is reckoned the wifeft among them, is extolled to this day among philofophers, for bringing down philosophy from heaven to earth; that is, for rejecting religion, and the worship of God, and fetting up what is called morality in its room. Thus the primitive facts, and in them VOL. I. Ꮓ all $ all that was worth knowing, was lost; and fo entirely, that the utmost efforts the greatest geniuses could make, instead of enlightening, contributed only more to confound and perplex the world, until the original facts were again revived by the propagation of the gospel. In the beginning of Christianity, this was done in the plainest and simplest manner, the gofpel confifting only in a few plain facts, and their native confequences, which needed neither learning nor genius, until they fell into the hands of philofophers. Then indeed, by their refining upon them, they were ferved in the fame manner as the original ones were by their predeceffors; and every fact, and every confequence, must now be tried at the bar of what philofophers call reason, TH 6. Nofce teipfum, HE knowledge of one's felf has been in all ages the most neceffary, as being of all others the most useful; in fo inuch that it may be faid with a good degree of affurance, that all the folly, mifcarriages, and difafters of every kind, have been ! been owing, either to the want or imperfcction of it. Many attempts have been made, some on one part, fome on another, of what is called human nature, or the frame and conflitution of mankind: and in the iffue, fome have exalted it to fuch a measure of innate dignity and worth, as fhould feem to come little fhort of perfection, excepting only the limitation they are forced to find in point of power; while others, on this neceffary limitation, and the narrowness of human powers in every view, have sunk man into a very abject and pitiable condition. Inftances enough are to be found on both fides, and confequences charged and retorted of a very interesting nature: And it will be hard to fay, though both are dangerous, which of the two are moft fo. That enormous meafure of felf-esteem naturally arifing from the flattering scheme, is apt to betray the mind into a contempt, and confequently an utter neglect, of the abfolutely neceffary means of attaining juft notions of fuch things as men are most concerned to know. By this means, they are betrayed into the most dangerous miftakes, Z 2 |