an example or two will be fully fufficient. The words, "receive, I pray, the law from his mouth," he afferts, refer to the tradition of the Jews but he never recollected that there was an oral tradition previous to Mofes, on the supposition that the words referred to tradition. He might as well have said, that Pythagoras's los qr, or that Plato, where he mentions mythologic tradition, alluded to the law of Mofes. And again," Job cries out, oh! that I were as in the days of my youth, when the fecret of God was on my tabernacle." This, he fays, was evidently taken from the divine Shekinah, in a visible form on the Ark. But the learned difputant did not feem to recollect, that there are authorities fufficient to prove, that it was a custom even among the barbarous nations, to carry about portable tabernacles; and that this was a custom before the time of Mofes, hear what the prophet Amos fays: "Have ye offered unto me facrifices and offerings in the wildernefs forty years, O Houfe of Ifrael? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch," &c. Clemens Alexandrinus fays, AUTO λυχνες τε και ειν πρώτοι καταδείξειν. The Egyptians frit fhewed the method of lighting lamps, i, e. in temples, or portable tabernacles.---See Spencer. Herodotus fays the fame thing.

Job

Job then being the predeceffor to Mofes, it follows, that an acquaintance with letters, was alfo previous to his time, and the knowledge of many branches of literature. Nay, in the Book of Job, are evident veftigia of an advanced state of literature. Several conftellations had then been named, as Chimah and Chefil, or Orion, and Pleiades, Arcturus, and the crooked Serpent.

The author difplays in many paffages the brighteft poetic fancy, in beautiful and picturefque defcriptions; and his taste for natural hiftory, in a variety of well felected inflances. In what poet, even in the most refined age, can we find a paffage fuperior in the truly fublime, to the following defcription "In thoughts from the Vifions of the Night, when deep fleep falleth upon man, fear came upon me, and trembling which made all my bones to shake. Then a fpirit paffed before my face-the hair of my flesh ftood up-It stood still, but I could not difcern the form thereof-an image was before my eyes; there was filence, and I heard a voice, faying, fhall mortal man be more juft than God?" Our modern Longinus, the elegantly learned Burke, has highly extolled this paffage.

Altho'

Altho' it might appear trifling to follow those who make Adam the inventor of let ters, or to give faith to opinions of Jewish Rabbis relative to the writings of Seth, who is reprefented by Geladin, an ancient Arabic writer, to have been taught by Adam, - not to mention what Jofephus has faid of the two pillars, which in his time remained in Afia, (whercon were made prophetic infcriptions) and fuch like affertions, which are difficult to be proved, and as difficult to be credited, I fhall only advance one argument, which by chriftians, who admit of the divine authority of the New Testament, cannot poffibly be evaded ; the argument is founded on the expreffions of St. Jude, concerning Michael the Archangel, &c. which are undoubtedly a quotation from the Book of Enoch: therefore St. Auguftine fays, Lib 15. de Civ. We cannot deny that Enoch, the feventh from Adam, wrote fome things accounted divine and Tertullian makes it appear, that the writings of Enoch were fuppressed by the Jews, because they clearly foretold Chrift.

Now if I were indulged in giving an opinion, it would be this;- that foon after the difperfion, a mode of expreffing ideas by fome fort of writing was invented; and probably the first trial was to record fuch traditional

knowledge

knowledge as was received or conveyed from Enoch, whofe pious character might have made his information to be better received than that of others. This traditional account, now first committed to writing, might have been called the Book of Enoch, and have contained an account of the creation, and many prophecies of future events. De libris Enoch, Origines & Procopius eos continuiffe aiunt multa vaticinia, videlicet de his, quæ eventura erant filiis ac nepotibus Patriarcharum, de futuris Hebræorum fceleribus & pœnis, de mundi falvatore ab eis occidendo, de eorundem everfione, captivitate, & difperfione inter gentes perpetua.-Kircher de Lit. & Obel; lib. I. p. 7:

An account of many particulars, which are faid to be contained in this book of Enoch, are found in the works of Origenes and Tertullian. As for the Sybilline verses, they are fo fully proved to be fpurious, and of a comparatively late exiftence, by the very learned Ger. Voffius, that they cannot be admitted as evidence in favour of the knowledge of letters, before the days of Mofes. But with refpect to the book of Enoch, there have not been any fufficient grounds to difcredit it for if the chriftian writers of the first century, or any time after, had formed fuch a

any

;

fiction,

fiction, it would never have efcaped the enemies of chriftianity, and particularly the Jews; as apocryphal writings, of which there were many, have been foon detected.

Before we part with this fubject, we must advance fome further confiderations which will be useful, Califthenes the philofopher, who had made every poffible enquiry, at the request of his mafter Ariftotle, and who had no inducement to form a fiction, is more to be depended on than the vauntings of a people who had magnified the antiquity of their nation beyond the bounds of credibility : as Cicero remarks of the Babylonians, fe 470 millia annorum habere monumentis (fcil literarum) comprehensa & illa posuisse in periclitandis experiundifque pueris quicunque effent nati. But he, with propriety, accounts them to be liars, and condemns them either of folly, vanity, or imprudence: Alfo Diodorus Siculus, (lib. ii.) fays, that a perfon would not be easily induced to believe the multitude of years which they are faid to have cultivated την θεωρίαν των κατα του κόσμου, the obfervation of the world, for the number fourhundred and feventy-three thousand years from the time of first making these observations, to the incurfion of Alexander the Great into Afia.

But