Attraction and other Ufes, be shew'd in their Course This is enough for this Place. What Numbers of impudent, ftupid Lies, have been told of the Ignorance of the Antients, and the modern Inventions of Telescopes! tho', as I have fhew'd, they, nay, even the reflecting Sort, Obfervatories, &c. are mentioned in Scripture: And tho' they knew not that, yet when they knew that the Tables they calculate by came from the People of thofe Times, would the Fools imagine themselves, or make us believe, that they made thofe inimitable Obfervations, by which these now calculate, with their naked Eyes? No, they had thofe, and other Helps, thefe Creatures know nothing of. The Scripture, and thofe Tables, I think, are the only Things which furvived the Confufion of Languages; which is, in a Manner, Evidence, that thofe Tables were, as I hinted, made by fome Method of Numbering, or by Lines on Charts, prior to writing with Letters, So of many other Branches of Science.

The Mischiefs that thefe Vermin (the Poets and Hiftorians) did, by praifing their Heroes in their Farces, or Princes for conquering Countries, and thereby inciting other Princes to imitate them, were inex

preffible

preffible, were the Caufes of the greatest Miseries which befel Mankind, as has been obferv'd by Dr. Prideaux in his Connection, Vol. I. p. 489. and others.

When these Priefts, Poets and Hiftorians had mudled the Affair, so that none then knew what they meant; now and then a Man, who had fome Spirit or Ambition in him, and was not willing to fit ftill with this, runs to the Priests of his own and other Countries, enquires about the antient Representations upon their Pillars, &c. takes their imperfect Accounts, perhaps got initiated, and fo to be permitted to view fome of them in their Adyta; and from them gather'd what he could, that Knowledge being then as much darken'd as Writing. That not fatisfying him, he fcrapes Acquaintance with fome trolling Jew; nay, indeed fome of these went into Judea, and got what they could from them; but if any went before the Captivity, they found the Jews very shy in giving any Account to the Heathens about those Affairs; fuch were not at any Rate permitted to proceed farther than the outward Courts, nor fuffer'd to fee any Thing in their Temple, much less in their Adytum; the Jewish People were not fuffer'd, nor any, except the High

Prieft.

Prieft. After the Captivity, the Jews knew very little themselves of thofe Things; and when the Tranflation, call'd the LXX, was made, as I have fhew'd, they did not fo much as make the Formation intélligible, nor made any Difcovery about what any fuch wanted, about their Gods, their Actions, &c. except only the Sun, Moon and Stars; and the Heathens, I mean Poets and Philofophers, are full of that, tho' they took the Words for the Sun, and Moon and Stars, which were for the Fluxes of Light from them; nay, long after this, as St. Jerome and others inform us, they would not fhew the little that they knew; but however, in this State of Confufion, with what they thus pick'd up, and under the Restriction of faying nothing against the Religion of their Country, these bold Fellows fet up for Philofophers, turn'd Doctors; each establishes a Sect, and their Difciples branched out ftill new ones upon different Principles; fome of which they had pick'd up from the Jews, which were true, and others which they imagined, and fo are not worth mentioning. Out of thefe each aimed at framing a Scheme or System; but the Parts would not tally. However, they ventured to commit that Stuff to Writing, at firft in Words which could

have no fixed Meaning, because those who firft ufed them made them Originals; and which, by the Confufion of their Languages, have no Roots, which they could not have done in the Hebrew, without fhewing pure Nonfenfe: And the Studies of Men ever fince have been spent, fome in pretending to explain their Notions, fome to detect them, and fo diverted Men from purfuing the Truth. It will be very furprifing, if ever their Interpreters find out their Meanings; and it is impoffible that ever they fhould find by them true Defcriptions of the Things and Actions they aimed at; ftill lower, when others could not understand the old Defcriptions of the Formation of this Syftem, nor make any Thing out from what thefe had done, and knew not how to contrive any new ones; they made the World make itfelf by Chance: All this contributed to the grand Defign of bringing Men back into the Difpenfation of Chrift.

Let this Difference be all along remem bered and confidered; we have the Hebrew Books, and the Translations in our Hands, and fo can compare the Words found in other Languages with them; which enables us to guefs at the Meanings of many of them, which none of the

Antients

Antients (except the Jews) had; fo they; when a Word was once wrong fpelled, had nothing to help them to retrieve the true Spelling, or the true Meaning of that Word. We have the fettled Powers of each Letter in a spoken, living Language, to compare and fettle thofe in others by; they had none, but each those they were forming.

Though I, to illustrate my new Affertions, have been forced to produce all this in Evidence, 'tis nothing but what the celebrated Philofophers of our Times not only affirm in Words, but in Facts; for as fome of them understood a little Greek, and any of them a little Latin; and as most of those Books have been tranflated into Latin, we muft fuppofe they had the Modesty before they fet up any Schemes of their own, to look into thofe Books they could read (and fhould have look'd a little farther) to fee whether it had been done by others: And fure thofe great Men, who fet up Systems of Vortexes, Attraction, Projection, &c. found nothing better among these Authors, or elfe they would never have offered their own. And do not all they set their Hands to this, who have followed any of thefe modern Schemes?