make Settlements, they carried an Image of one of the chief Gods before them, and attributed Victory or the Succefs, in their Settlements, to him; and fometimes had Men who headed them in those Expeditions, fo called their Kings, and were alfo called by the Names of their Gods, as appears Ibid. Bochart. p. 372, and 374. So as aforefaid, our Chronologers, in the Dark, frequently take a God, and make a Man of him, nay, I think I may fay, make all their Gods Men; make one of them beget fuch and fuch; make a King of him; make him reign at fuch a Place, fo long; make him march upon fuch Expeditions, make fuch Conquefts, fuch Settlements, &c.

But this is not all, nor the worft: They had not only loft all Knowledge of another State, of the Agents there, and of their Deputies, the Agents which do every Thing for Man, in this Syftem; but they had loft the Knowledge of the Services which the Antients paid to thofe Powers, and introduced others, of which fome are not fit to be mentioned, partly as aforefaid, by miftaking the original Meaning of Words, and partly by fubftituting Imaginations out of their own Heads, inftead of thofe they had loft; but chiefly by that frantick Liberty

which, in Defiance of the feverest Laws, the Poets took, not only of putting in Letters, leaving Letters out of Words, adding a Piece, or cutting off a Piece, Euph. grat. or making juft fuch a Number of Verses, or of fuch Lengths, or, as we fay, for Rhime's fake, as a certain great Man does with his Pictures, to make them fit his Places; but of introducing these Powers as Men or Women, acting of Farces in all the Scenes of Man's Life, from that of a Prince to a Peafant; and therein not only undertaking the moft extravagant Adventures, and playing the maddeft Pranks, but committing Crimes too horrid to be mentioned; which drew not only the Princes into their Exploits of Conqueft, Destruction, and all the horrid Acts the highest in those Stations could be guilty of, not only by devaftating whole Countries, but reducing the People who efcaped, to Diftreffes and Slavery, to which even Death was preferable; and also drew People of middling Fortunes, nay, even the Vulgar, into a Notion of imitating their Gods, which alfo diffolved the natural Ties of Relation or Morality among them; fo they, great and fmall, had loft the Poffibility of being fafe, or enjoying the Things quietly which are the most defireable

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defireable in this Syftem. Thefe Farces, efpecially that of making their Gods Patterns to greatly wicked Men, who disturbed Mankind, or destroyed them, and the filly Tricks they made them play, made them appear ridiculous to wife Men, and odious to good Men, and promoted God's Defign: And the fuppofed Rites of their Religion broke through the most valuable Ties of Property, broke down the Fences of thofe Things for which all other Things are enclosed; and when any one had the Courage to refufe to part with them quietly, if he were of great Rank, it created War; if of low Degree, it generally coft one or more of the Parties their Lives, as appears, Wisdom, Cap. xiv.

It would, after all, be exceeding ftrange, if we, nay, even if we had the Gift of the Knowledge of Tongues, fhould find Words used in any of the Languages while the People were in this State, which fhould convey proper Ideas of Agents, Actions, or Things; or if we fhould find Writings which would give us true Accounts of the Agents, their Powers, Actions, their Effects or Confequences, which the Writers did not understand. And it would be ftill ftranger, if a Lexicon-maker, or a Grammarian, or both, could find a proper

proper Idea for each Word, and proper Accounts or Defcriptions in thofe Writings, conformable to thofe in Revelation, which the Writers knew nothing of

But this Ignorance is not the worst, fince it had prevailed in all, or moft of the Countries where there were any Remains of the Footsteps of thefe antient Languages, and was furmounted by the Knowledge restored by the laft Revelation. The Powers of Hell have made another Effort, when all their Perfecutions, Defigns erected by Fraud, and Attempts to deceive, failed, they employed the united Cunning of all the Enemies of Chrift, viz. the apoftate Jews, the heretical Chriftians, and the Heathens, and to it joined the Force of Arms; mixed all their Errors and falfe Conftructions of the Bible, and many Remains of Heathenifm, together; confounded the Senfe of every Word which could be ferviceable to a Chriftian, and conformed them all to ferve their new Scheme; drove it down by Force, and as far as it has been in the Power of blind Zeal and Force, have deftroyed and hindered them from preferving the Memory of any Thing, or writing a Line, which oppofes this Scheme. This was begun by that Impoftor Mahomet, and is carried VOL. IV.

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on by his Succeffors, the Antichrift fo often mentioned, who took upon him the Office of Chrift, made him a new God, and himself Mediator between his God and his Men. This is the Profeffion, these are the People, which every Chriftian ought to oppofe; and every Thing that they have writ or done, are what every Christian ought to abominate. And I may, without Breach of Chaiftian Charity, fay, there is a Curfe hangs upon fuch of the reformed Clergy, Teachers, &c. as could or can read, and must know this to be fo, who for political Reasons, have fixed this upon the Pope and Church of Rome, and thereby created and continued that implacable Enmity between thofe and us, who, with all their Errors and Faults, are Chriftians, and fo our Brethren, and many of them better than thofe the Reformed allow to be fuch, and who ftyle themfelves Proteftants, and thereby have endangered the Deftruction of both, and prevented the Union in Writing, or Force, which might otherwife have been employ'd against the common Enemy of Cristianity.

Our Ancestors have procured the Tranflation of the Hebrew into Greek, and one Targum made before the coming of Christ,

and