porro et fcopulos in medio mare nihil aliud effe, nifi fegmenta terræ cavernofæ ab illo totius terrenæ molis præcipiti casu superftitis. I HAVE produced this curious passage, not merely as a proof of there having been à fingular tradition of a deluge, subsisting amongst the antient inhabitants of Æthiopia; but to fhew how great a resemblance it bears to the hypothefis, which Burnet has adorned with all the elegance of pure Latinity in his Theoria Telluris. The primitive earth, according to Burnet, was round, without mountains, without valleys, without a fea, built upon an abyfs of waters; by the falling of this cruft of earth into the abyfs, the deluge was occafioned, a sea, and mountains, and rocks, and islands were formed. -No words need be employed in fhewing how all this coincides with the tra dition of the Æthiopians expreffed in the preceding quotation. AN LETTER FIRST, SIR, T would give me much uneafiness to be reputed an Enemy to free inquiry in religious matters, or as capable of being animated into any degree of perfonal malevolence against thofe who differ from me in opinion. On the contrary, I look upon the right of private judgment, in every concern respecting God and ourselves, as fuperior to the controul of human authority; and have ever regarded free difquifition, as the best mean of illuftrating the doctrine, and establishing the truth of Christianity. Let the followers of Mahomet, and the zealots of the church of Rome, fupport their feveral religious fyftems by damping every effort of the human intellect to pry into the foundations of their faith; but never can it become a Chriftian, to be afraid of being alked a reafon of the faith that is in him; nor a Pro a Proteftant, to be ftudious of enveloping his religion in mystery and ignorance; nor the church of England, to abandon that moderation, by which she permits every individual et fentire quæ velit, et quæ fentiat dicere. It is not, Sir, without fome reluctance, that, under the influence of these opinions, I have prevailed upon myself to address these letters to you; and you will attribute to the fame motive, my not having given you this trouble fooner. I had moreover an expectation, that the task would have been undertaken by fome perfon, capable of doing greater juftice to the fubject, and more worthy of your attention. Perceiving however, that the two laft chapters, the fifteenth in particular, of your very laborious and claffical history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman empire, had made upon many an impreffion not at all advantageous to Christianity; and that the filence of others, of the Clergy efpecially, began to be looked upon as an acquiefcence in what you had therein advanced; I have thought it my duty, with the utmost respect and goodwill towards you, to take the liberty of fug gesting |