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fuch apparent Veracity and equal Pretenfions to Knowledge and Certainty, through all Ages, If we once begin to believe, I fee not how we can stop the Progrefs of our Belief till we are arrived at the very Beginning; for the fame Authority, that we fet out upon, will bear us, without failing, through every Period of the History. If we believe that Jacob was the Son of Ifaac, and Ifaac of Abraham, we must also believe on through the whole Race, from Abraham to Noah, to Seth, to Adam. If we give our Affent to what is told of the former, we cannot withhold it from what is related of the latter. Every fucceeding Generation gives Credit to that which goes before it, nor can We, confiftently, hold the most antient to be fabulous, and the latest to be true. For 'tis certainly as abfurd to derive a Series of true Hiftory from a Fiction, as a Series of true Prophecies.

And indeed the Account of this very Author, however ftudioufly he endeavours to avoid it, may be made to confefs that there is fome Degree of Truth in this Relation of Mofes. All the Leffon, he fays, that can be inferred from the caftern Fable is this, that this World was created by God; and that Man was happy in it as long as he continued innocent, but forfeited his Happiness, and became wretched and miferable, as foon as he became a wilful (and habitual) Sinner. Now all these very Facts, if we only leave out the Expreffion habitual, which I have before confidered, and fhewn not to be fairly inferred, are taught, in

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the most plain and exprefs Manner, in the Hiftory of the Creation and Fall. In the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. a So God created Man in his own Image, in the Image of God created be him: Male and Female created he them. But of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat of it: For in the Day that Thou eateft thereof thou shalt furely die. And when the Woman faw that the Tree was good for Food, and that it was pleasant to the Eyes, and a Tree to be defired to make one wife; She took of the Fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her Hufband with her; and He did eat. Unto the Woman be faid, I will greatly multiply thy Sorrow, and thy Conception; In Sorrow thou shalt bring forth Children: And thy Defire shall be to thy Hufband, and he fhall rule over thee. And unto Adam he faid, Because thou hast hearkened unto the Voice of thy Wife, and haft eaten of the Tree of which I commanded Thee faying, Thou shalt not eat of it, curfed is the Ground for thy Sake: In Sorrow fhalt thou eat of it all the Days of thy Life. Thorns alfo and Thiftles fhall it bring forth to Thee: And Thou shalt eat the Herb of the Field. In the Sweat of thy Face fhalt thou eat Bread, till thou return unto the Ground: For out of it waft thou taken; For Duft thou art and unto Duft shalt thou return. e Here it is faid that God created the Earth, and made Man in his own Image: that He created Man, Male and Female: that He foretold b Verf. 27. c Chap. 2. 17. d Chap. 3. 6,

a Gen. I. I. e Verf. 16, 17, 18, 19.

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them that, whenever they should venture to tranfgrefs his Command, Lofs of Happiness would be the Confequence: That the Woman, led afide by her Paffions, finned; She faw, desired, and eat: The Man alfo, hearkening to her Voice before that of his Creator, fell with her: And lastly, that, by Sinning, they incurred the divine Difpleasure, and were by God condemned to Labour, Sorrow and Death. All these Things are related in the plaineft and fimpleft Language: They stand forth in the clearest Light, not lying hid under any Emblems, nor darkened with fo much as one figurative Expreffion. They are not in the leaft difcoloured, diffembled, or difguifed. Every Thing wears its own proper Form. It is God himself who is the Creator of all Things, and Avenger of his violated Laws: It is Man himself who is happy in Innocence, and made miferable by Difobedience. It is the Paffions themselves that betray him into Sin: Sin itself which is the Cause of his Mifery; and Death itself which is threatned, and, with other attendant Sufferings, inflicted. Every single Article therefore in the Leffon, which Dr. M. has inferred from this Account, The Creation of the World by God, Man's Happiness in it as long as he continued innocent, and his Mifery as foon as he became a wilful Sinner, are fet forth here in Terms fo plain and free from Ambiguity, that no Comment, no Language can make them appear plainer. When, that Part of the Account, which relates these Things, being confeffedly li

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reral, must be either literally true, or literally falfe. For Every Thing ftands under its own Name and Character, is anfwerable for itself and Nothing else. There is no borrowed Form, Shadow, or Emblem, except Things may be called their own Shadows and Emblems.

Dr. M. finds great Fault with his Lordship for faying, in different Parts of his Discourses, that the Account itself is Historical, but cloathed in Parables and Similitudes, and in some Part metaphorical. Now all this does not fhew any Inconsistency in that excellent Writer. He is all along clear for the Facts related by Mofes being all literally true. In his late Appendix, he declares it as his Opinion, that a real Serpent was concerned in the Temptation. Yet he thinks that this real Serpent might also ftand as a proper Emblem of the Deceiver. a We fee there how the Account may be historically true, and

yet cloathed in Parables and Similitudes. And for the remaining Part, its being alfo metaphorical, in that there is no Difficulty. For whoever has read this excellent Appendix, may learn that Metaphors do not belong to the fubject Matter of any Narration, but to the Expreffion or Language only. They may therefore indifferently be applied in any Writing, whether it be Truth or Fiction, and have accordingly been always used promifcuously by all Kinds of Writers. But now we hear this fharp Examiner declaring, that the Facts in this Account are all apparently fictitious,

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and impoffible to be performed in the Manner in which they are defcribed. a Yet it appears, from what has been faid, that he plainly admits the Truth of certain of the principal Facts contained in it, and confeffes that fome Part of it is truly historical. These Positions cannot poffibly be reconciled to Truth or Reason. His own Wit may be turned upon him, barely by inverting the Sentence; for it will be true of him, that he holds this Account to be wholly fictitious, to be made up of Parables and Similitudes, and yet to be, in fome Part, Historical.

SINCE then the Truth of these Capital Facts cannot poffibly be controverted, and they appear undeniably to be related in plain and common Language, If any one will still maintain that the Author's Design was to inculcate the Belief of these Facts in an allegorical Manner, He must hold it to be a very strange and fingular Kind of Compofition. It must be wholly a double Account, in which the fame Things are literally and emblematically fet forth, fometimes clearly fpoken of, fometimes but obliquely pointed at, now fully discovered, and again partly concealed, at one Time held up to our View in their own proper and naked Forms, and then at last presented to Us under a Disguise. But, what is ftill worse, the Subftance of the Discourse must all be made true, and the allegorical Representation of that Subftance thrown into the Circumstances. Thus the Sin, and confequent Mifery

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