doubts about it"; but I must think, that the accounts which he endeavours to give of the original of the Assyrians, will be always reckoned among the peculiarities of that learned gentleman. There are some small differences among the writers, who have copied from Ctesias, about the true number of kings from Ninus to Sardanapalus, as well as about the sum of the duration of their reigns; but if what I have offered in defence of Ctesias himself may be admitted, the mistakes of those who have copied from him will be easily corrected in the proper place.

I hope the digressions in this work will not be thought too many, or too tedious; being occasioned by the circumstances of those times of which I treat. I have not made it my business to write at large upon any of them; but thought a few general hints of what might be offered upon them, would be both acceptable to the reader, and not foreign to the purpose I have in hand; all of them, if duly considered, tending very evidently to illustrate the

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Marsham; Can. Chron. p. 485, speaking of Ctesias's catalogue, he says, De cujus veritate, cum nemo adhuc sit qui dubitaverit, &c.

Sacred History. There are two subjects which the reader might expect at the beginning of this work; one of them is the account of the creation of the world, the other the state of Adam and Eve in Paradise, their fall, and their loss of it. Of the former of these I would give some account in this place; the latter, I think, may be treated with greater clearness, when I come hereafter to speak of Moses and his writings*.

I. The account, which Moses gives of the creation, is to this purport:

In the beginning, GoD created the Heavens and the Earth.

The Earth after it was created was for some time a confused and indigested mass of matter, a dark and unformed chaos; but GOD in six days reduced it into a world, in the following manner :

First, the Spirit of GoD moved upon the fluid matter, and separated the parts of· which it consisted from one another; some of them shined like the light of the day, others were opaque like the darkness of the

* See this subject treated at large in the Introduction to the Fourth Volume. EDIT.

night; GoD separated them one from the other; and this was the first step taken in the formation of the world.

Secondly, GOD thought it proper to have an expansion between the Earth and Heaven, capable of supporting clouds of water: the appointing this expansion, and suspending the waters in it, was the work of the second day.

Thirdly, After this, GoD caused the waters of the earth to be drawn off, so as to drain the ground, and thus were the seas gathered together, and the dry land appeared; and then GoD produced from the earth all manner of trees, and grass, and herbs, and fruits.

On the fourth day, GoD made the lights of Heaven capable of being serviceable to the world in several respects, fitted to distribute light and heat, to divide day and night, and to mark out times, seasons, and years; two of them were more especially remarkable, the Sun and the Moon: the Sun he made to shine in the day, the Moon

* p Rachiang properly signifies an expansion, and not what is implied by the Greek word sepewa, or our English word firmament.

by night; and he gave the stars their proper places.

Fifthly, Out of the waters God created all the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air.

On the sixth day, out of the earth GoD made all the other living creatures, beasts, cattle, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth. Last of all, he made man, a more noble creature than any of the rest: he made his body of the dust of the earth; and afterwards animated him with a living soul. And out of the man he made the woman. This is the substance of the account given by Moses of the creation of the world. Moses did not write until above two thousand three hundred years after the creation; but we have nothing extant so ancient as this account.

II. We have several heathen fragments, which express many of the sentiments of Moses about the creation. The scene of learning, in the first ages, lay in India, in the countries near to Babylon, in Egypt, and in time spread into Greece.

The Indians have been much famed for

Megasthenes is

Strabo

their ancient learning. cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, representing the Indians and the Jews as the great masters of the learning, for which afterwards the Greeks were famous; but the antiquities of these nations have either been little known, or their ancient learning is by some accident lost, for our best late inquirers can now meet no remains of it. and Clemens Alexandrinus give hints of several notions amongst them, which would argue that they have been a very learned people; but the only considerable specimen we now have of their literature is the writings of Confucius. Their present notions of philosophy are mean and vulgar, and whatever their ancient learning was, it was either destroyed by their emperor Zio, who, they say, burnt all their ancient books, or by some other accident it is lost.

The works of the most ancient Phoenician, Egyptian, and many of the Greek writers, are also perished; but succeeding generations have accidentally preserved many of their notions, and we have considerable

VOL. I.

Strom. lib. i, p. 360. Edit. Oxon.

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