or his emblem. It is fair, therefore, to conceive, upon all the authorities adduced, that those names of the Almighty Being by which He has been pleased to manifest Himself to man, were not unknown to the heathen. One instance more on this head shall suffice. The Chronicon Paschale has preserved the response said to have been given by a very ancient oracle to Thulis, one of the earliest kings of Egypt, as follows, when he was asking, who that Being was, that ruled all things? Πρωτα ΘΕΟΣ, μετέπειτα ΛΟΓΟΣ, και IINEYMA συν αυτοις.* Nor need we wonder at this attestation to the great truth of a divine trinity from a pagan oracle, when we remember that among the islands of the Pacific Ocean, a similar traditionary idea was handed down from generation to generation. In Otaheite, "the general name "for deity in all its manifestations, is Eatooa. "Three are held supreme, standing in a height "of celestial dignity to which none others can "approach; and what is more extraordinary, Cited by Faber in Hor. Mos. in Annot. vol. i. p. 337. is, that their names are personal appel"lations: 1. Tane te Medooa, The Father. 2. Oromattow Tooa tee te Myde, God in the Son. Such is a very imperfect sketch of the testimony of tradition, to the truth and authenticity of the account given by Moses, of paradise, and the Fall of Man. It might seem presumptuous, perhaps, to affirm how far the Gentiles may be considered as accountable for that degrading use they made of this mass of evidence in their possession. We have the authority of an apostle, with regard to their being "left without "excuse" as to the invisible things of God, which, "from the creation of the world, are 'clearly seen, being understood by the things "that are made, even his eternal power and god"head." Yet the light which shone upon them from natural theology, as well as the important truths which had been handed down to them by tradition, appear to have been almost wholly neglected for, "when they knew God, they * glorified him not as God, neither were thank 66 + Wilson's Miss. Voy. cited by Faber. ut supra. 1 "ful; but became vain in their imaginations, "and their foolish heart was darkened: pro'fessing themselves to be wise they became "fools; and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to "corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed "beasts, and creeping things." The philosopher in Egypt, compared with the rest of the world, (one nation alone excepted,) might be called, in some respects, almost an enlightened man. He possessed traditions, as we have seen, which pointed, however obscurely, to the leading features of revelation;* namely, the total apostacy of man from his maker, and as a consequence, the necessity of reconciliation between earth and heaven by a vicarious atonement. He was aware, moreover, that the selfexistent God was before all worlds, and that "in Him we live, and move, and have our "being." He knew that the vast frame of Justyn Martyr complains that in his day the reading of the Sibylline prophecy, and some other writings of a similar nature, was forbidden on pain of death; a circumstance, he affirms, originating from demoniacal malignancy which feared the effect of truth, even obscurely revealed as it was, in these singular documents. Apol. pro Christ. ii. p. 82. This seems, however, indisputably to prove that therein some truths, and those too of a very important kind, were contained. nature was the work of His almighty hand, that from darkness light was originally produced, and that by the power of divine agency the whole universe was pervaded with motion and vitality. He was not entirely ignorant even of those sacred and incommunicable names appropriated to the all-glorious Creator; yet he was contented to serve the creature he bowed his knee to the Baalin, who were none other than the monuments of the mercy and justice of the true God: he lifted up his eyes indeed towards heaven, but it was only to adore the luminary of day as an emblem of idols, or pay homage to the moon's pale crescent, which, typical as it was merely of the instrument of a world's preservation, was yet deemed by him a more exalted object than the invisible and holy One, who, with a word, had summoned the universe into existence ! Thus, then, does it appear, that knowledge in the head, without a manifestation which touches and changes the heart, profiteth nothing. "The wisdom of the world is foolishness with "God;" and even St. Paul had well nigh addressed his Athenian audience in vain., We Orphic. Hymn. Gesner. p. 377. Cudworth Int. Sys. lib. i. cap. 4. p, 414. Bryant on the Plagues of Egypt. p. 153. may learn, therefore, the necessity, as well as the glory of a revelation, which displays God as the reconciled Father of his offending children; as the affectionate Saviour of every soul that accepts his proffered mercy: and 'as the ineffable Sanctifier, who changes the heart of man, translates him from a state of worse than chaotic darkness, into the glorious refulgence of the new creation, and hovers over the soul with dovelike pinions the author and source of life, and 'love, and holiness. Without such a revelation as this, what are the years of life with relation to eternity? Where is the boasted wisdom which once irradiated from the banks of the Nile? The sophists and philosophers, with thousands who listened to their lectures, and drank deep at the fountains of human learning, have all passed to their long home, the land of silence and 'forgetfulness. The sciences which many of them taught, as well as the opinions they supported, or the discoveries they made, will be alike of no account amidst the conflagration of the universe, when all mankind shall stand 'on the same level before their Judge eternal! The ruins of Thebes and Memphis, formerly the grand centres, whence all that was wise and noble of a system unenlightened by revelation emanated, are now |