nified by some under the Name of an Egg) and of the framing of Animals, and also of Man's Formation

Most amiable of all, who frees the Breasts
Of Men and Gods from anxious Cares and Thoughts,
And comforts each of them with soft Delight;
From hence rose Erebus, and gloomy Night.
These produced Ether, and the gladsome Day,
As Pledges of their Love.

If we compare this with those of the Phenicians now quoted, it will seem to be taken from them. For Hesiod lived hard by the Theban Baotia, which was built by Cadmus the Phænician. "Epos, Erebus, is the same as Moses's y Ereb, which Night and Day follow, in the Hymns that are ascribed to Orpheus.

All Things that are, sprung from a Chaos vast.

In the Argonautics, which go under the same name;
In Verse he sung the Origin of Things,

Nature's great Change; how Heav'n on high was fram'd,
The Earth establish'd, and begirt with Sea.
How Love created all Things by his Power,

And gave to each of them his proper Place.

So also Epicharmus, the most ancient Comic Poet, relating an old Tradition.

'Tis said that Chaos was before the Gods.

And Aristophanes, in his Play called the Birds, in a Passage preserved by Lucian, in his Philopatris; and by Suidas.

First of all was Chaos and Night, dark Erebus and gloomy Tartarus;

There was no Earth, nor Air, nor Heaven till dusky Night, By the Wind's Power on the wide Bosom of Erebus, brought forth an Egg,

Of which was hatch'd the God of Love (when Time began;) who with his golden Wings,

Fixed to his Shoulders, flew like a mighty Whirlwind; and mixing with black Chaos,

In Tartarus' dark Shades produced Mankind, and brought them into Light,

For, before Love joined all Things, the Gods themselves had

no Existence;

But upon this Conjunction, all Things being mixed and blended,

Ether arose;

And Sea and Earth, and the blessed Abodes of the immortal Gods.

These

Formation after the Divine Image, and the Dominion given him over all living Creatures; which are to be seen in many Writers, particularly (a) in Ovid,

These appear, upon a very slight View, to be taken from the Tradition of the Phænicians, who held an ancient Correspondence with the Inhabitants of Attica, the most ancient of the Ionians. We have already spoke of Erebus. Tartarus is in Tehom. "Alvor Abyssos, and non Merachepheth,

signifies Love, as was shewn before: To which agrees that of Parmenides:

Love was the first of all the Gods.

(a) In Ovid, &c.] The place is no further than the First Book of his Metamorphoses, and is very well worth reading; the principal Things in it being so very like those of Moses, and almost the same Words, so that they afford much light to what has been already said, and are likewise much illustrated by it:

Before the Sea, and Earth, and Heaven's high Roof
Were framed, Nature had but one Form, one Face;
The World was then a Chaos, one huge Mass,
Gross, undigested; where the Seeds of Things
Lay in Confusion, and Disorder hurl'd,
Without a Sun to cherish with his Warmth
The rising World; or paler horned Moon.
No Earth, suspended in the liquid Air,
Borne up by his own Weight; no Ocean vast
Through unknown Tracts of Land to cut his Way
But Sea, and Earth, and Air are mix'd in one;
The Earth unsettled, Sea innavigable,

The Air devoid of Light; no Form remain'd:
For each resisted each, being all confin'd;

Hot jarr'd with Cold, and Moist resisted Dry;
Hard, soft, light, heavy, strove with mighty Force;
Till God and Nature did the Strife compose,

By parting Heav'n from Earth, and Sea from Land,
And from gross Air the liquid Sky dividing;
All which from lumpish Matter once discharg'd,
Had each his proper Place, by Law decreed:
The Light and fiery Parts upwards ascend,
And fill the Region of the arched Sky;

The Air succeeds, as next in Weight, and Place;
The Earth compos'd of grosser Elements,
Was like a solid Orb begirt with Sea.
Thus the well-order'd Mass into due Parts

Qvid, who transcribed them from the Greek.

Was separated by Divine Command.

And first, the Earth not stretch'd into a Plain,
But like an artificial Globe condens'd;

Upon whose surface winding Rivers glide,

And stormy Seas, whose Waves each Shore rebound.

That all

Here Fountains send forth Streams, there one broad Lake
Fills a large Plain: Thus mix'd with Pools and Springs,

The gentle Streams which roll along the Ground,
Are some by thirsty hollow Earth absorb'd.
Some in huge Channels to the Ocean bend,
And leave their Banks to beat the sandy Shore.
By the same Power were Plains and Vales produc'd,
And shady Woods and rocky Mountains rais'd.
The Heaven begirt with Zones; two on the Right,
Two on the Left, the torrid One between.
The same Distinction does the Earth maintain,
By
Care Divine, into fire Climates mark'd ;
Of which the Middlemost, through Heat immense,
Has no Inhabitants; two with deep Snow
Are cover'd; what remain are temperate..

Next, between Heav'n and Earth the Air was fix'd,
Lighter than Earth, but heavier than Fire,
In this low Region Storms and Clouds were hung,
And hence loud Thunder timorous Mortals frights;
And forked Lightning, mix'd with Blasts of Wind.
But the wise Framer of the World did not
Permit them every where; because their Force
Is scarce to be resisted (when euch Wind
Pretaileth in its Turn;) but Nuture shakes,
Their discord is so great. And first the East
Obtains the Morn. Arabia's desert Land ;
And Persia's bounded by the Rising Sun.
Next Zephyr's gentle Breeze, where Phoebus dipt
Himself into the Sea; then the cold North,
At whose sharp Blasts the hardy Scythians shake;
And last the South, big with much Rain and Clouds.
Above this stormy Region of the Air

Was the pure Æther plac'd, refin'd and clear.
When each had thus his proper Bounds decreed,
The Stars, which in their grosser Mass lay hid,
Appear'd and shone throughout the Heaven's Orb.
Then, lest a barren Desert should succeed,
Creatures of various Kinds each Place possess'd.
The Gods and Stars celestial Regions fill,
The Waters with large Shoals of Fishes throng'd,
The Earth with Beasts, the Air with Birds was stock'd,

Nothing

all Things were made by the Word of God, is

Nothing seem'd wanting, but a Mind endu'd
With Sense and Reason to rule o'er the rest;
Which was supply'd by Man, the Seed Divine
Of him who did the Frame of all Things make;
Or else when Earth and Sky-

Some of the Heavenly Seed remain'd, which sown
By Japhet, and with watʼry Substance mix'd,
Was form'd into the Image of the Gods.

And when all Creatures to the Earth were prone,
Man had an upright Form to view the Heavens,
And was commanded to behold the Stars.

asserted

Here you see Man has the Dominion over all inferior Creatures given him; and also that he was made after the Image of God, or of Divine Beings. To the same Purpose are the Words of Eurysus the Pythagorean, in his Book of Fortune: "His (that is, Man's,) Tabernacle, or Body, is like that of "other Creatures, because it is composed of the same Mate"rials; but worked by the best Workman, who formed it according to the Pattern of himself." Where the Word x is put for Body, as in Wisdom, Chap. ix. Ver. 15. and in 2 Cor. v. 1 and 4. To which may be added, that of Horace, who calls the Soul

And Virgil,

-A Particle of Breath Divine.

An Ethereal Sense.

And that of Juvenal, Sat. XV.

-Who alone

Have ingenuity to be esteem'd,

As capable of Things divine and fit

For Arts; which Sense we Men from Heav'n derive,
And which no other Creature is allow'd;

For he that fram'd us both, did only give
To them the Breath of Life, but us a Soul.

And those remarkable Things relating hereto, in Plato's Pha don and Alcibiades. Cicero, in the Second Book of the Nature of the Gods, says thus: "For when He, (that is, God,) left "all other Creatures to feed on the Ground, he made Man

upright, to excite him to view the Heavens, to which he is "related, as being his former Habitation." And Sallust, in the Beginning of the Catiline War: "All Men that desire " to exceed other Animals, ought earnestly to endeavour not "to pass away their Days in Silence, like the Beasts which "Nature has made prone, and Slaves to their Bellies." And

D 2

Pliny,

asserted by (a) Epicharmus, and (b) the Platonists; and before them, by the most ancient Writer (I do not mean of those Hymns which go under his Name,

Pliny, Book II. Chap. 26. "The never-enough to be ad"mired Hipparchus; than whom none more acknowledged "the Relation betwixt Man and the Stars, and who considered our Souls as a Part of the Heavens."

(a) Epicharmus, &c.] "Man's Reason is derived from "that of God."

(b) The Platonists, &c.] Amelius the Platonic: "And "this is that Reason, or Word, by which all Things that ever were, were made; according to the Opinion of Hera"clitus. That very Word, or Reason, the Barbarian means, "which set all Things in Order in the Beginning, and which was with God before that Order, and by which every Thing was made, and in which was every Creature; the "Fountain of Life and Being." The Barbarian he here speaks of is St. John the Evangelist, a little later than whose Time Amelius lived. Eusebius has preserved his Words in the Eleventh Book and 19th Chapter of his Preparation; and Cyril in his Eighth Book against Julian. St. Austin mentions the same Place of Amelius, in his Tenth Book, and 29th Chapter of the City of God, and in the Eighth Book of his Confessions. And Tertullian against the Gentiles; "It is evident (says he) that with your Wise Men, the A Logos, Word or Reason, was the Maker of the Universe; for Zeno "would have this Word to be the Creator, by whom all Things were disposed in their Formation." This Place of Zeno was in his Book pas, concerning Being, where he calls the so, the efficient Cause, Air, the Word or Reason; and in this he was followed by Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Archedemus, and Passidonius, as we are told by Laërtius in his Life of Zeno. Seneca, in his LXVth Epistle, calls it the Reason which formeth every Thing. And Chalcidius to Timæus says, "That the Reason of God, is God himself, who has a Regard to Human Affairs, and who is the Cause of Men's living well and happily, if they do not neglect the Gift "bestowed on them by the Most High God." And in another Place, speaking of Moses, he has these words: Who is clearly of opinion, "That the Heaven and Earth were "made by the Divine Wisdom preceding: And that then "the Divine Wisdom was the Foundation of the Uni"verse."

66

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