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ners. All bounteous Heaven, while it wifelj denies us the 

 knowledge of futurity, becaufe fuch knowledge would but tend 

 to increafe and aggravate the raiferies and dangers of our 

 lives, has beneficently granted to us the recolledtion of things 

 paft, a faculty, which the habit of polTeffion alone could pre- 

 vent our acknowledging to be as wonderful as that of prefcience, 

 and which is efTentially neceffary to the regulation of all our 

 adlions, and confequently to our happinefs both now and here- 

 after. But as the fhortnefs of our abode in this brief and 

 temporary manfion might render nugatory the benefits of this 

 falutary gift, the fame all-bountiful providence has fent hiftory 

 to our aid, by the intervention of which our experience is 

 lengthened backwards into the mofl remote ages, and even to 

 the beginning of time ! Let us then refpedl as we ought this 

 facred fource of all our wifdom, and, while we candidly exa- 

 mine into the probability of hifloric narration, be cautious of 

 prefuming too much upon our own fagacity ; never, but with 

 the utmoft circumfpedlion and humble diffidence, daring to 

 contradi(ft thofe ancient guides, by whom alone our fteps can 

 be condudled through the mifly labyrinth of antiquity, and 

 more efpecially the venerable parent of that fcience, which, by 

 recording the obfervation of all ages, has put into our poflef- 

 fion the whole feries of progrefllve improvement, and the 

 accumulated wifdom of the world, even from its infancy, and 

 without which our boafted noon of knowledge muft nccef- 

 farily have been but a dawn. 



[G 2] 



