37« ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



burton needed not have given hlmfelf fo much trouble to account 

 for that fingulariry of the legiflation of Mofes, that he did not in- 

 force the religion he taught the Jews, by rewards and punifhments 

 in a future life, as was done by other legiflators of antient nations, 

 which had cultivated their underftandings more, and had made great- 

 er progrefs in arts and fciences. 



While men were yet in the natural ftate, or but little advanced in 

 civil life, and confequently had made little or no progrefs in the cul- 

 tivation of arts and fciences, by which the human inlelled: is im- 

 proved, and made ht to form the idea of the Supreme Being, the 

 ftate of reUgion could not, I think, have been other than fuch as I 

 have defcribed *. But after arts were further improved, fciences in- 

 vented, and carried up to philofophy, and even to the fummit of 

 philoibphy, 1 njean theology, religion began to wear a new face. 



That 



had never invented any thing ufeful for human hfe. And even the Fathers of the 

 Chriftian church give the iame account of them; particularly St Balil, in the iirlt of 

 his Hexamira, fays, That it was probable that there was fomething exifting before the 

 Mofaical world, but IMofes did not relate it, becaufe it would not have been intelUgible 

 T«if «;ay(>,Ki»o 5 tri, xMi iiiTriii; kktic tijh yKio-if, that is, tG his own countrymen, who were 

 to be confiJered as infants ysi in under/landing, avd only beginning to learn. And to the 

 faine purpofe, St Chryfoftom, in his Second Difcourfe upon Genefts, fays, That Mofes, 

 in givihf an account of the beginning of things to the Jews, who were unable to com- 

 prehend any thing of a fpiritual or intelleftual nature, addreffed himfelf to their feuies; 

 at whid), lays he, we ought not to be furpriled, as he. was fpeaking t<h; %x)(,vr*i,oii 

 li-JieKpi) to th^e ^.Je^ff tbe dulle^ of -.mm.. See upon this fubject Burnet's ^rchaie^jlagiq, 

 p. 469. and 470. See further, upon the fubjeft of the Jews, what Laftantius, a Chnl- 

 t'ian 'author who lived under Conftantine the Emperor, in h's InfAtutes, (Lib. 4. Cap. 

 a.) fays of them; That Pythagoras, and after him Plato and others, went every where 

 in fearch of knowledge, to Egypt particularly, but not to the Jews Ti\ib fhows the 

 midake of thofe authors who have advanced that Plato learned the dotSlrine of the Tri- 

 nity from the Jews ; and, indeed, if Plato had gone among them to learn piiilofophy, 

 they could not have reveale' to him that myllcry, which v/as no ;.3rt of the doc- 

 trine, that Mofes taught the Jews. 



* Page 308. ana 3 -,4. 



