322 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK IV. Or whether the trees set themselves on fire : 



Mutua dum inter se rami stirpesque teruntur. 

 When clashing boughs thwarting, each other fret. 



For such accidents, and even the very heat of the sun alone, has kindled 

 wonderful conflagrations; or haply (and more probably) to consume their 

 sacrifices, we will not much insist. The poets, it seems, speaking of 

 Juno, would give it quite another original, and tune it to their songs in- 

 voking Lucina, whilst the main and principal difference consisted not so 

 much in the name, as the use and dedication, which was for silent, 

 awful, and more solemn religion ; ( silva, quasi silens locus ;) to which 

 purpose they were chiefly manu consiti, such as we have been treating of, 

 entire, and never violated with the axe : Fabius calls them sacros ex 

 vetustate, venerable for their age ; and certain it is, they had of very 

 great antiquity been consecrated to holy uses, not only by superstitious 

 persons to the Gentile deities and heroes, but to the true God by the 

 patriarchs themselves, who, ah initio, (as is presumed,) did frequently 

 retire to such places to serve him, compose their meditations, and cele- 

 brate sacred mysteries, prayers, and oblations ; following the tradition of 

 the Gomerites, or descendants of Noah, who first peopled Galatia and 

 • See the otlier parts of the world after the universal deluge * From hence, some 



Antrq^fusr°" P^'^sume that even the ancient Druids had their origin : but that Abra- 

 t Euseb 1 V might imitate what the most religious of that age had practised 



cap. 19. De- bcfore him, may not be unlikely ; for we read he soon planted himself 



monstr. Evang. ^ *' *' ... 



ubi de Tere- and family at the Quercetum of Mamre, Gen. xiii. where, as Eusebius, 



bintho. Hiero- ... 



nymus.deiocis Ecclcs. Hist. 1. i. c. 18. f givcs US the account, he spread his pavilions, 

 erected an altar, offered and performed all the priestly rites ; and there, 

 . to the immortal fflorv of the Oak, or rather arboreous temple, he enter- 



J Hierom in o J ' -» 



Epitaph. Paul, tained God himself. Isidore, St. Hierom ±, and Sozomen report confi- 



vide et Eras. 



schoi. in Ep. dently, that one of the most eminent of those trees remained till the reign 



ad Pammachi- *^ , , 



um. of the great Constantine, (and the stump till St. Hierom,) who founded a 



II See the vcncrable chapel || under it ; and that both the Christians, Jews, and 

 script to Bish. Arabs held a solemn anniversary or station there, and believed that from 

 the demolition the very time of Noah it had been a consecrated place. Sure we are, 

 shipe^d'^'thrrTi it was about some such assembly of trees, that God was pleased first of 

 i'ngof'a'^maglil- ^o appear to the father of the faithful, when he estabhshed the co- 

 Eureb.'de"vi't! vcnaut with him; and more expressly, when removing thence, (upon con- 

 cap.^50.* '" fii'i^iiig the league with Abimelech, Gen. xxi. and settling at Beersheba,) 



