I am, of the vast inferiority of my abilities and furniture. It is from you, Sir, who have read every thing, and employed a long life in religious inquiries, and particularly in the prosecution of that noble object contained in your excellent proposition, that I expect solutions of this kind. However, to shew you the sense I have of your condescension and my confidence in your candour, I will not scruple to lay before you my poor thoughts on the subjects

you propose.

Qu. 1. As to the Mosaic account of the Fall, I cannot still help thinking that the writer meant to give us an historical narrative; not a parable or an allegorical representation: partly on acconnt of the appearance of simplicity through the whole narration, in which I can perceive nothing that bears the air of parable, poetry, or hieroglyphic; and, partly, because I observe that the succeeding sacred writers, especially those of the New Testament, refer to the several circumstances of the story as to real facts.

I cannot help thinking that all the appearances of unaccountable, childish and irrational, which occur to us in the story, take their rise from a hasty presumption of our own, that the first human pair were produced into being in like circumstances as those in which we find ourselves when we arrive at mature age: I mean, with like compass of thought and sentiments, with all the variety of our affections and passions, and all the extent of our experience. Had that been the case, I own, the several circumstances of their trial and fall, as related by Moses, would have appeared to me strange and unaccountable indeed. I know also that the Rabbins have vainly fancied, and many Christian divines have adopted the fancy, that Adam and Eve were originally endowed with much superior perfection in intellectual and moral excellencies than any of their posterity have ever attained to, which would place this story far beyond all the bounds of credibility. But I cannot but regard all this as mere stuff, as you say.

He

I have been wont to consider this subject in the manner following. I figure to myself Adam just come from under the plastic hand of his Creator, endowed with the bodily senses and intellectual capacities of man in full perfection, but those capacities, as yet, unoccupied with the actual knowledge of any thing. I suppose him to be furnished with the seeds of all the affections and passions of the human heart; but those seeds as yet dormant, and to be developed by impressions and events which might afterwards occur. opens his eyes, and is immediately overwhelmed with astonishment and confusion by the impressions things make on them, scarce distinctly conscious of his own existence, and comprehending little of the things around him. Though surrounded with the means of sustenance, he would be liable to perish through ignorance of their properties or how to use them, unless he was endowed with some instincts, of which we are destitute, or his benevolent Creator inspired him immediately, or instructed him gradually in the knowledge of the properties and uses of things. In one of these two latter ways I suppose Adam soon to have received from his Maker so much natural knowledge as was necessary to his support and happiness. I suppose him also to have received, in the same way, the rudiments and principles, at least, of language, so far as was necessary to fit him for that limited society into which he was shortly to enter. Accordingly, we are told, that he gave names to the several living creatures before Eve was formed; and this I suppose him to have done, prompted or guided by divine inspiration or instruction.

Thus I suppose him to set out with a furniture of natural knowledge and speech sufficient, and not more than sufficient, for his present uses, and to enable him to make improvements upon afterwards by his own attention and industry. The only affections I can imagine to have been awakened in him hitherto, are those of wonder, joy, sensitive pleasure, and the pleasure attending the perception of knowledge.

Eve was now formed, and committed to Adam for his companion and partner, and to be instructed by him in what himself had learned. Now all the social affections awoke and the tender passions between the sexes.

But the human pair was endowed with still nobler capacities and designed for higher purposes, i. e. the moral and religious, which must now be called forth and fulfilled. The great end and perfection of every rational and religious creature is to maintain a continual deep and governing sense of its dependence on God, and to become habituated to submission to his authority and obedience to his commandments. In order to form the first pair to this character and these attainments, it was necessary that they should first be instructed in the knowledge of the origin of all things, and of themselves from God; that all their enjoyments flowed from his bounty, all their dependence was on his favour, and that the way to secure it was by obedience to his injunctions.

That some such general instructions in the fundamental principles of religion were given them, seems not only probable to suppose, but even to be intimated in the book of Job, ch. xxviii., towards the end; where, after Job had described the divine constitution of the air and its meteors in wisdom, he adds, ver. 28, And to man (DR to Adam) he said, Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. If this admonition was really addressed first to Adam, it seems to have had like success with him, as that which the frequent repetitions of it since have had on his posterity.

And now we may suppose the religious affections and passions to have awoke in the hearts of our first parents.

But instruction only in the great principles of religion, or a simple conviction of the understanding concerning their truth and importance, is not sufficient to impress on the heart of man a deep and governing sense of dependence on God; it must be effected by often-repeated serious consideration; but for this all men must be left to themselves. The habits of submission to the government and obedience to the laws of God are not to be gained by a single resolution, but by oft-repeated acts of submission and obedience. That the first pair, therefore, might have an opportunity to acquire these habits, it was necessary to put them to a trial and require them to yield obedience to a law or laws given them. But then it was fit also that this law, or these laws, should be suited to their capacities and circumstances. Should the whole system of moral and religious duties required from us have been enjoined on them? But then the whole system of our knowledge and experience ought to have been imparted to them likewise, which there seems no reason to imagine was the case. Besides, how small a part of our system of duties could possibly have been either observed or violated when there were only two persons on the face of the earth, and they so situated, so circumstanced!

I own, the account which the historian gives us of the law enjoined on Adam and Eve, and of the trial of obedience to which they were subjected thereby, seems to me much more consonant to Divine Wisdom, as much better suited to their capacities and circumstances, to that infantile state of human nature, if I may be allowed to call it so.

Two trees were pitched upon in the midst of the garden wherein they were placed: one of them was called the tree of knowledge of good and evil; this they were forbidden to eat of, or to touch it, on pain of death. Whether the fruit of it had naturally any pernicious qualities tending to destroy or otherwise prejudice the human constitution, we are not told, nor is it material. The other was called the tree of life: perhaps its fruit might have some salutary virtue to preserve and perpetuate life. However, it was an appointed visible symbol of divine favour and assurance of the continuance of life to them, so long as they maintained their obedience. Of the fruit of this tree, as well as of the rest of the trees of the garden, the first only excepted, they were allowed a free use.

Will it be objected, that it seems scarcely consonant to the wisdom of God to place the trial of the obedience of rational creatures upon so indifferent a thing? What moral good or evil could there be in abstaining from or eating an apple? How then can we suppose God to have made a law attended with

such important sanctions and consequences about such a trifling subject? I answer: Doth not common sense dictate to us all, when we undertake a course of trials and exercises with a view to improvement and gradual advancement towards perfection, to begin with little things, and to increase in proportion as the state of improvements from time to time will allow? Is it not in a similar manner that we think it prudent to treat our young children in order to fix in them a habit of obedience to us, which, when attained, we account of real and great importance, although the means employed may appear trifling? Adam and Eve were the young children, I had almost said the infants, of the human species. Had they approved their obedience on this first trial, probably the Divine Wisdom would have appointed them others of a higher and more perfect nature in proportion as their knowledge and experience had enlarged, and their good dispositions gathered strength. The abstaining from or eating an apple was intrinsically of little moment, but their performing one act of obedience or disobedience to a law of God in relation to it was of great importance.

But if the state of the knowledge and affections of the first pair was, in any measure, such as I have supposed it to be at the time when they received this law, I think it will appear, that the prohibition contained in it was a very considerable, I had almost said a hard, trial for them. The name given to the prohibited tree was, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Ever since they came into being, they had experienced inexpressible delights from growing accessions to their knowledge. We feel by experience how delightful knowledge is to the soul; but to us the first dawnings of knowledge are on the feeble capacities of infancy and childhood; we acquire it slowly and with difficulty, and our relish for it is considerably palled by time, by the fatigues and sufferings we endure. How then can we conceive of the extasy of delight they must have enjoyed who came into life with mature capacities, exempt from wants and pains, into whose minds knowledge was hourly poured in copious streams and without fatigue! How ardent must be their aspirations after it! It was the knowledge too of good which was suggested, and this alone they had hitherto experienced and enjoyed. As to the knowledge of evil, they had no experience, and could form no conception of it, and therefore could be little alarmed with the apprehension. So that the very name of the tree carried in it a strong temptation to spirits influenced by such affections and directed by so little, experience: a temptation which they could overcome only by recollecting their dependence on God, their obligations to him, their hopes in him, the authority of his commandment, and the admonition he had given them, that the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

Now, we find, that the subsequent temptation turned upon these two capital hinges; first, it addressed their warm desire after increase of knowledge, and secondly, flattered them with the hope of becoming independent on God, and self-sufficient-like Gods themselves. For God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. Their crime, therefore, consisted partly in an irregular pursuit of knowledge by prohibited means, and partly in violating their dependence upon, and withdrawing their subjection to, the government of God, not in this one transgression only, but in aiming to do it wholly and for ever. That in this last consisted the chief malignity of their sin, I think the Apostle means to intimate in that much controverted text, Philipp. ii. 6, where, I apprehend, he alludes to the story of the fall. In recommending it to us to imitate the example of Christ's humility, he says of him, Who being in the form of God, (in a much superior degree to our first parents, who are said to have been made after the image and likeness of God,) thought it not robbery to be equal with God, Ουχ άρπαγμον ἡγησατο το ειναι ισα Θεῳ, He led not a seizure to be like God, i. e. did not, like Adam, set an example of an arrogant attempt to be like unto God, or as gods. N. B. If you think there is any justness in this criticism, I don't pretend it is my own, but send you here

with a little pamphlet from whence I had the hint of it. This example of Adam's attempt to exempt himself from dependence on and subjection to God, and to make himself like God, pursuing the dictates of his own will only, hath been but too universally and fatally copied by his posterity.

But though trials or temptations should be allowed necessary, not only to prove but even to acquire habits of subjection and obedience to the Divine government; and that it might be a very proper condescension to the scanty Knowledge and want of experience in the parents of the human race, that so simple and easy a thing, as abstaining from one particular tree in the garden, was made the matter of their first trial; yet doth it not seem very strange and unaccountable that a serpent should become the agent or instrument of suggesting the transgression? I answer, that this also appears to me to have been directed by the same wisdom and goodness. The temptation was not allowed to be suggested by a voice proceeding from an invisible agent, nor from a visible, glorious and angelic form; for this would have carried in it an appearance of divine authority, and thereby confounded and perplexed understandings which had not been used to discover delusions where appearances seemed similar; but it was permitted to come only from one of those crea tures which had a little before been subjected to their dominion, as being much inferior in nature and dignity to themselves; neither from any of the more noble and generous of the inferior animals, but from one of the meaner of them, and therefore the least reflection would have immediately apprised them, that the suggestion of such a creature ought not to stand in any compe petition with the command of their Author and Supreme Benefactor. But, alas! like their children, they did not reflect.

But it may be asked, Whence came it, that Eve was not surprised, or even terrified, at hearing a serpent speak articulately and rationally? But is it not our own experience only that propoundeth that question? It seems to me much more natural to suppose, that when Adam and Eve, at their creation, found themselves endowed with understanding and speech, they would suppose every animal whom they beheld moving around them, was endowed with the same powers, and that they would wonder, when they afterwards learned, that they were destitute of them. However, it is to be observed, that Eve, to whom the serpent spake, was not formed till after the inferior animals had passed in review, as it were, before Adam, and he had given them names by divine direction, and perhaps been instructed in their several natures and properties; we may, therefore, reasonably suppose, that she had not yet been instructed in all these particulars, and, e. g. in the characters and qualities of the serpent. Possibly she might not have even seen him before.

But how could a serpent speak and reason thus? Not of himself, I own. But you know, Sir, that not only divines have supposed, but the holy writers also seem to suggest, that he was actuated by another being. And doth not the latter part of the sentence pronounced on the serpent seem to imply it? Because, if we understand it in the literal sense only, as foretelling the aceidents which happen in the encounters between men and snakes, it seems much beneath the dignity of the occasion and speaker. I refer it to your su perior acquaintance with ancient writers, whether there are not to be found in them traces of an ancient and obscure tradition, that in the first ages of the world the inferior animals had the use of speech; and might not this be the ground on which the ancient fabulists built their beautiful and instructive fictions? Now whence could such a tradition arise?

I shall only add, that what greatly aggravated the folly and guilt of the first pair in thus irregularly aiming to acquire knowledge and perfection by the violation of an express command of their Creator, was, that from the first moment of their existence he had been hourly imparting knowledge to them, and advancing them by gradual improvements towards the perfection to which they so hastily aspired. Happy had it been for all us, their descendants, if, admonished by their unhappy attempt to be as gods, knowing good and evil, we had been more grateful for and attentive to the divine instructions we have

received, and confided in our Father's paternal wisdom and goodness, to guide us by his counsels, and afterward receive us to glory.

Thus I have laid before you, Sir, my poor thoughts on the principal particulars of the Mosaic history of the fall. You will perhaps smile, and you are welcome, for I am sure it will be with good nature. But can your good nature excuse the length I have proceeded to? I intended only hints, and I have been led into a dissertation. I will endeavour to be shorter on the remaining questions.

Qu. III. As to your question concerning Baal-zebub, I am not sufficiently skilled in the antiquities of eastern idolatry to answer it. He is called the God of Ekron, a city of the Philistines. The name signifies Lord of Flies. Probably the Ekronites might believe him to be the genius that presided over the locusts, and might worship him to preserve their territory from the ravages of those destructive insects, to which, by its proximity to Arabia, the native region of locusts, it was much exposed. Probably also, the Jews, after their return from the captivity, which had cured them of attachments to idolatry, might, out of antipathy to the Philistines, the hereditary enemies of their country, and by way of shewing their contempt for their great deity and oracle, affect to call the evil spirit, whom they considered as prince of the devils, by the name of the Philistines, Lord of the Locusts.

I do not find that the evangelists, or Christ, do themselves any where call the prince of the devils by the name Beelzebub. They only represent the Jews, and particularly the Scribes and Pharisees, as calling him so, and even applying the name to Christ.

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Qu. V. As to the text in Canticles, and what you say the Church affirms about it, I give it you up wholly. I consider the book, according to its obvious appearance, as only a love-song, or Epithalamium, and, in that light, regard it as a curious remain of ancient Oriental poetry. I should be glad to read a lately published attempt to illustrate it on a new plan communicated from the East, which I understand to be by extracts from books of travels into the East, and the accounts there given of the customs, manners, &c., of the eastern

nations.

W. T.*

The following account of Mr. Amory is extracted from a letter of Mr. W. Turner, Sen., dated November 19, 1773:

:

"Mr. Thomas Amory, supposed author of the Life of John Buncle, is, as I am told, son of a Mr. Amory who was Secretary to King William in his wars in Ireland, and there got possession of two thousand pounds per annum ; I suppose of the forfeited estates by his mother he is allied to the Fitzgeralds and several other noble families in Ireland; but was really disinherited by his father for his want of orthodoxy, as is mentioned in John Buncle: however, he still is in possession of about five or six hundred pounds per annum, which his father could not deprive him of. As for seven wives, we account that embellishment. His son, a physician in our town, says he knows of no wives his father ever had besides his mother. No,' says the old man, 'how should he, for his mother was my last wife.' Mr. Amory is a remarkably healthy and strong old man of near eighty, still retaining all his faculties in full vigour, with uncommon cheerfulness among his friends. He lives very retired, and spends much time in reading and writing; but, when the weather will permit, walks three or four hours with surprising strength and agility. His character is very peculiar the same force of sentiment, strength of expression, and high colouring, that distinguish his writings, appear also in his conversation. In his earlier years he was a sort of spy upon mankind, and entered into all orders and scenes of life; this has given him a kind of inquisitive habit which he still retains. He still pays great attention to the ladies, and is superlative in his encomiums on those who excel in understanding and mental improvements. He is just now finishing for the press a second volume of Memoirs of Eminent Ladies. Bigots have misrepresented him as an Unbeliever; but he has often expressed to me the highest esteem and admiration