PREFACE.

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RELIGIOUS knowledge is, confessedly, of all other sciences, the most important. Important individually to each member of society, and equally important to the well-being of society at large. Whatever, therefore, has a tendency to promote this knowledge, and to widen its diffusion, is certainly entitled to the patronage of the public, and to the notice and, I had almost said, the gratitude too, of individuals. Of this description, the Editor presumes to flatter himself, the compilation now presented to the community will be deemed to partake. In it, moreover, will be found abundant matter to gratify, if not to satiate, a laudable curiosity-in the investigation of the various principles, as well moral as religious, of our fellow mortals,—and in ascertaining, in many instances, the leading causes of those astonishing revolutions in church or state, that have contributed to diversify each epoch of profane or ecclesiastic history. It does not, indeed, possess the merit of originality; but the method, as far as the Editor has been enabled to discover, is novel to the English press, and calculated, in his judgment, to improve and interest the generality of

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his readers. It is needless to premise, that he has no pretensions to infallibility: consequently, he acknowledges himself liable to oversights, and sometimes too, perhaps, to defective reasoning. This he leaves to the enlightened public to discriminate: but as he is conscious he has done his best, he will not pledge himself to do away the supercilious exceptions of illiberal and self-conceited critics; of whose infallibility If the tout enhe thinks no better than of his own. semble of this performance will not furnish adequate materials to answer their objections in a religious view, and to operate conviction on their minds, he owns himself unequal to the arduous task, and, not to fatigue the attention of the reader with unmeaning verbiage-Verbum non amplius addet.

He will only request permission just to observe, that the advantages of an alphabetical arrangement of the respective articles constituting this work, are too obvious to require a detail; and will leave it to its fate-without further comment on its utility or merit. The historical analysis prefixed-must, likewise, be content to speak its own panegyric.

EPITOME

OF

UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

IN TWO PARTS.

PART I.

Embraces a period of full four thousand years, from the creation of man to the establishment of christianity by Christ our Lord.

CHAPTER I.

Of the antediluvian state of mankind.

ANCIENT Atheistical writers have pretended that men, like mushrooms, sprang spontaneously from the earth, and owed their origin to chance; while modern materialists very gravely inform us, that their primordial existence was a necessary effect of we know not what mysterious arrangement in their beloved chaos; and some learned naturalists have as wisely calculated and ascertained the different epochs, wherein the primeval elements of nature severally concurred in the formation of the universe,—without, however, condescending to acquaint us-by what mysterious influence mankind, or the animal species, or the vegetable world, could start forth from a globe of chrystal, all on fire (no matter how) from eternity. Certainly these gentlemen have each of them the merit of eccentricity. But their sublime theories will not bear the light; they quickly disappear when confronted with the simple and unaffected narrative of the sacred historiographer of the book of Genesis. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. He said, let light be made, and light was made. And again he said: let us make man to our own image and likeness; and God created man to his own image. By these few words we learn our origin; what we owe to God and to ourselves, and what we are to hope from the bounty of our great Creator.

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Is then God corporeal like man, as the Marcionites of old, the Manichees, the philosophers of the fourth age, and the infidels of the eighteenth, with those of the present day, erroneously infer? By no means: the principal and the most noble part of man is the soul. This soul is gifted with understanding, with a will and memory, and liberty of action; is capable of knowing, of loving, and adoring her Creator. this it is, that man is like to God.

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Another fruitful subject of profane cavil and irreligious witticism, unworthy any serious reply, are the circumstances which, according to holy scripture, attended the formation of the female. We will just observe, that these very circumstances teach mankind a lesson of the highest importance to their welfare. God would thus remind the female of the superiority of man, since she was formed of him; and man, of that tender affection which he was bound to cherish for one who constitutes a part of his own substance: and both the one and the other, of their obligation mutually to preserve the strictest union, on which alike depends their own well-being, and that of their posterity.

What then would be the state of these two creatures at the moment of their production; what their felicity before they forfeited their innocence; and what would have been their future destiny and that of their posterity, had neither the one nor the other of them fallen into sin? These are queries very interesting, but concerning which holy scripture has explained itself with much reserve. It informs us that God created man in righteousness and in justice, (Eccles. c. vii. v. 30. Ephes. c. iv. v. 24); consequently, not merely exempt from vice, but endowed, moreover, with sanctifying grace, which rendered him agreeable in the eyes of his Divine Majesty. It informs us too, that man was created immortal, at least in this sense, that he had it in his power to escape death by avoiding sin; death having entered into the world by sin only, and the malice of the devil, (Rom. c. v. v. 12. Wisd. c. ii. v. 24.) We are likewise given to understand (Ecclus. c. xvii. v. 6.) that God had been pleased to communicate to our first parents the science of the spirit. He filled their heart with wisdom and shewed them both good and evil. Hence it follows that the state of the first man, previous to his fall, was a state of great felicity, although his happines was not complete, in as much as he was liable to forfeit by disobedience that original justice in which he was created, together with all the gifts and privileges annexed to it. A more consummate beatitude was destined to be the fruit of his voluntary and unnecessitated perseverance in good. How long this probationary state of our first parent might have continued, in order to his perfect confirmation in justice and inamissibility of grace, the Holy Spirit has not thought good to reveal to men. Had he perse

vered in fact, his offspring would have enjoyed the prerogative of original justice in which he was himself created; each individual of his posterity, would perhaps, like him have been subjected to temporary laws, exposed to the danger of violating them, and of forfeiting as he did, all the privileges of innocence. This is the opinion of the learned Estius, and of the great St Augustine, 1. 2. Sentent. Dist. 20, §. 5.

On a variety of other questions regarding which holy scripture is silent, let us beware of imitating the rash curiosity of our proto-parent Adam; nor presumptuously approach the tree of knowledge in quest of a forbidden fruit. But, why, cries modern incredulity with the ancient Manichees,-why impose a law on man, and lay on him an injunction which God foresaw that he would disobey? I answer: because man being created a free agent, he had it at his option to obey, and strictly owed obedience to his great Creator. It is by free will, as much as by his understanding, that he is distinguished from the brute: and Almighty God most justly required of him a testimony of submission, in acknowledgment of the benefit of life, and other blessings conferred upon him; and in conformity with the universally established dispensations of Providence it is expedient, that the fect happiness of his creatures should not be a gift in all respects absolutely gratuitous, but a recompence too, awarded to obedience and virtue. Nor ought the foresight which God had of the prevarication of Adam, in any wise to derogate from this eternal and infinitely wise and equitable dispensation.

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When infidels also take offence, that God should have prohibited the eating of the fruit which was to impart the knowledge of good and evil, they affect-not to understand what kind of knowledge is here in question. Adam possessed already the knowledge of moral good and evil, as we learn from sacred writ, (Eccles. c. xvii. v. 6.) He would else have been as incapable of sinning, as the infant that has not yet attained the use of reason. But he had not the knowledge of physical evil, which he had never yet experienced. He had no idea of that confusion and remorse attendant upon guilt. After his sin he was made sensible of both, and was thus enabled to compare-happiness with misery and grief: such was the experimental knowledge, from which Almighty God in his goodness was wishful to preserve him. In this sense alone could the eating of the forbidden fruit communicate to man the knowledge of good and evil.

Nor was it inconsistent with justice in Almighty God to make Adam the arbiter of the fate of his posterity. It is the natural condition of humanity; and such too, is the general order established in every political society. A father, by his personal bad conduct, may reduce to a state of wretchedness whole generations of his offspring. He has it in his power, by the perpetration of a single crime, to entail disgrace upon them