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venture to ask you, "Whether, there is suf ficient evidence that the Book of Daniel is really as ancient as it pretends to be." You are sensible, that from this point the Golden Chain of Prophecy, which you have let down from Heaven to earth, is partly suspended.

There are two reasons which still force me to with-hold my assent. I. The author of the Book of Daniel is two well informed of the revolutions of the Persian and Macedonian empires, which are supposed to have happened long after his death. II. He is too ignorant of the transactions of his own times. In a word, he is too exact for a Prophet, and too fabulous for a contemporary historian.

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I. The first of these objections was urged, fifteen hundred years ago, by the celebrated Porphyry. He not only frankly acknowledged, but carefully illustrated the distinct and accurate series of history, contained in the book of Daniel, as far as the death of Antiochus Epiphanes; for beyond that period, the author seems to have had no other guide than the dim and shadowy light of conjecture. The four empires are clearly delineated, the expedition of Xerxes into Greece, the rapid conquest of Persia by Alexander, his untimely

death without posterity, the division of his vast monarchy into four kingdoms, one of which, Egypt, is mentioned by name, their various wars and intermarriages, the persecution of Antiochus, the prophanation of the Temple, and the invincible arms of the Romans, are described with as much perspicuity in the prophecies of Daniel, as in the histories of Justin and Diodorus. From such a perfect resemblance, the artful infidel would infer, that both were alike composed after the event. This conduct has supplied St. Jerom with a fund of learning, and an occasion of triumph: as if the philosopher, oppressed by the force of truth, had unwarily furnished arms for his own defeat. Yet, notwithstanding Jerom's confidence, and in spite of my inclination to side with the father, rather than with the adversary of the church; the reasoning of the latter may I fear be justified by the rules of logic and criticism..

May I not assume as a principle equally consonant to experience, to reason, and even to true religion; "That we ought not to admit

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any thing as the immediate work of God, "which can possibly be the work of man; and "that whatever is said to deviate from the or

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"to accident, to fraud, or to fiction; till we "are fully satisfied, that it lies beyond the "reach of those causes?" If we cast away this buckler, the blind fury of superstition, from every age of the world, and from every corner of the globe, will invade us naked and unarmed.

The eager trembling curiosity of mankind has ever wished to penetrate into futurity; nor is there perhaps any country, where enthusiasm and knavery have not pretended to satisfy this anxious craving of the human heart. These self-inspired prophets have strove by various arts to supply the want of a divine mission. Sometimes adapting their conjectures to the present situation of things, and to the passions and prejudices of those, for whom their oracles were intended, they have involved themselves in the mystic veil of dark, general, and ambiguous metaphors: and embracing an indefinite space, they have trusted to time and fortune for the accomplishment of their predictions, or to the industry of kind commentators for a favourable interpretation of them. Sometimes they have commenced prophets, and even true prophets at a very easy rate, by delivering the narrative of things already past under the name of some celebrated character of a distant

age. As the series of events gradually unfolds itself, those which the supposed ancient could have read only in the book of fate, are transcribed by the more enlightened modern from any common history.

Virgil (the example is innocent and unexceptionable) has left us specimens of both these prophetic arts: I have often wondered at the rashness of critics who have tryed to ascertain the subject of the fourth Eclogue, and to point out the wonderful infant, the restorer of a golden age. That modest and judicious Poet would not surely have risked the smallest part of his reputation, on the miscarriage of a woman, or the precarious life of a child. The picture is richly, nay profusely coloured; but the design is traced with so vague a pencil, that it might adapt itself to any events or to any interpretation; that it might equally suit a literal or an allegorical sense; the son of Pollio, of Antony, or of Augustus; the restoration of liberty, or the tranquillity of the world under one master. Far different are the prophecies delivered to Æneas concerning the fate and fortunes of his descendants. The Trojan hero is indulged with a full and distinct view of the most remote futurity; and the visionary prospect is closed by the mournful apparition

of a youth, who would have rivalled the greatest of his ancestors, had not the gods envied such virtues to Rome and to mankind.

From this single remark, we should think ourselves authorized to infer, that Virgil lived in the Augustan age; and that the sixth book was composed during the yet recent grief for the loss of young Marcellus. The Poet indeed meant not to deceive us: like the author of the Persian Letters, or of the Moral Dialogues, his only aim was to convey important truths under the pleasing cover of fiction. But had Virgil seriously pretended, that his sketch of the Roman history was a faithful transcript from an old Sibylline oracle; had Augustus from motives of policy favoured the deceit, and had the Romans adopted it with religious respect; would any man of sense want better evidence of the pious fraud, than the very clearness and precision of the prophecy? The unanimous judgment passed on the yet extant collection of the Sibylline Oracles affords an easy answer to this question. Every critic who has observed that their prophetic light ceases with the reign of Hadrian, has pronounced them without hesitation to be a forgery of that period.

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