ages after the actions which they relate, and it is saying every thing to add, that that theology was the fruit of poesy, and the inventions of that art the most solid foundations of their religion.
Here, it is a train of facts, reasonable, natural, and in agreement with itself. It is the history of a family continued from its first head down to him who writes it, and authenticated in all its circumstances. It is a genealogy in which every chief is characterized by his own actions, by events which still subsisted then, by marks which were still known in the places where they had dwelt. It is a living tradition, the most authenticated upon the earth, since Moses hath written only what he had heard from the children of the patriarchs, and they related only what their fathers had seen. Every part of it is coherent, hangs properly together, and tends to clear up the whole. The features are not copied, nor the adventures drawn from elsewhere, and accommodated to the subject. Before Moses, the people of God had nothing in writing. He hath left nothing to posterity but what he had verbally collected from his ancestors, that is to say, the whole tradition of mankind; and the first he hath comprised in one volume, the history of God's wonders and of his manifestations to men, the remembrance of which had till then composed the whole religion, the whole knowledge, and the whole consolation of the family of Abraham. The candour and sincerity of this author appear in the simplicity of his history. He takes no precaution to secure belief, because he supposes that those for whom he writes require none to believe; and all the facts which he relates being well known among them, it is more for the purpose of preserving them to their posterity than for any instruction in them to themselves.
Behold, my brethren, which way the Christian religion begins to acquire influence over the mind of men. Turn on all sides, read the history of every people and of every nation, and you will find nothing so well established upon the earth. What do I say? — you will find nothing more worthy the attention of a rational mind. If men be born for a religion, they are born for this one alone. If there be a Supreme Being who hath manifested the truth to men, this alone is worthy of men and of him. Every where else the origin is fabulous; here it is equally certain as all the rest; and the latter ages, which cannot be disputed, are, however, only the proofs of the certitude of the first. Therefore, if there be an authority upon the earth to which reason ought to yield, it is to that of the Christian religion.
To the character of its antiquity must be added that of its perpetuity. Figure to yourselves here that endless variety of sects and of religions which have successively reigned upon the earth. Follow the history of the superstitions of every people and of every country; they have flourished a few years, and afterward sunk into oblivion along with the power of their followers. Where are the gods of Emath, of Arphad, and of Sepharvaim? Recollect the history of those first conquerors: in conquering the people, they conquered the gods of the people; and, in overturning their power,
