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SECTION III.

THE DIFFICULTIES ATTENDANT UPON DEISTICAL INFIDELITY IN REGARD TO HISTORICAL MATTERS OF FACT.

It has been so ordered by a wise and over-ruling Providence, that, in the case of various historical matters of fact, the deist is inevitably reduced to the alternative, either of denying the fact itself, or of admitting that a revelation from God to man must have taken place. If, on the one hand, he boldly denies the fact; then he unsettles the whole rationale of historical evidence, and brings himself (would he preserve the character of consistency) into a state of universal skepticism as to all past occurrences: if, on the other hand, he admits the fact; then he will find himself compelled to admit along with it the necessary concomitant fact of a divine revelation. So that, under this aspect of the question, the point will be, whether a man evinces a higher degree of credulity, by persuading himself that a recorded fact is absolutely false, notwithstanding it rests upon the very strongest historical evidence; or by believing the fact, and thence admitting its necessary consequence a revelation from heaven.

Many matters of this description might easily be adduced and commented upon: I shall, however, for the sake of brevity, confine myself to a single remarkable case, as affording an apt specimen of the present mode of reasoning.

The case which I shall produce, is the naked his

torical fact of the general deluge: and my position is, that the deist must either deny this fact altogether, or admit the actual occurrence of a revelation from God

to man.

It might seem as if the school of unbelievers had anticipated the possibility of some such use being made of the fact in question: whence perhaps we may account for the zeal with which, from time to time, they have wished wholly to set aside the fact. For, doubtless, if it could be satisfactorily shown that the deluge never occurred, no argument of any description could be drawn from it. The proofs however of its actual occurrence are so strong and so multiplied and so decisive, that, if this fact be denied, we must forthwith close the volume both of history and of physiology: in history, we must learn to believe nothing, whether near or remote; in physiology we we must learn to disbelieve the very evidence of our

senses.

Some of these proofs shall be briefly exhibited: and, when the absolute necessity of the fact has been thus established, we may then be allowed fairly and reasonably to draw from it the proposed inference.

1. The proofs are partly historical, partly physiological, and partly moral.

1. With respect to historical proof, I so designate the universal attestation of mankind to the alleged fact, that a general deluge once took place, and that all animated nature perished save a single family with those birds and beasts and reptiles which they were instrumental in preserving.

This universal attestation I call a proof: because, if it be deemed incapable of establishing a fact, there is an end of all historical evidence.

The circumstance of a general deluge is asserted by Moses. Now, when we consider the tremendous magnitude of such an event, and when we farther consider that the Hebrew legislator has ventured to

ascribe to it so comparatively recent a date as the year 2349 before the Christian era according to the chronology of the Hebrew Pentateuch, or the year 2939 before the same era according to the chronology of the Samaritan Pentateuch: when, I say, we consider these two points, we may be morally sure, that, if the fact stood recorded in the Israelitish annals alone, while the rest of mankind were quite ignorant of its occurrence, it must have been a mere fiction, and could never have really happened. For, had an event of such a nature indeed taken place at the epoch fixed by Moses, it never could have been forgotten in so comparatively short a time by the posterity of the solely preserved family. Hence the ignorance of all the rest of mankind, save the Israelites, would have been proof presumptive, that the whole Hebrew narrative of the deluge was a palpable fabrication. Or again, if some few neighbouring nations only were acquainted with the fact, while the more remote nations including the bulk of mankind had never heard of it, the obvious presumption would then be, that no general deluge had occurred, though a partial and local inundation might have taken place, which had been exaggerated into a story of a universal flood with its present concomitants.

(1.) Such, I think, would have been the natural and reasonable inferences on either of those two suppositions. But, in truth, neither of the two suppositions is well founded.

So far from all mankind being ignorant of the alleged fact, save the Israelites alone; so far from the neighbouring nations only knowing it, conjunctively with the Israelites: there is scarcely a people upon the face of the whole globe, to whom the fact is not perfectly familiar. Nor am I speaking of those modern nations, whether Pagan or Mohammedan, to whom the fact might have been circuitously conveyed through the medium of Christianity: 1 speak

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of ancient nations, who flourished long before the promulgation of the Gospel; and I speak of those modern nations, modern I mean in the persons of their present representatives, who plainly received their knowledge of the fact from remote primeval independent tradition. All mankind unite in attesting the same circumstance: and they all agree, with surprising uniformity, in their details. From north to south, and from east to west; in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in America; the story of a general deluge never fails to present itself. A former world had attained to a high pitch of daring wickedness. The gods were resolved to destroy it. A single pious family, with a sufficient number of birds and beasts and reptiles, were preserved in a large ship, while every thing else perished beneath the waters of a universal inundation. The family consisted of eight persons: an old man and his wife, his three sons and their wives. When the waters began to abate, they sent out a raven and a dove and when the deluge had sufficiently subsided, their ship came to land upon the summit of a lofty mountain. By their descendants the present world was gradually filled with inhabitants.*

This, in substance, is the general tradition of all nations in every quarter of the globe. The story may be told more fully or less fully, more intermingled with fable or more free from fable: but still, under every modification, such is its universal drift and purport.

(2.) Nor does the tradition merely float down the stream of time in a state of vague subsistence; the facts which it embraces are embodied in the national mythology and religion of every people.

We are expressly assured, that the gods, whom the Gentiles worshipped, were illustrious men, who had

*See Bryant's Anal. vol. ii. p. 195-251. Faber's Orig, of Pagan Idol. book iii. chap. 4. and Hora Mosaic. book i. sect. 1. chap. 4. 2d edition.

flourished during the golden age or in the infancy of the world:* and, agreeably to this assurance, we invariably find a notion prevalent, that their principal divinity, the common father both of gods and of men, was the parent of three sons, among whom the whole earth was divided: that one of the forms of his consort has a ship; that, during a time when the waters overspread the face of all lands, he was enclosed within the womb of this mysterious vessel; that thus confined, he floated upon the surface of a shoreless ocean; and that, at length, when the flood retired, he disembarked, planted the first vine, and transmitted every useful art and science to his posterity.†

Such facts constituted the basis of the ancient Mysteries and, though they are sometimes told in a wild strain of fabulizing, they are always abundantly intelligible. For the sake of brevity, let a single instance only be produced from the mythology of Hindostan. Satyavrata having built the ark, and the flood increasing, it was made fast to the peak of Nau-bandha with a cable of prodigious length. During the flood, Brahma or the creative power was asleep at the bottom of the abyss: while the generative powers of nature, or the great god Siva and the great goddess Isi, were reduced to their simplest elements; the latter assuming the shape of ́a ship's hull since typified by the Argha, and the former becoming the mast of the vessel. In this manner they were wafted over the deep, under the care and protection of Vishnou When the waters had retired, the female power of nature appeared immediately, in the character of Capoteswari or the dove and she was soon joined by her consort, in the shape of Capoteswara or the male dove.§ On this legend it is quite superfluous to offer

*Hesiod. Oper. et dier. lib. i. ver. 120-125. August. de Civ. Dei. lib. iv. cap. 27. lib. viii. cap. 5. Cicer. Tusc. Disp. lib. i. cap. 12, 13. De nat. deor. lib. i. cap. 42. Jul. Firm. de error. prof. rel. cap. vi. † See Bryant's Anal aud Faber's Orig. of Pagan Idol. passim. Orig. of Pagan Idol. book v. chap. 6.

Asiat. Research. vol. vi. p. 523.

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