Having taken this short review of the antediluvian history, we shall now consider how far this account is confirmed by heathen testimony. We are convinced that the scripture account does not stand in need of such confirmation ; and that essential injury has often been done to the cause of truth, by bringing it down from the sacred and immoveable basis on which it rests, to mingle with the rubbish of mythology. Infidels have always imagined, and believers have too generally con ceded, that the Mosaic account of the first ages of the world, is the weakest of the outworks of Christianity. We, on the contrary, are persuaded, that the firmest ground which even a philosophical believer can take, is the Mosaic record.t At the same time, we would not reject the confirmation of truth from any quarter ; and though it be sufficiently attractive by its native beauty, and by the respectability of its adherents, yet it cannot be denied that it receives additional eclat, when confirm ed by the involuntary testimony of strangers or adver Saries. With this view, we proceed to compare some of the heathen accounts with that given by Moses ; and we have no doubt, that, whatever is found in them con sistent with truth or probability, will be found equally consistent with his narrative ; and that whatever con tradicts it, will be equally contradictory to reason and common sense.
We begin with Sanchoniatho, the only author who, in point of antiquity, has the least pretensions to com pare with Moses ; although the superior antiquity of the latter is admitted by Porphyry, even whilst he is en deavouring to overthrow his credit, by the authority of this pretended Phoenician historian ; we say pretended, because we think the existence of such an author as Sanchoniatho extremely problematical. His work was never seen nor heard of till the time of Adrian, when. Philo Biblius gave a translation of it ; the original never has been seen ; and even, according to the translator, the work was by no means the same as when it was written by Sanchoniatho, having been much altered and disfigured. All that remains, even of the translation, is merely some fragments preserved by Eusebius, which have been translated into English, with large annota tions, by bishop Cumberland. On such a document as this little stress can be laid. The account contained in it, however, respecting the period in question, rather confirms than contradicts the testimony of Moses. It derives all mankind from one pair, Protogonus and Eon, the latter of whom is said to have found out the way of gathering fruit from trees ; a striking resemblance to the sin of Eve. Their offspring were Genus and Genea, thought to be Cain and his sister : for they who admit the authenticity of the record, suppose, that the author deduces the genealogy of the line of Cain ; as the his tory of Moses is chiefly occupied with the line of Seth. The offspring of these are said to have been of enor mous height and bulk. Their descendants, in the se venth generation, discovered iron, and the method of working it ; the very fact which is recorded by Moses.
The author thus goes on to give a genealogical account of this great family, till he comes to Misor, the father of Taautus or Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury. Misor is thought to be the same as Misraim, the father of the Egyptians : and it is remarkable, that Sanchoniatho reckons eleven generations from Protogonus to Misor ; whilst Moses makes twelve from Adam to Misraim ; the discrepancy arises from this remarkable circum stance, that in this Phoenician chronicle the deluge is entirely omitted. The coincidences between the above facts, and those recorded in the scripture history, are sufficiently striking to warrant the supposition, that they have been manufactured from the Mosaic account. We are persuaded, however, that this is not the case. There is in many things a marked and studied contrariety to the scripture account, particularly in the omission of the deluge, which forms such a prominent feature in the history of every other nation ; and pagans and in fidels have always endeavoured to play off Sanchoniatho in opposition to Moses. Berosus, a Babylonish priest, who was born in the time of Alexander the Great, is the next most ancient historian of these events. All that remains of his works, are some fragments in Jose phus, Eusebius, and others. He expressly mentions the flood ; and from Alorus, the first man, according to his account, to Xisuthrus, in whose time the flood hap pened, he reckons ten generations, which is exactly the number given by Moses.
If we turn from these to the Greek and Latin authors, we shall find still stronger proofs of the truth of the Mosaic history. The paradisaical state is clearly re presented by the golden age of the Greeks ; and many of their authors bear testimony to some of the most re markable facts in the antediluvian history. Josephus, Ant. Hist. lib. i. e. 4. names Hestixus, Hecateus, Hel lanicus, and others of the Greek historians, as all de claring, that the first race of men lived to near a thou sand years. The writings of these authors, which were extant in the time of Josephus, are lost ; but Hesiod, whom he mentions as testifying to the same effect, still remains to justify the fidelity of the Jewish historian. In his Works and Days, lib. i. v. 139, the poet gives this account of the longevity of men in the golden age :— And in which of the Greek poets and mythologists, do we not find the story of the giants, their enormous impiety, and their wars against the gods ? Ovid, in the beginning of his Metamorphoses, has collected into one point, all the doctrines of the Greek authors, respect ing the cosmogony, the primmval happiness of man, his rapid and excessive degeneracy, till the whole impious race was swept away with a flood. One would almost think, that he was writing out an abstract of the scrip ture history. He mentions the impious attempt of the giants, as the consummation of human wickedness, and as immediately preceding the catastrophe of the flood. Compare this with Gen. iv. 4. 5.