That Gon u. that havegone a contrary way, lJa\;C ddhoycd themfelves ?·And' this is the third.p,:articula~. I I 4 . )Jthings hadno beginning, if the world was from eternity, what is the reafon there are no ·Monuments of more ancient times, than there are? For if wee confider what eternity is, and what the vafineffe of.it is, that when you·have tl~ougbt o.f millio+s of m!llious of yceres, yet fhll there IS more beyond: tf the world bath been of_fo long contirniance, what is the reafon, tlMt things arebtH,. as it were, newly ripened? what Elfc, where be any Monu· . memsoftimcs bcfotc thofe mentioned in I the Scrjpturc? is the reafon, that things arcof no grdttcr ami– quity·tha1 they arc? Take all the Writers that ever wrote, ( befides tbe Scriptme) and theyall exceed no'r above foure thoufand yeeres;forthey · aJmofi all agree in this, that the firfi man, that ·had everaJlYhifiorywritten of him, was Ninm, who livedabeut Ahrahams tirne, -or a little be– .fore ; TrogteJ-Pompeit~, and Diodortu SiculuJ a– ,grce. in this. Plutarch faith, that 7'hefew\vas tbe fir!l:, before him there was no hifiory of truth, nothing-credible;and this is his cxprt:ffion:Take the H ifiories oft hncs before 'I hefew., and you fl1all find them to be bm lik~ skirts;in the Maps, wherein you fhall find nothing but -vail: .Seas. · V.arro one of the moft learned of their VVriters, profdfeth, that:before the Kingdome of the · ,SicJ'flni anJ,whieh begun afrer NimtJ. tii1ic,nothing · was knC?wne to ·be certaine, and the beginniug ·of that was dol!lbtfull and unccrtaine.. . And · their ufua:ll divilion ofall hi flory,into fabulous, . and certain&) by Hiftorians, is well knowne to · thofe. r I L I
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