Serle - BT590 N2 S47 1776

C 5o would be too tedious and too much out of our Way trr mention. The molt celebrated Poets of Antiquity, we know, contributed to thefe Follies, and reprefented fuch things, concerning what they called Gods, as would shame any commonly decent, or modeft Man. Some of the wifeft Philofophers among the Heathen's often cenfured thefe poetic Flights, as vile Prophana- tions and Abufes both of the Nature of the Gods and the very Dictates of common Senfe ; while others (fuch as Ennius from Euhemerus) endeavored to put a Coun- tenance upon them, by myftical Gloffes or Explanations. Nor is it any Wonder, that Greece fhould derive its Re- ligion and its Gods fromEgypt ; when Solon, their Legif- lator, is faid to have been alfifted in framing his excellent Laws by the Egyptian Prietls°. Lycurgus alto and Plato were equally indebted to them, according to Dio- dorus Siculus, upon the fame Account ; and fo was Py- thagoras for Geometry, Arithmetic, and the Metempfy- chofis ; as well as other Greeks for the reft of the Arts and Sciences t. But Orpheus was the principal Initi- tutor of idolatrous Rites among the Greeks, for which (as was obferved) he travelled into Egypt, and is faid by fome (though Herodotus applies the Charge toHefiod and Homer) to have been the Author of the 1heogania, or Generationof the Gods $. Amidit fo much Corruption and Nonfenfe, we ftill find that the antient Greeks, ignorant as they undoubt- edlywere of the Origin and Application of their own Mythology, Hiftory, &c. § had not entirely loft the Knowledgeof the Trinity in GOD. The Word Aga- memnon is fuppofed to have been an antient Title of their chief Deity, who feems to have been worshipped AMMIAN. MARCELL. I. 22. apud Roos. Arch. Ait. L I I. c. 11. j- Dion. Sic. 1.'1. SUIo. in ieFdleit. EUSEB. depræp. evang. 1. x. c. z. GALE'S Court of the Gentiles. Vol. i. 1. I. p. 49. HEROD. I. I I. JUST. MART. Pareen. ad Greecos. GRYNIEI Schol. in 1. I. c. 4. Eufeb. de præp. eang. §. Jos. cont. Apion. 1. 1. under

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