I admit scripture ought to be accurate in everything, without going beyond the forms of knowledge of those to whom it was addressed at the time, or it would not have been suited to them. God does condescend to suit his instruction to us; as, if we know his grace, we might expect he would. And where is the book which, addressed, in ages earlier than otherwise known history, to a despised people, has stood the test of increasing light as the Bible has on every point? Take the Koran, and see the nonsense that is found in it: yet this was in the seventh century. Take the fathers. Take any book pretending to give an account of what are called fabulous ages, and see how the marvelous prevails; the little grains of fact to be picked out of these large stories; the prodigality of marvelous nonsense, from which we must, in a mythical way, conjecture some historical idea (if there is any), the only effect of which is, when we have discovered it, to show that what we have as plain history in scripture is the true origin of the distorted fables we meet with in profane accounts and ceremonies—ceremonies of which the vulgar know nothing but the outside, as the religion of their fathers; but which show, when investigated, that what we have in scripture is really the world’s history—is that which, however distorted, has formed everywhere the basis of the whole system which knit them together as people, and separated them as people too; which acted on their fears and conscience, and impressed their imagination—had been the origin of their different religions, which were but the conscience of having had to say to God in these gradually forgotten wonders of which Satan had possessed himself, to acquire the veneration and govern the lusts of those who had utterly departed from, and forgotten, the true God who had wrought them