THE SACRED AND PROFANE HISTORY OF THE WORLD FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD TO THE . DISSOLUTION OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE, AND TO THE DECLENSION OF THE KINGDOMS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL, UNDER THE REIGNS OF AHAZ AND PEKAH. INDLUDING THE DISSERTATION ON THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. BY SAMUEL SHUCKFORD, D.D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty, George the Second. STOR LIBRAR IN FOUR VOLUMES-VOL. IV. NEW-YORK. Fourth Edition, REVISED, CORRECTED, AND GREATLY IMPROVED, BY JAMES CREIGHTON, B.A. ILLUSTRATED WITH A NEW AND CORRECT SET OF MAFS AND PLANS. LONDON: PRINTED FOR W. BAYNES, 54, PATERNOSTER-row, By Heney and Haddon, 12, Tabernacle-Walk. INTRODUCTION, &c. SECTION I. The Mosaic Account of the Creation is to be literally understood.-Origin of Mythology, &c. THE ensuing treatise is called a Supplement to the Sacred and Profane History of the World Connected; because the subject matter of it ought, and was intended, to have been treated before; but was deferred, as I wished to see what others, who were writing after me, would suggest upon a subject so The writers of The Universal History soon after be gan to publish their work; and, after their account of the creation, gave us, as I hoped they would, what they could collect of the fall of man. See preface to vol. i. variously thought of by divers able and valuable writers; rather than too hastily offer to the public, sentiments upon it, of which I had a just diffidence, as many of them seemed to be more peculiarly my own. b A supposed impossibility of reconciling a literal interpretation of Moses' account of the fall of man, with any reasonable notions of God, and with what must, in truth, be his dispensations towards us, is, I believe, what has introduced the notion of explaining some parts at least of his narration into apologue and fable. The shadow of allegory seems to give us some appearance of knowing, what we do not plainly understand; and an unexamined hearsay of eastern sages, their mythology and literature, amuses with a colour of being very learned, whilst, perhaps, we really mistake the rise and design of that very literature to which we have recourse, by endeavouring to resolve into it the narration of Moses, which See Middleton's Allegorical and Literal Interpretation. |