CHAP. plain the permission of evil under the reign of infinite power and infinite goodness.

L.

Mahomet

of God,

and the last of

phets.

The God of nature has written his existence

the apostle on all his works, and his law in the heart of man. To restore the knowledge of the one and the the pro- practice of the other, has been the real or pretended aim of the prophets of every age; the liberality of Mahomet allowed to his predeces sors the same credit which he claimed for him. self; and the chain of inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam to the promulgation of the Koran.' During that period, some rays of prophetic light had been imparted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand, of the elect, discriminated by their respective measure of virtue and grace; three hundred and thirteen apostles were sent with a special commission to recal their country from idolatry and vice; one hundred and four volumes had been dictated by the holy spirit; and six legislators of transcendant brightness have announced to mankind the six successive revelations of various rites, but of one immutable religion. The authority and station of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Mahomet, rise in just gradation above each other; but whosoever hates or rejects any one of the prophets is numbered with the infidels. The writings of the patriarch were extant only in the apocryphal copies

1 Reland, de Relig. Moham. 1. i, p. 17-47. Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 73-76. Voyage de Chardin, tom. iv, p. 28-37, and 37-47, for the Persian addition, "Ali is the vicar of God!" Yet the precise number of the prophets is not an article of faith.

L.

of the Greeks and Syrians: the conduct of CHAP. Adam had not entitled him to the gratitude or respect of his children; the seven precepts of Moses. Noah were observed by an inferior and imperfect class of the proselytes of the synagogue," and the memory of Abraham was obscurely revered by the Sabians in his native land of Chaldea of the myriads of prophets, Moses and Christ alone lived and reigned; and the remnant of the inspired writings was comprised in the books of the Old and the New Testament. The miraculous story of Moses is consecrated and embellished in the Koran; and the captive Jews enjoy the secret revenge of imposing their own belief on the nations whose recent creeds they deride. For the author of Christianity, the Mahometans are taught by the prophet to entertain an high and mysterious reverence." Verily, Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his word, which he conveyed into Mary, and a Spirit proceeding "from him: honourable in this world, and in "the world to come; and one of those who ap

66

66

m For the apocryphal books of Adam, see Fabricius, Codex Pseudepigraphus V. T. p. 27-29; of Seth, p. 154-157; of Enoch, p. 160 219. But the book of Enoch is consecrated in some measure, by the quotation of the apostle St. Jude; and a long legendary fragment is alleged by Syncellus and Scaliger.

" The seven precepts of Noah are explained by Marsham, (CanonChronicus, p. 154-180), who adopts, on this occasion, the learning and credulity of Selden.

The articles of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, &c. in the Bibliotheque of d'Herbelot, are gaily bedecked with the fanciful legends of the Mahometans, who have built on the ground-work of Scripture and the Talmud.

› Koran, c. 7, p. 128, &c.; c. 10, p. 173, &c. D'Herbelot, p. 647, &c.

Jesus

CHAP.

L.

proach near to the presence of God." The wonders of the genuine and apocryphal gospels' are profusely heaped on his head; and the Latin church has not disdained to borrow from the Koran the immaculate conception' of his virgin mother. Yet Jesus was a mere mortal; and, at the day of judgment, his testimony will serve to condemn both the Jews, who reject him as a prophet, and the Christians, who adore him as the son of God. The malice of his enemies aspersed his reputation and conspired against his life; but their intention only was guilty, a phantom or a criminal was substituted on the cross, and the innocent saint was translated to the seventh heaven. During six hundred years the gospel was the way of truth and salvation; but the Christians insensibly forgot both the

r

• Koran, c. 3, p. 40; c. 4, p. 80. D'Herbelot, p. 399, &c.

See the gospel of St. Thomas, or of the Infancy, in the Codex Apocryphus N. T. of Fabricius, who collects the various testimonies concerning it, (p. 128 158). It was published in Greek by Cotelier, and in Arabic by Sike, who thinks our copy more recent than Mahomet. Yet his quotations agree with the original about the speech of Christ in his cradle, his living birds of clay, &c. (Sike, c. 1, p. 168. 169; c. 36, p 198, 199; c. 46, p. 206. Cotelier, c. 2, p. 160, 161).

It is darkly hinted in the Koran, (c. 3, p. 39), and more clearly explained by the tradition of the Sonnites, (Sale's Note, and Maracci, tom. ii, p. 112). In the xiith century, the immaculate conception was condemned by St. Bernard as a presumptuous novelty, (Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio di Trento, l. ii).

* See the Koran, c. 3, v. 53. and c. 4, v. 156, of Maracci's edition. Deus est præstantissimus dolose agentium (an odd phrase) . . . nec crucifixerunt eum, sed objecta est eis similitudo: an expression that may suit with the system of the Docetes; but the commentators believe, (Muratori, tom. ii, p. 113-115, 173; Sale, p. 42, 43, 79), that another man, a friend or an enemy, was crucified in the likeness of Jesus a fable which they had read in the gospel of St. Barbanus, and which had been started as early as the time of Irenænus, by some Ebionite heretics, (Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii, p. 25. Mosheim de Reb. Christ. p. 353).

laws and the example of their founder; and Mahomet was instructed by the Gnostics to accuse the church, as well as the synagogue, of corrupting the integrity of the sacred text." The piety of Moses and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance of a future prophet, more illustrious than themselves: the evangelic promise of the Paraclete, or Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the person, of Mahomet, the greatest and last of the apostles of God.

x

CHAP.

L.

The Ke

The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and language; the discourse ran. of a philosopher would vibrate without effect on the ear of a peasant; yet how minute is the distance of their understandings, if it be compared with the contact of an infinite and a finite mind, with the word of God expressed by the tongue or the pen of a mortal? The inspiration of the Hebrew prophets, of the apostles and evangelists of Christ, might not be incompatible with the exercise of their reason and memory; and the diversity of their genius is strongly marked in the style and composition of the books of

"This charge is obscurely urged in the Koran, (c. 3, p. 45): but neither Mahomet, nor his followers, are sufficiently versed in languages and criticism to give any weight or colour to their suspicious. Yet the Arians and Nestorians could relate some stories, and the illiterate prophet might listen to the bold assertions of the Manichæans. See Beausobre, tom. i, p, 291-305.

x Among the prophecies of the Old and New Testament, which are perverted by the fraud or ignorance of the Mussulmans, they apply to the prophet the promise of the Paraclete, or Comforter, which had been already usurped by the Montanists and Manichæans, (Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom. i, p. 263, &c); and the easy change of letters, περικλυτος for παρακλητος, affords the etymology of the name of Mohammed. (Maracci, tom. i, part i, p. 15-28)..

-3

L.

CHAP. the Old and New Testament. But Mahomet was content with a character, more humble, yet more sublime, of a simple editor: the substance of the Koran,' according to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal; subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen of light on the table of his everlasting decrees. A paper copy in a volume of silk and gems, was brought down to the lowest heaven by the angel Gabriel, who, under the Jewish economy, had indeed been despatched on the most important errands; and this trusty messenger successively revealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the emergencies of his policy or passion and all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim, that any text of scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of God, and of the apostle, was diligently recorded by his disciples on palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones of mutton; and the pages, without order or connection, were cast into a domestic chest in the custody of one of his wives. Two years after the death of Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by his friend and successor Abubeker: the work was revised by the caliph Othman, inthe thirtieth year of the Hegira; and the various editions of the Koran assert the same

y For the Koran, see d'Herbelot, 85-88; Maracci, tom. i, in Vit. Mohammed. p. 32-45; Sale, Preliminary Discourse, p. 56-70.