About the middle of the last century, one Pyrerius, a foreign Protestant, wrote a book, in which he attempted to prove that there were men in the world long before Adam; that when he was created, there were many thousands of people on this habitable world, and that God's making the world at that time was merely an allegory. He said, that Eve's being called the mother of all living, implied no more than that the whole race of the elect should descend from her. That as Seth was but the third son of Adam, it could not with propriety be said, that men should call upon the name of the Lord when he was born. These words,

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Calling on the name of the Lord," mean no more than that men began at that time to call upon God by another name than that by which he was known before. To this he adds, the account of Cain's marrying a wife in the land of Nod, and this he advances as a proof, that there were many families at that time in the world..

To these arguments, which have been made use of by many Deistical writers, it may be reasonably supposed, that as the birth of Seth was not till many years after the fall, so there can remain little doubt but Adam had many children in that But of these things we shall take particular notice afterwards, when we have stated more. at large the history and sentiments of these people..

time.

In the mean time, as the Pre-Adamites made some noise in Germany, the people of England sent for copies of the book written by Pyrerius; and as they were daily broaching new religions in this country, so they made one of this. It might be said of the sects in this country at that time, that, like Noah's dove, they could find no rest for the soles of their feet; that is, their various changes from one form of religion to another, had gradually disordered their minds, and the frame of moral duty was every day sinking into a state of weakness.. This made them lay hold of every new scheme of religion that presented itself, but the more they sought to enjoy rest, the less they could find. They were, in some sense, like the ancient Athenians, who, having set up altars to all the gods they could hear of, and not being able to find a new one, erected an altar in one of their public places, with this inscription, "To the unknown God."

Several books were written, to prove the doctrines advanced by Pyrerius, and many converts were made to his opinions. Some of these English PreAdamites had been Presbyterians, others Anabaptists, but all of them belonged to the sects.

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They continued to increase till the restoration, but wonderful as it may seem, it does not appear, that even in those unsettled times, when every blockhead mounted the pulpit, that any of them obtained church livings. Perhaps there were none vacant, or which is more probable, Oliver Cromwell did not chuse to give encouragement to any new sects who would oppose the Independents.

At the restoration they were included under the general name of Dissenters, and some of them suffered the same hardships with all the other religious.

sectaries.

Having said thus much concerning their origin and progress, we shall now proceed to consider the remainder of their sects at large; and here we are sorry to say, that it most commonly happens, that those who undertake explaining the sacred scriptures, without understanding them, generally run into errors. There are two things to be attended to in reading the sacred scriptures, which must not be forgotten by those who would reap.any advantage from them.

First, that there are many things in them above human comprehension, which so far from weakening their authority, serves only to confirm it. For if men cannot always understand the secret things of nature, how shall they comprehend the hidden mysteries of God.

Secondly, there is sufficiency in them to make us wise unto salvation, and this is what we should give proper attention to.

Sin and death according to this system, was long before Adam; but they did not live and reign over all mankind. Sin and death were dead, they had no sting. This is, say they, expressed by St. Paul in these words, "Until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law." And by consequence, death had no power over mankind. But the same apostle says, "By one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men." However, to maintain this very strange and unaccountable sys-tem, they are obliged to admit, that before Adam, men lived like beasts.

The election of the Jews is a consequence of the same system, for it began at Adam who is their father, God is also the father of the Jews, having espoused their church to himself. He is likewise their mother; for the Gentiles are only adopted children, as being Pre-Adamites. The scripture calls them. only men or children of men; and sometimes they are compared to unclean beasts; whereas the Jews 10 A.

are

are said to be the children of God, as having been made of a more perfect nature, than the other nations whom he had created.

This distinction was very flattering, in regard to the Jews, who were thus raised to a superior order of men. The whole has the appearance of a wild romance, and yet they attempt to prove it.

In order to this, he compares the first chapter of Genesis, where it is said God creates man by his word, with the second, wherein Adam is introduced as the work of God's own hands.

Again the forty-seventh salm joined to the fortyninth, in which the Gentiles are expressly called the sons of the earth; and this they believe to be an evident proof that God created two sorts of men; the Jews then being made of a finer mould, had all the reason on their side not to be inquisitive about the other nations, who drew their origin from the Pre-Adamites. This was not an effect of their pride, but a self-consciousness of their own dignity. They were by this second creation to live eternally, whilst the Pre-Adamites and their posterity were doomed to death, as a natural consequence of the corruptability of the matter of which they were composed. Moreover, the Jewish genealogies are clearly traced from Adam their first father; whereas, in the pedigrees of the Gentiles, no order is kept, no knowledge is preserved of their origin.

From these proofs, as they call them, drawn from the scriptures, they proceed to others out of the Jewish Rabbics.

Adam, say the Rabbies, had a tutor named Samboscer, and who could this be but a Pre-Adamite ?

Cain having killed his brother Abel, was afraid lest he should kill himself. He became captain of a band of robbers, who were they? He married, yet Adam had no daughter. What wife could he get? He built a town; What architects, masons, carpenters, and other workmen did he employ? The answer to all these questions is, in one, PreAdamites. They add further, that the Egyptian and Chinese chronologies, reach many thousand years backward before Adam was created; and the people who lived then, must have been Pre-Adamites. It is certain, that the Mahometans believe, there were Pre-Adamites, and they have actually given us the names of some of them. The Pre-Adamites believe further, that there was to be two Messiahs; one of whom is come, but there is another in time to be sent to the Jews.

These are all the particulars we have been able to collect concerning this extraordinary sect; and

the notion seems to have been collected in part from all the heresies that ever yet sprung up in the world. It is surprizing that such men should call themselves Christians; for all Christians, let their notions in other respects he ever so invidious, still profess to believe the bible.

Now, had no notice been taken of the creation and fall of man, except in the Old Testament, there might have been some reason to doubt; but throughout the New Testament the Mosaic account of the fall is frequently referred to, and considered as the fundamental article upon which the necessity for Christ's making an atonement is built. As for Cain's marrying a wife while Adam had no children, is but a silly objection; because this event might have happened above one hundred years after the creation of the world, and certainly Adam might have had many daughters in that time.

Their notion that men lived like beasts before Adam was created, they have taken from the Pagan mythology, as appears from many of those pocts; but what will men not do when left to the indulgence of their own corrupt fancies? The truth does not give them satisfaction, they seek out for something new, and then they are less satisfied than before. They add one fiction to another, till their religion, if it deserves that name, would put an Heathen to the blush. It is even more ridiculous than that of Sommono-Codom in the East-Indies, or any of those we have treated of in other parts of the world.

We shall conclude this article in the words of the late learned lord-president Forbes, in his excellent thoughts on religion, where he supports the Mosaic history with a strength of argument not known before.

"The thing Moses begins with, is the creation of the heavens and the earth by the Deity; which though true to the conviction of all mankind, no ancient wise-men ever found out. Here is no ridiculous theogonia, no eternal chaos, no fortuitous concourse of atoms; but a fair and a true declaration, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

He further takes notice of the institution of the sabbath; which, though the ancients observed, they knew not the reason, or occasion of.

The declaration of this undiscovered truth gives strong prepossession in favour of the rest.

The next important thing is, that man fell from a state of innocence. This, as has been said, every living man must find to be true, upon examination;

and

ABADIE had been brought up a Jesuit in France, then became a Protestant, and was made a minister at Middleburgh, in Zealand. He was eloquent, but not very learned; which defect was supplied by art and cunning. His dispute against Wolsogue, minister at Utrecht, on account of his treatise concerning the interpretation of scripture, shews him to have been contentious and even seditious. His behaviour in that quarrel was unfair and deceitful; so that his enemies were not quite in the wrong, when they described him as an haughty, proud, self-conceited, stubborn hypocrite.

Yet he had admirers, who praised his humility, and modest carriage, and undertook his defence with so much warmth, highly approving his project of reforming even the grand Calvinistical reformers of the United Provinces, that a schism had like to have ensued in the Church of Middleburgh. But his design failed, notwithstanding all the endeavours of his friends. He was deposed from his ministry by the synod of Dort, in May, 1669, having before that been suspended from his function by the synod of Norde.

The sentence of his deposition says, "That from his first coming into Holland, he designed to reform the church, and maintained that this was to be brought about by a separation, and setting up a new church of the elect;" which he actually began at Middleburgh, and in other places. He taught that whoever could, or thought fit, should have free liberty to speak in their assemblies, on whatever text was proposed.

"God has been pleased to hear at last the prayers, tears, and groans of his little ones, and opened way to a happy separation. This separation has been and now is very advantageous to us, since we are about three hundred well chosen members in our assembly all elect, and breathing a true Christian spirit.

We give thanks to God, who hath chosen us, all of one heart and soul, unanimous in speaking openly. all truths, remedying all abuses, in doctrine, in administering the sacraments, and in morals, with a

full intention to reform ourselves according to the model of the primitive Christians. We meet twice a day, morning and evening, and thrice on Sundays.

We do not preach in pulpits, but all sit on benches without any difference between the rich and the poor, excepting that the pastors, elders, or those who speak, sit on a bench made like the rest, but somewhat higher, in order to be seen and heard. Modesty, union, humility, zeal and piety, are such amongst us, that we daily give God due praises for: the establishment of our church. We have several doctors and eminent persons, humble, fervent and pious..

No abuse is tolerated, no excess allowed in dress, ornaments and vanities; nor are the trades subser→ vient to them encouraged. Our lives are marked · in every point by the rule and standard of the gospel and apostolical doctrine, being firmly resolved to become a living representation of the primitive church, in our belief and practice.

Many are astonished,. but many are drawn in from other places; for God has almost every where admitted some to us, and to our spirits..

Even this day, being the first of the year 1669, we met before. day-light to explain the sixth and seventh verses of the fifth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, and are fully bent on casting away the old leaven."

Notwithstanding the opposition which Labadie met with, yet there were several persons of note who embraced his doctrines, and joined themselves to his party. Some of whom were expelled France.

Labadie and Madam Bourignon were contemporaries, but their spirits did not unite. Labadie was not spiritual enough to be her colleague, and too stubborn to become her disciple. Both were of an artful, troublesome temper, and therefore it was impossible that they should agree together. The enlightened woman despised the regenerated man.

At last Labadie died at Alena, 1674, in the arms of his beloved Schurman, and left Peter Yvon to succeed him, who brought the Labadists together at

Wiwert in Friesland, a manor belonging to the family of Somerdyke. He had before spread his fanaticism from Middleburgh to Amsterdam, and he had likewise a settlement near Uikrahist, where he set up a printing-house. From thence he went through Westphalia, and at last to Hamburgh. Every where he made proselytes of both sexes, till one Anthony de la Margue published his reasons for leaving his sect, which although it threw them into disrepute by the discovery then made, yet they are not extinct, for some of them are still to be found in Friesland and Groningen.

These Labadists were always by the Dutch considered as a sort of Quakers; but although they may rescmble them in some things, yet in others there is a vast difference. We do not know that there were ever any of these Labadists in England, and the reason seems to be, their notions were not known during the civil wars, when the soil for new and unheard of religions was so rich, that every doctrine, however absurd, was embraced as soon as taught.

Connected with the Labadists, were two small sects, formed by Voet, a great lawyer, and Cocceius, a celebrated divine. At first, they agreed in most things with the Labadists, but at last they quarrelled concerning a whimsical method of explaining the scripture. Cocceius pretended to teach the people to preach without study or labour; which strange things are always taking with the vulgar, and they think them sublime, for want of understanding them; and look upon them as deep mysteries, because they are obscure.

all, we are not to condemn one side or the other, only that we must, according to the design of this work, take notice, that the followers of Cocceius maintain that the command given to the Jews to keep one day in seven for rest, is part of the ceremonial law, from the observance of which Christ has freed us. That Christ will reign temporally on earth, after the destruction of Anti-christ, and that the Jews are to be converted at that time.

One of the chief tenets of these people, is to banish morality from their sermons, which they look upon as unseasonable. For as St. Paul often mentions, that the law is abolished, and its opposition to the gospel; so they pretend, that preaching up duty and obedience, the justice of God and his rights, the awe in which we ought to stand of him and his judgments, which are relative to the law, is the same as giving a new law to the spirit of slavery, by reproaches and threatenings contrary to the gospel, which breathes only sweetness and grace.

They say, that Christ dying for us has not only taken upon him the punishment due to our sins, but our very sins themselves, and draw from thence consequences against the necessity of repentance.

To conclude our account of this sect, we must observe, that many of the ancient Heathens and the primitive Heretics, were such; nay, they are to be found among the Heathens in the East-Indies, and among the Mahometans. All these novelties take their rise from an unsettledness of mind, from a vain desire to be wiser than God has ordained; and in this people copy exactly after the conduct of their first parents, who, to satisfy their curiosity, eat the

First, the periodical changes of the church. Of the New Testament, which they find in every

text.

Secondly, the types and figures without end or measure, drawn from the ancient history and worship.

Thirdly, an everlasting affectation of applying to Christ and the gospel.

Fourthly, discovering modern events in the ancient prophecies.

Lastly, the numberless and exaggerated distinctions, betwixt the faithful under the Mosaical dispensation and Christianity.

The explanation of these types and figures always serves to amuse the vulgar, whereas morality. and sound divinity frequently prove tiresome. After No. 35.

whole posterity in ruin.

From the beginning, a rational being, unaided by learning, and the experience of former ages, could easily discern the hand of an intelligent, wise, powerful, and very bountiful creator, in the whole and in every part of the fabric of this system that fell under his ken; and could as easily discover his own obligations to, and his dependence on that being. And accordingly we see, by the carliest accounts of time that have come to our hands, all mankind, full of a persuasion of their dependence, full of reverence to the deity, soliciting his favour and protection by prayer, by ceremonies, by sacrifices, sometimes human, nay of their first-bora; and imputing all their favourable or cross incidents, that happened to them, to the good-will or displeasure of the sovereign being, whom it was their chief study to please.

It is true, that the notions they generally entertain of the deity was imperfect, as well as their man10 B

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