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Koran, that celebrated book, which fome unbelievers represent as of equal value with our Scriptures, with Mahomet's history of the preaching of the apostles at Antioch.

Propound unto them as an example, the inhabitants of the city of Antioch, when the apoftles of Jefus came thereto, when we fent unto them two of the faid apoitles, but they charged them with imposture. Wherefore we ftrengthened them with a third. And they faid, Verily we are fent unto you by God. The inhabitants answered, Ye are no other than men, as we are; neither hath the Merciful re

vealed any thing to you. Ye only publifh a lie. The apoftles replied, Our Lord knoweth that we are really fent unto you, and our duty is only public preaching. Thofe of Antioch faid, Verily we prefage evil from you. If ye defift not from preaching, we will furely ftone you, and a painful punishment fhall be inflicted on you by us. The apoftles, answered, Your evil prefage is with yourselves, although if ye be warned will ye persist in your errors. Verily ye are a people who

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tranfgrefs exceedingly. And a certain man came haftily from the farther parts of the city, and faid, O my people, follow the meffengers of God, follow him who demandeth not any reward of you, for these are rightly directed. What reafon have I that I fhould not worship him who hath created me? For unto him shall ye return. Shall I take other gods befides him? If the Merciful be pleased to afflict me, their interceffion will not avail me at all, neither can they deliver me. Then fhould I be in a manifest error. Verily I believe in your Lord. Wherefore hearken unto me. But they ftoned him, and he died; and it was faid unto him, Enter thou into Paradise. And he faid, O that my people knew how merciful God hath been unto me. For he hath highly honoured me. And we fent not down against his people after they had flain him an army from heaven, nor the other inftruments of deftruction, which we fent down on unbelievers in former days. There was only one of Gabriel from heaven, and behold they became utterly extinct, O the mifery

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of men. No apoftle cometh unto them, but they laugh him to fcorn." Ib. p. 301, &c. We find in the Koran the fabulous ftory of the seven sleepers and their dog, told It is at confiderable length, Ib. p. 112. there fud that they flept three hundred and nine years, and when they awaked were not confcious of having flept longer than ufual.

Though thefe extracts are long, they are but a small specimen of the extravagant ftories contained in the Koran, and certainly they juftify the charge of the people of Mecca, that it contains noting but fables of the ancients, or else the inventions of Mahomet himself. They are evidently absurd in the extreme, and altogether unworthy of a meffenger from God.

When we confider the great natural ability of Mahomet, or of those who affifted him in the compofition of the Koran, and the infinite fuperiority of the books of the Old and New Teftament, many of them written by men poffeffed of no natural advantage whatever, we cannot avoid concluding that they were written by men who were poffeffed of fome advantage of another kind,

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and that must have been fuper natural. They were not evidently men who could have invented what they wrote. To this, or any thing approaching to it, they were unequal. Let other books pretended to be written by men who were inspired, and had communications with God, but which are now generally acknowledged not to have been fo, be compared with the Scriptures, where the fubjects are fimilar, and the difference cannot but be feen to be moft ftriking. For example, let the second book of Efdras, the shepherd of Hermas, or the Sibylline Oracles, be compared with the prophecies of Daniel, and other prophetical writings of the Old Teftament, or the book of Revelation in the New, and we must be convinced that, though there was a ftudied imitation of them, they are exceedingly unlike with refpect to thofe circumftances which affect their credibility. This is a fubject deferving of a particular examination, but I forbear to enter upon it at this time.

DISCOURSE

DISCOURSE V. PART VI.

IN one of my former difcourfes, I fhewed that the philofophical principles, if they may be fo called, of the Scriptures, even of the Old Teftament, are more confonant to reason than those of the Heathen philofophers of any age, which is a circumstance deferving particular notice; fince it cannot be faid that they were written by men who had any advantage of education or literature; and the Hebrews, or Jews in general, are always represented by unbelievers as mere barbarians, who had no knowledge of science or the arts. If we confider Mahometanifm in this refpect, we fhall find in the Koran many crude unfounded opinions relating to the structure of the universe, and the formation of man, &c. from which the religion of Mahomet cannot derive any credit.

According to Mr. Sale, there are in the Koran frequent allufions to many of the wildest notions of the Jewish Rabbins, which he details in his notes; but I shall only notice a few that are more diftinctly mentioned

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