tion of the work again may have happened after the death of our apoftle, which is placed many years before the first century expired. Indeed no fure conclufion can be drawn from the ufe of Enoch's book, in the piece called, the Teftaments, &c. to its appearance in Jude's time, but upon the fuppofition that it is the pure and unaltered production, if not of Enoch himself as Mr. Whifton contends, yet of fome Jew who wrote before the apostle; than which what more unreasonable, fince it fpeaks with a fulnefs and clearness upon the fubjects of the New Teftament beyond all the writers of the Old?

And as to the affertion that This Teftament is ' quoted by St. Paul in his firft epiftle to the Theffalonians, if repeating the page word for word can 'be called quoting it,' I find no such agreement as he fpeaks of. Yet, if there was, it would be more reafonable to think the author borrowed from St. Paul, than he from him, as thefe Teftaments were evidently written, or at least interpolated, by fome perfon who lived after the publication of the Christian religion in the world. Even the alone expreffion he profeffes to produce out of the work in the fixth chapter of Reuben, is not to be met with either there or in any other part of it, so far as I can perceive; I only observe in the fixth chapter of Levi's teftament a sentence which occurs in the first * epiftle to the Theffalonians, and which hath fome likeness to that which Voltaire here recites. For it is there faid, And the wrath of the 'Lord came upon him to the uttermoft.' But if this was intended, I must think it a very poor fupport of his affertion: for if it is needful to fuppofe it copied 1 Theff. ii. 16.

at all, it is more likely the author tranfcribed it from Paul, whose epistles he certainly had seen, than that Paul took it from this book, which there is no evidence he was acquainted with. On the other hand, were the words' The fcholar of God' there, they might feem rather an allufion to Ifaiah, liv. 13. 'All 'thy children shall be taught of the Lord,' than to 1 Theff. iv. 9. Ye yourselves are taught of God to 'love one another.'

There still remains one paffage in this chapter to be confidered. Mr. Voltaire having quoted * Genefis chap. vi. There were giants in the earth in those days; and even after that, when the fons of God ' came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the fame became mighty men, ' which were of old men of renown;' he fubjoins, • Both the book of Enoch and Genefis perfectly agree ⚫ in regard to the copulations of these angels or fons of God with the daughters of men, and alfo as to "the race of giants their iffue.'

But is this fair and candid? It is true the apocryphal book of Enoch fays, ' The watchers, (fo the an'gels of God are there called) lufted after the daugh"ters of men, and went aftray after them.' For which reafon, had I been fure this was all he intended above, where he faid, Some have imagined Enoch left a hiftory of the fallen angels,' I fhould have made no

t

*Pages 235, 236.

How confiftently he adds after the place last quoted, p. 236. But neither this book of Enoch, nor any one of the Old Testament ' mentions a fyllable of the war of the angels against God, their de 'feat, their descent into hell, nor their enmity to mankind,' let the reader judge.

objection to it; but the account in the book of Genefis bears only, that the fons of God Be

"ne Elohim faw the daughters of men that they were

fair, and they took them wives of all which they 'chofe.' This indeed Jofephus and Philo Judaeus underftand to fignify, that the angels (who, it is owned, are fometimes ftiled, fons of God, in Scripture, Job, i. 6. ii. 1.. xxxviii. 7.) had intercourse with women, and procreated children by them ;-so do alfo Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Lactantius, and other fathers of the Christian church, interpret it. Nay one copy of the Septuagint tranflation of the Old Teftament, the Alexandrian I mean, reads in the text, the angels of God, instead of the fons of God, which probably had much greater influence than the authority of Philo and Jofephus, with these antient Christians, to make them adopt this fenfe as the true one, (if at least the copy in common ufe among them did fo exhibit the text,) as all of them held that version in great efteem, and few of them understood Hebrew. Nevertheless, it is not reasonable to put this meaning on the words of the facred hiftorian, whether they be fuppofed, according to fome, to relate to the conduct of the angels, who had already loft their innocence, and rifen in rebellion against God, or whether they be fuppofed, according to others, to relate to the behaviour of the angels that continued pure and holy, till they were guilty of this enormity, having been fent down by Jehovah the common creator, to guard

*

*The authority of the book of Enoch, might also promote, with fome who regarded it as canonical, this interpretation, as it related the story of the commerce of angels with women. $

and protect mankind. For as Scripture teaches only one fall of angels, which was previous to the tranfgreffion of the first pair of our race, Adam and Eve, and to their expulfion from Paradise, fo it is utterly repugnant to the notions we have of those beings, bad as well as good, who are of a spiritual and immaterial nature, to subject them to fenfual defires, and to make them fall in love and lie with women. Add to this, that the univerfal deluge, in explaining the moral caufes of which, this fact of the intercourfe of the fons of God with the daughters of men is introduced, is never represented to have been fent for the punishment of wickedness in angels, but in men.

The expreffion, therefore, fons of God, hath by all in latter times or almost all, a different interpretation given of it. Somet, as

Elohim, is a noun in the plural number, and often taken for rulers, judges, or any great men, Exod. xxi. 6.

+ This is Dr. William Wall's interpretation, in his critical notes on the Old and New Teftmaent, who obferves, that the word Пp> is ufed of taking by violence, Genefis, xxxiv. 2. Job, v. 5. (Compare Gen. xii. 15. xx. 2.) It was also the fenfe of Aquila, who has vi θεων, and of Symmachus, who has υιοι των δυναςευόντων, the fons of the princes or powerful. It is also the glofs of Onkelos, Ben Uzziel, Jarchi, Abenezra, and other Jewish doctors; the Samaritan and Arabic versions, finally, to omit fome modern translations, do embrace it: nay, Mr. Voltaire himself declares for it, in a note on his Treatife of Toleration, chap. xiv. p. 221. where he says, ' In the fixth chap'ter of Genefis, we find the fons of great men called the fons of God,' and confirms this fenfe, by the use of cedars of God for tall cedars, fear of God for violent fear, wind of the Lord for a great tempest, among the Hebrews,' to which it were easy to subjoin many fimilar examples.

xxii. 8. 9. 28. Pf. lxxxii. 1. &c. and TM Adam, on the other hand, stands for mean men, men of low rank and condition, Pf. xlix. 2. Ifaiah, ii. 9. expound, the fons of God, or, rather, the fons of gods, to denote the fons of powerful and wealthy men, and, the daughters of Adam, to fignify the daughters of perfons in humble circumstances; and say, thofe are related to have taken unto themselves the daughters of men, because they ravished or feized by force and violence the daughters of the inferior fort of people, and cohabited with them in a diforderly promifcuous way; thus becoming examples and leaders in debauchery and lewdness, they brought on with a quicker pace that confummate iniquity and degeneracy for which God fent on the earth the general flood. Others again, thinking this account makes the cause of the flood too narrow and particular, (for by it the guilt is altogether on the fide of the grandees or princes) understand the fons of God, to exprefs the male descendants of Seth's line, and, the daughters of men, to exprefs the female defcendants of Cain's race, each being thus denominated and distinguished from the piety or wickedness which prevailed in their respective families; fo the fense will be, that the inter-marriage of the godly family fprung from Seth, with the wicked pofterity of Cain, was one cause of haftening that univerfal profligacy and licentiousness of manners, for which God fwept away all living with water, they themselves being foon corrupted by the converfation of their new relatives, instead of reclaiming and reforming the perfons with whom they thus contracted alliance. And this, indeed, is the expofi