The Adamus exul of Grotius; or The Prototype of Paradise Lost — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

emmmcmnamg Ae mcmape enemas — ames ego =e PROLEGOMENA. 3 mistaking the position of Cush, or Asiatic Ethiopia, and from confound. ing it with African Ethiopia, more generally known by this name. Sir Walter Ralegh has so well explained this matter, that his words are worth quoting. ‘* After the flood,’ says he, “Cush and his children never rested till they found the valley of Shinar, in which, and near which, himself and his sons first inhabited. Havila took the river side of Tigris chiefly.on the east, which, after his own name, he called Havila (now Susiana); Raamah and Sheba further down the river: at the entrance of Arabia Felix, Nimrod seated himself in the best of the valley, where he built Babel, whereof that region had afterwards the name of Babylonia. Cush himself and his brother Mizraim first kept upon Gehon, which falleth into the lakes of Chaldea, and, as their people increased, they drew themselves more westerly towards the Red, or Arabian Sea, from whence Mizraim past over into Egypt, in which part the Cushites remained for many years after.” The name of the third river is Hiddekel (a turbid river), or the Tigris, which goeth east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates, so called from its eruptive violence. It is very important to observe how closely the Mosaic account of the original glory and disastrous fall of several orders of lapsed. intelligences, and in particular the sacred histories respecting the golden age of man in Paradise—his pure communion with the divine powers—the sublime condition of his faith and obedience—his seduction by infernal subtlety working on his self-esteem and ambition—his expulsion from Eden, and his exposure to all the ills that flesh is heir to—have been found to coincide with all the discqyeries hitherto made respecting the mytho- logical initiations, secret philosophy, and chronological and geogtaphical traditions of all Gentile nations. The study of this comparative evidence of the truth of revelation, throws astonishing light on the obscurer passages of Scripture. The reader may collect its buried fragments from very recondite and scattered sources of information. He may, for instance, derive some assist- ance from Kircher, Gale, Cudworth, Ramsay, Shuckford, Dupuis, Gebe- lin, More, Delaulnaye, Phanner, Burigne, Panza, Meursius, Rocher, Taylor, Beausobre, Reuchlin, Rosler, Creuzer, Pierius, Fludd, Agrippa, Helpen, Bryant, Oliver, Bridges, and Davies. It is not to be supposed that a subject so full of intense interest as the glory of all created minds, the fall of angels, and the fall of man, should long be left unoccupied by the prophet bards and poets of Judah. It was evidently the first and most fascinating theme of their meditations and their songs; on it they exhausted their whole power of research and imagination, and their success is testified by a thousand passages of resplendent and imperishable verse, more or less masked by allegorical and hieroglyphic imagery, which still excite the veneration and gratify the sagacity of the student. The early fathers of the Christian Church, some of them the most eloquent of men, were likewise distinguished by poetic honors, as might have been expected. They discoursed on these august mysteries of their religion with the demonstration of the Spirit and the power of reason, and thereto they added the glowing decorations of the muse. Augustin, Ephraim, Gregory, Prudentius, Nonnus, and the ¢ « Poets Christiani’”’ of DOO @ COL <S (c@