salve the doubt. Now, one reason I tender so little
devotion unto relicks is, I think the slender and doubt-
ful respect which I have always held unto antiquities. For
that, indeed, which I admire, is far before antiquity;
that is, Eternity; and that is, God himself; who, though
he be styled the Ancient of Days, cannot receive the
adjunct of antiquity, who was before the world, and
shall be after it, yet is not older than it: for, in his
years there is no climacter:<43> his duration is eternity;
and far more venerable than antiquity.

Sect. 29.--But, above all things, I wonder how the
curiosity of wiser heads could pass that great and indis-
putable miracle, the cessation of oracles; and in what
swoon their reasons lay, to content themselves, and sit
down with such a far-fetched and ridiculous reason as
Plutarch allegeth for it.<44> The Jews, that can believe
the supernatural solstice of the sun in the days of
Joshua, have yet the impudence to deny the eclipse,
which every pagan confessed, at his death; but for
this, it is evident beyond all contradiction: the devil
himself confessed it.* Certainly it is not a warrant-
able curiosity, to examine the verity of Scripture by the
concordance of human history; or seek to confirm the
chronicle of Hester or Daniel by the authority of Meg-
asthenes<45> or Herodotus. I confess, I have had an un-
happy curiosity this way, till I laughed myself out of
it with a piece of Justin, where he delivers that the
children of Israel, for being scabbed, were banished
out of Egypt. And truly, since I have understood the