The Worship of the Serpent

obedient to the laws, and well-affected to the gods, to whom they were kindred . . . . . . . . . . but when the divine nature, which was in them, became frequently mingled with the mortal, and the human. inclination prevailed, being unable to bear present calamities, they disgraced themselves: and, to those who could see them, appeared base, having lost the most beautiful of their precious possessions . . . . . . . . . . The Jupiter, the god of gods, . . . . . . . . . . perceiving this honourable race lying in a state of depravity, and being desirous of punishing them . . . . . . . . . . called together all the gods," &c.

In the Atlantis of Plato, we may, I think, discover the EDEN of Scripture; and in the lapse of the Atlantians from virtue and THE DIVINE NATURE, the fall of Adam from purity and THE IMAGE OF GOD. The state of mankind, at the time of the deluge, is, doubtless, blended with the tradition; for we find that the island Atlantis was submerged in the ocean. But the want of authentic records of the period intermediate between the fall and the deluge, left the heathen, in a great measure, ignorant of antediluvian history. Hence their frequent confusion of the characters of Adam and Noah, and

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