Hugo Grotius · 19 of 132

SECT. XIV. But more especially amongst the Jews, who ought to be credited upon the account of the long continuance of their religion.

Now, that some miracles have really been seen, (though it should seem doubtful from the credit of all other histories), the Jewish religion alone may easily convince us: with though it has been a long time destitute of human assistance, nay exposed to contempt and mockery, yet it remains to this very day, in almost all parts of the world; when all other religions (except the Christian, which is, as it were, the perfection of the Jewish) have either disappeared as soon as they were forsaken by the civil power and authority, (as all the pagan religions did), or else they are yet maintained by the same power as Mahometanism is: for, if any one should ask, whence it is that the Jewish religion hath taken so deep root in the minds of all the Hebrews, as never to be forced out; there can be no other possible cause assigned or imagined than this, that the present Jews received it from their parents, and they from theirs, and so on, till you come to the age in which Moses and Joshua lived: they received, I say, by a certain and uninterrupted tradition, the miracles which were worked, as in other places, so more especially at their coming out of Egypt, in their journey, and at their entrance into Canaan; of all which their ancestors themselves were witnesses. Nor is it in the least credible, that a people of so obstinate a disposition could ever be persuaded, any otherwise, to submit to a law loaded with so many rites and ceremonies; or that wise men, amongst the many distinctions of religion which human reason might invent, should choose circumcision; which could not be performed without great pain, and was laughed at by all strangers, and had nothing to recommend it but the authority of God.