The Lord _Bacon_ says somewhere, that what we call the Antiquity was the Youth of the World, and that we are properly the Antients as the Inhabitants of an older World, and having made infinite Improvements in all the most useful Parts of Learning. I dare not say, there is a Quibble in the Expression of so illustrious a Writer, but I must always take the Authors that wrote 1500 or 2000 Years ago to be the Antients; and one may very well Question, whether there was not as much useful Learning lost in twelve or thirteen Centuries of Barbarism and Ignorance, as has been discover'd, or rather recovered in two or three of the last Ages. The Antiquaries the Translator speaks of would do Wonders, if they would make it out that the Letter sent to the King of _Edessa_, and the Passage in _Josephus_'s Book XVIII, relating to our Saviour, are genuine, with several other Particularities, which are much insisted upon by Ecclesiastical Writers. The _Spectator_ has told us something too of Antiquity, which wants the Confirmation of the Antiquaries, and that is a Quotation out of a Manuscript in the _Vatican_ Library, where _Longinus_ is made to say, Paul _of_ Tarsus, _the Patron of an Opinion not fully proved, must be reckon'd among the best_ Græcian _Orators_. This must be a downright Forgery: _Longinus_ surely knew the _Greek_ Tongue too well, to cry up the Eloquence of a Writer in it, who, as St. _Jerome_ says, did not understand _Grammar_, and mentions the Places where he err'd, _Propter Imperitiam Artis Grammaticæ_. See _Gregory_ on the _Septuagint_. It were to be wished, that the Ecclesiastical Writers, even of the earliest Centuries, had suffer'd nothing to escape them that was improbable, if not incredible. 'Tis also much wanted to have further Proof of the Ceasing of Oracles at the Nativity of our Saviour, and that _Virgil_ prophesy'd of it in his fourth Eclogue. We should be still more oblig'd to them, if they would prove, that the _Sibyl_'s Verses are a Prophecy of the same Thing, which Things are generally asserted in the Writings of the Ecclesiasticks. As to Oracles _Lucian_ tells us, Answers were given in his Time, that of the Emperor _Commodus_ 160 Years after, _Juvenal_ makes their Ceasing to be only 100 Years after: --------Delphis Oracula cessant.