And what says Plato here? Although Plato does raise his mind above the common opinions of the vulgar, and does not ascribe divinity to statues of wood and stone, but really does inquire after God with very wise reasoning; and although he defines him to be "an eternal mind" and the great Cause of all good in nature, yet he still errs very widely from the true God. But how is that, some one may say? What description of God will you find more appropriate than Plato's? I acknowledge that he thought most learnedly and wisely concerning the nature of God; but concerning his will, he hangs in doubt himself and leaves all his readers and disciples in doubt also; and to use his own expression "bestormed and shipwrecked in their reasoning." Neither Plato nor Mohammed knew whether God heard and received the unworthy; nor how, nor why, he received them. Plato ought however to have inquired not only how God manifested himself in the creation of things, and what traces of himself he impressed upon the face of nature, but also whether or not he had uttered any voice by any certain signs or testimonies, and how that voice was spread abroad and made known. He might have heard these things when studying mathematics in Egypt, and might easily have learned all particulars from their neighbors the Jews. But the greater part of men always despise the voice and the Church of God. But to what purpose is all this far-fetched Introduction? It is for this end, that we may know the true Church of God is nowhere but among those, who have and who embrace the writings of the prophets and the apostles; that God is nowhere rightly called upon, but where the doctrine contained in these books truly shines forth. And here again we have to consider another singular blessing of God: That he was pleased to cause a whole connected history of all ages, from "the beginning," to be recorded in these books, and has preserved them by his own peculiar care. Nay, the whole Mosaic Economy was ordained for this very preservation of them. For what was the whole of that Economy, but a school and library of these books? And the fountain of all is the _first book_ of Moses, called Genesis, which profane men may perhaps laugh at and consider that it does not differ from the "Timon" of Plato, in which also the creation of the world is described. But the godly reader knows that there is a wide difference between profane descriptions and this description given us from above. For the latter not only informs us of the beginnings and nature of created bodies, but gives us a description of God himself. And it contains also an account of the beginnings of _the Church_; for the sake of which all other things were created and made, all which things we must know before we can understand whence the doctrine of the church proceeded and how the knowledge of it was spread abroad in the world.