such an old age of the world as this shall take place, such irreligion, inordination, and unreasonableness of all good. When all these things shall happen, O Asclepius, then that lord and father, the God who is first in power, and the one governor of the world, looking into the manners and voluntary deeds [of men], and by his will, which is the benignity of God, resisting vices, and recalling the error arising from the corruption of all things; washing away likewise all malignity by a deluge, or consuming it by fire, or bringing it to an end by disease and pestilence dispersed in different places, will recall the world to its ancient form, in order that the world itself may appear to be an adorable and admirable production, and God, the fabricator and restorer of so great a work, may be celebrated, by all that shall then exist, with frequent solemn praises and benedictions. For this _geniture_[55] of the world is the reformation of all good things, and the most holy and religious restitution of the nature of it, the course of time being accomplished[56]; since time is perpetual, and always was without a beginning. For the will of God is without beginning, is always the same, and is everywhere eternal.” Of this very remarkable extract, it is necessary to observe, in the first place, that it was principally made by me from the edition of the Asclepian Dialogue by Ficinus, as he appears to have had a more correct manuscript in his possession than any that have been consulted by more modern editors. Of this the learned and at the same time philosophic reader will be immediately convinced, by comparing this extract with the same part of that dialogue in the most modern editions of it. In the second place, that this dialogue is of genuine antiquity and no forgery, is, I think, unquestionably evident from neither Lactantius nor Augustin having any doubt of its authenticity, though it was their interest to have proved it to be spurious if they could, because it predicts, (which is the third thing especially deserving of remark,) that the memorials of the martyrs should succeed in the place of the temples of the Gods. Hence Augustin concludes this to be a prophecy or prediction made _instinctu fallacis spiritûs_,—_by the instinct or suggestion of a deceitful spirit_. But that this prediction was accomplished, is evident, as Dr. Cudworth observes in his True Intellectual System of the Universe, p. 329, from the following passages of Theodoret, which I shall quote as translated by the Doctor. “Now the martyrs have utterly abolished and blotted out of the minds of men the memory of those who were formerly called Gods.” And again, “Our Lord hath now brought his dead (i. e. his martyrs) into the room and place (i. e. into the temples) of the Gods; whom he hath sent away empty, and bestowed their honour upon these his martyrs. For now, instead of the festivals of Jupiter and Bacchus, are celebrated those of Peter and Paul, Thomas and Sergius,