, c. 35, p. 297, with Sale's Remarks. Prideaux's
Life of Mahomet, p. 22-27. Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 11, 74.
Maracci, tom. ii. p. 400.) Even Prideaux has observed, that the
transaction must have been secret, and that the scene lay in the heart
of Arabia.]

[Footnote 73: Abulfeda in Vit. c. 7, p. 15. Gagnier, tom. i. p. 133,
135. The situation of Mount Hera is remarked by Abulfeda (Geograph. Arab
p. 4.) Yet Mahomet had never read of the cave of Egeria, ubi nocturnae
Numa constituebat amicae, of the Idaean Mount, where Minos conversed
with Jove, &c.]

It is the boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the learned nations
of antiquity were deluded by the fables of polytheism, their simple
ancestors of Palestine preserved the knowledge and worship of the true
God. The moral attributes of Jehovah may not easily be reconciled with
the standard of human virtue: his metaphysical qualities are darkly
expressed; but each page of the Pentateuch and the Prophets is an
evidence of his power: the unity of his name is inscribed on the first
table of the law; and his sanctuary was never defiled by any visible
image of the invisible essence. After the ruin of the temple, the
faith of the Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and enlightened, by the
spiritual devotion of the synagogue; and the authority of Mahomet will
not justify his perpetual reproach, that the Jews of Mecca or Medina
adored Ezra as the son of God. [74] But the children of Israel had
ceased to be a people; and the religions of the world were guilty,
at least in the eyes of the prophet, of giving sons, or daughters, or
companions, to the supreme God. In the rude idolatry of the Arabs, the
crime is manifest and audacious: the Sabians are poorly excused by the
preeminence of the first planet, or intelligence, in their celestial
hierarchy; and in the Magian system the conflict of the two principles
betrays the imperfection of the conqueror. The Christians of the seventh
century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism: their
public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that
disgraced the temples of the East: the throne of the Almighty was
darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the objects of
popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in
the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and
honors of a goddess. [75] The mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation
appear to contradict t