we find morality and purity perpetually incul cated. Thus: Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle, or who shall rest upon thy holy hill? Even he that leadeth an uncorrupt life, and doeth the thing which is right, and Speaketh the truth from his hearts. Then follows the enumeration of many practical acts of justice, and other virtues. It were endless to recite the number of paffages in the Old Testament where the true nature of the fervice which God expects from his creatures is clearly defined.

It is notorious, that in the heathen nations of Greece and of Rome the most flagrant vices were the neceffary rites of initiation into their corrupt myfteries. Let us then draw the contraft. Did any of the Pagan religions afford fublime representations of the Deity, or pure precepts of virtue? Yet the precepts of Mofes had a tendency not only to give to men exalted and clear conceptions of the nature of the Deity, but to ameliorate the heart, and to denounce the vengeance of the Almighty on every species of moral tranfgreffion. Did the heathen offer human facrifices; shed the blood of their captives and their slaves; nay, even of their own children. The law of Mofes re

8 Pfalm xv. I, 2.

quired only the blood of the lamb, because the type of him in whom was no fin, the immaculate and holy one. Did the heathens pollute their temples with fcenes of guilt and riot, and make even a traffic of debauchery; for this was their common practice. In the Mofaic law, the temple of the Moft High was, on the contrary, declared to be dedicated to purity. It was the refidence of the holy of holies, and all pollution, all abomination was confidered defilement to the facred place. Did the law of Mofes prefcribe or permit immora lity. Were not all the flagitious practices of the Gentiles represented as the objects of detestation, and the means of defilement? Is not the infatuation of those astonishing, who look on the religion of the old covenant with averfion, while no refentment is felt at the abfurd and disgusting inftitutions of Polytheism ? It is even probable, that idolatry was not in itself fo offenfive to God because it robbed him of his worship, but because it corrupted morals. The worship of imperfect beings can add to the glory of God in no other way than by the promotion of universal righteousness.

The Jews have been called a barbarous and ignorant people, unfkilled in art, avaricious, and addicted to the moft grofs fuperftition.

That they were not without skill in the arts of life, is apparent from the various circumstances of their history; the building of the ark and the temple. Of Solomon it is declared, he was well versed in natural knowledge; and the acquifition of the Jews in art or fcience was perhaps nearly, if not equally, advanced with that of the nations of the fame age. For, after all, to what did the knowledge of the ancient world amount? Some arts feem to have flourished, which fubfequent ages have loft; but natural knowledge was always in a very confined state; it was the fuperftition of philofophy, grounded on conjecture, not on experiment. What was the aftronomy of Egypt or Chaldea formed on? Syftems now well known to be abfolutely falfe. It is therefore a great mistake to confider the Ifraelites as comparatively barbarous, or ignorant. But if it be granted, that the children of Ifrael were a barbarous race, this circumstance would of itself be an argument in favour of revelation. For it is inconfiftent to fuppofe illiterate and uncultivated men, unaided by divine inftruction, to be capable of entertaining such sublime and clear ideas of God as the Jewish Scriptures contain, and which were never discovered by more civilized people. Compare the produc

tions of Greece and Rome in the highest state of the arts; and what fhall we find in them, however excellent in other respects as models of compofition, that can at all rival the Hebrew Scriptures, when the majefty, the mercy, or the holiness of the Deity are displayed? It is in these facred writings that we fee alfo the pureft morality inculcated; not indeed brought to such a state of perfection as in the Gospel, but still eminently fuperior to the precepts of all cotemporary or known religions. For here it is neceffary to separate the tenets of philofophy from facred inftitutions. It has been already remarked, that philosophers were indifferent to the practice of the world out of their own immediate schools, and that the religion of the ancient world feems not to have had any immediate connection with virtue. Men were indeed taught to appease their deities, and to court their favour. How? By rites and ceremonies; by oblations and facrifices. Such indeed were prescribed by God under the old covenant, but it was ever explicitly proclaimed and univerfally understood, that these did not difpenfe with the obligations of moral duty. If then no conceptions of natural religion were ever so clear, no declarations fo exprefs, as are evident in the Jewish

revelation, is it not to be concluded that the Scriptures must have derived their origin from a fource fuperior to human ?

In

If while many inftitutions are to be found in the Jewish laws and precepts that are evidently excellent, fome it must be confessed there are for which we cannot account. reasoning on these we ought to confider them as far as poffible with all their relations. Here indeed our judgment will be imperfect, because we cannot fee the tendency of the whole scheme which is embraced by the unlimited providence of the divine Author. We must remember however, that of these many were peculiarly adapted to extraordinary circumstances; to a people who were defigned to be unconsciously, and often reluctantly, the inftruments of preferving the knowledge of the true God, of juftice, and morality in a corrupt and perverfe world. As the knowledge and virtue of an individual will degenerate unless it have fome example, unless it be preferved from contamination by constant vigilance; fo it is with nations, and with the whole race; for, unless fome principles of renovation be given to the moral constitution, it will decay like the phyfical. The law of natural conscience kept the Gentile world from total