some notion of the one supreme Deity, because they supposed him too far above them, to concern himself with their affairs. Hence it came to pass, that though prayer was almost universally in use among the Pagan nations, they were wrong in the object of their prayers, and generally in the matter of them too. They seem for the most part to have had no notion of praying to the gods for any thing but goods of a worldly nature, riches, honours, long life, health, prosperity and success in their undertakings, and other things of a like kind. Some of their wisest men saw the impropriety of this, and at the same time they were so sensible of their own inability to judge what to pray for as they ought, that they thought it best only to pray for good things in general, and not to presume to descend to particular requests. This is the design of Socrates, in the second Alcibiad; in which he represents to that young nobleman, that it was not safe for him to pray for any thing in particular, lest the thing he prayed for should prove a curse instead of a blessing; and therefore advises him to wait till some god should enlighten him in the knowledge of good and evil. Pythagoras, as Laërtius informs us,* permitted not that any man should pray for himself, because no man knoweth what is good for him. Max. Tyrius has a whole dissertation to prove that we ought not to pray at all. And others of the philosophers were probably of the same opinion.

Some of them indeed,

* Laërt. lib. viii. segm. 9.

themselves by the law of nature, Some think it to be a duty of naMr. Chubb is of opinion, that

+ Our modern deists, who profess to govern are divided in their sentiments about prayer. tural religion, others will not allow it to be so. there is an impropriety in praying to God, and intimates his suspicion that it is displeasing to the Deity. See his Posthumous Works, vol. I. p. 283, et seq. Blount, in his notes on Philostratus' Life of Apollonius Tyanæus, p. 38. having observed that some of the heathens used no prayers at all, insinuates, in their names, several objections against that duty. Lord Bolingbroke seems sometimes to make it a duty of the law of nature, but is for confining it to the heart, and not for making use of outward expressions in prayer. The reader may see the arguments of Maximus Tyrius and others against the duty of prayer, well an. swered in Dr. Benson's tract, on the End and Design of Prayer.

and particularly Epictetus and Antoninus, had juster notions, both of the obligations of the duty of prayer, and of what should be the properest matter for our prayers: but as to the objects of prayer, they took no care to rectify the popular polytheistical notions, but rather countenanced them. But, if the philosophers had been ever so right, or so unanimous in their opinions and directions as to the duty of prayer, it must have had but small influence on the generality of mankind, in comparison of that which ariseth from the authority of an express and well attested revelation from God, enjoining it as our duty to pray to God, and encouraging us to it by gracious declarations and promises. Such a revelation we have communicated to us in the Holy Scriptures. We have the satisfaction of being there assured that though God be highly exalted above all blessing and praise, yet he alloweth and requireth us to offer up our praises and thanksgivings to his Divine Majesty for the benefits we receive from him, and our prayers and supplications for obtaining the good things we stand in need of, and for averting the evils we have reason to fear; not as if he did not know our wants without our expressing them, but because it is his will that we should maintain a constant sense of our absolute dependence upon God, and exercise a dutiful resignation and affiance, and all those pious affections which become reasonable creatures towards the supreme Being. We are allowed to come to him as on a throne of grace, in the name of Jesus Christ, the great and only Mediator of his own appointment, with a filial freedom, as children to a father both able and ready to help us; to apply to him even for the good things relating to the body and this present world: provided we ask them, not absolutely, but in an entire resignation to his will, and so far only as he seeth them to be really fit and needful for us but especially to apply to him for blessings of a spiritual nature, and for his gracious assistances to support and animate us in the performance of our duty. In the Holy Scriptures we have the most excellent patterns of pray

er, and the best directions for the right performance of it, and are taught both by precept and example what to pray for, and how to pray. But at the same time great care is taken to inform us, that our prayers will be of no avail to our acceptance with God, if separated from a holy and virtu ous practice; that the prayer of the wicked man persisting in his wickedness is an abomination unto the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

CHAP. XVIII.

General reflections on the foregoing account of the religion of the ancient Pagans. The first reflection is this: that the representations made to us in Scripture of the deplorable state of religion among the Gentiles are literally true, and agreeable to fact, and are confirmed by the undoubted monuments of Paganism. The attempts of some learned men to explain away those representations considered, and shown to be vain and insufficient.

I SHALL conclude the account that has been given of the state ofreligion in the gentile world, with some general reflections and observations.

It plainly appears that even the most learned and civilized heathen nations were sunk into a deplorable state of darkness and corruption. They were fallen from the knowledge and worship of the one true God into the most amazing idolatry and polytheism. The names, the characters, and attributes of God were misapplied to a multiplicity of idol deities. Instead of being led by the works of God to acknowledge and adore him, the glorious Author, they for the most part worshipped the works themselves, and paid that adoration to them which was due to him alone. Temples were every where built, altars erected, prayers and sacrifices offered to false and fictitious deities, to many of whom the popular theology attributed some of the worst vices and passions of frail mortals. They even worshipped evil demons acknowledged by themselves to be such; and many of their religious rites, instituted by the command of their oracles, were so cruel, so obscene and impure, as were only suited to evil and vicious beings. Many of their philosophers themselves either maintained tenets which tended to atheism, and to subvert the foundations of all religi-. on; or they endeavoured to destroy all certainty and evidence, and to introduce a universal doubt and scepticism, whereby they left men no principles to depend upon, even with regard to the belief of a God and a providence. And as to those of the philosophers who entertained juster and nobler sentiments of religion and the Deity, their sublime speculations, which we are so apt to admire, were mixed with very dangerous er

rors, and at best were of small advantage to the people, and confined, in a great measure, to their schools. To which it must be added, that, in their own practice, they universally fell in with the common idolatry and polytheism, and instead of reclaiming the people from it, countenanced it by their maxims, and devised plausible colours to defend it.

The truth of this account has been shown at large from the heathen writers themselves, and is confirmed by all the remaining monuments of Paganism. And this fully justifies the representation that is made to us in the holy Scriptures of the state of religion in the heathen world, especially at the time when the Christian revelation was first published. St. Paul, in the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, describes the heathens in general, those especially of the Roman empire, which was then the most learned and civilized part of the world, as having arrived to the most monstrous degree of idolatry and corruption of manners: that notwithstanding the discoveries made of the divine nature and perfections in the works of creation, which left them" without excuse," they "did not glorify God as God, but became vain in their ima"ginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing "themselves to be wise, they became fools: and changed the "glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to "corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and "creeping things." And that they changed the truth "of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the crea"ture more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever :" that as "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," so he gave them up to a reprobate mind," so that they abandoned themselves to the most unnatural impurities, and to all kinds of abominable vice and wickedness. See Rom. i. 17. to the end of that chapter. St. Paul, in his other epistles, speaks in the same strain. Thus, in his first to the Thessalonians, he saith of the gentiles, that "they knew not God," 1 Thess. iv. 5. And he describes their conversion to Christianity thus, that they "turned from idols to serve the living "and true God:" where he supposes that whilst they continued in their gentile state, they served idols, and did not