direct the whole, was utterly incomprehenfible by mankind, and therefore they had recourse to a multiplicity of fuperior beings, each prefiding in his feparate province; and hence the idea of the different characters and difpofitions of the heathen gods, and the varieties in their modes of worshipping them. It is in vain that we look for fuch an idea as Mofes gives of the Deity, even among the learned Greeks, two thousand years after his time, when they had long been poffeffed of leisure, and every other advantage, for speculations concerning the origin of the universe, which was indeed the great object of their philofophy.

2. You have seen in what ftrange forms the heathens represented their divinities, and under what symbols, as the figures of animals, and others, they worshipped them; a practice that must have fuggefted low and degrading ideas of their gods. And it actually led to the worship of the animals, and the images themselves, divine powers being fuppofed to refide in them. This was univerfal among the nations that bordered on Judea. The Perfians, indeed, who worshipped the fun, had no images of their god befides fire: but all

the

the nations that the Hebrews in the time of Mofes were acquainted with were properly idolators, worshipping their gods by means of images in various fhapes, and the Egyptians the animals themselves.

This fource of corruption and abuse was effectually cut off in the inftitutions of Mofes. The fecond commandment exprefsly fays, Exod. xx. 4, Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor ferve them. Alfo, when Mofes, a fhort time before his death, reminds the Ifraelites of what they had feen and heard, and of their obligation to respect his laws, he says, Deut. iv. 14, When the Lord Spake to you out of the midst of the fire, ye heard the voice of the words, but ye faw no fimilitude, only ye heard a voice. Take ye therefore good heed to your felves, for ye faw no manner of fimilitude on the day that the Lord Spake to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire, left ye corrupt yourfelves, and make you a graven image, the fimilitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beaft that is on the earth, the likeness

of any

winged fowl that flies in the air, the likeness of any thing that creepeth upon the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters under the earth; and left thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and, when thou feeft the fun, and the moon, and the ftars, even all the host of heaven, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heavens, fhould be drawn to worship and ferve them.

The very idea of an intelligent Being, immenfe and omnipotent, and without any definite form, never occurred to any of the heathens. It is in vain that we look among their philofophers for any thing fo great and fublime. The leaft degree of attention will convince us of the greatnefs and fublimity of it; and yet it was familiar to this ignorant and barbarous people, as Voltaire reprefents the Hebrews to have been.

These great and fplendid objects, the fources of light and heat, and, as was fuppofed, of other beneficial influences, which were the primary objects of worship to other nations, Mofes always defcribed as having been created by the one fupreme God, as well as the earth, which was another great object of worship to the heathen world. According to the just

and fublime description of the writers of the Old Teftament, all things are fubject to the controul of this one great Being. Dan. iv. 35, He doth whatever he pleafes in the armies of heaven above, as well as among the inhabitants of the earth beneath. Heaven is the throne, and the earth the footstool of God.

According to the principles of the wifeft of the heathen nations, matter, if not the world itself, with all the vifible fyftem of things, was eternal, and the gods who were the objects of the popular worship arose out of it, and of courfe after it. For the idea they had received by tradition of one God having created all things was foon loft and forgotten, so that he was no object of their worship at all.

The fupremacy of this one God, as the Author and Lord of univerfal nature, is declared in the most emphatical terms, on a váriety of occafions, in the Hebrew fcriptures. On a folemn faft, after the return from the Babylonifh captivity, we find an address made to God, in which they fay (Neh. ix. 5), Bleffed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all bleffing and praife. Thou, even thou, art Lord alone. Thou haft made the heaven,

and the heaven of heavens, with all their hofts, the earth, and all things that are therein, the fea, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all, and all the host of heaven worship thee. Do fuch fentiments as these, and fuch language as this, befpeak the Hebrews to have been that ignorant, barbarous, and fuperftitious nation that Voltaire defcribes them as having always been?

3. Let us now fee what are faid to have been the attributes of this one God, the fole object of worship to the Hebrew nation, according to their own writings. The objects of the worship of the heathen nations, we have feen, were, according to themselves, all limited in their knowledge and powers, and indeed by one another, one of them being occupied in this province, and another in that. But the God of the Hebrews is always reprefented as omnipotent, omniprefent, and

omniscient.

According to the fublime language of the prophet Isaiah (xl. 12), It is he who has meafured the waters in the hollow of his hand, who has meted out the heavens with a pan, and comprehended the duft of the earth in a measure, hath weighed the mountains in fcales, and the