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ed with vices of the groffeft kind, and the moft abominable rites were practised in their groves, and the temples themfelves, as peculiarly proper for their worship. The reverfe of every thing of this kind is always reprefented by Mofes, and the prophets, as the difpofition of the God of the Hebrews. Nothing of impurity, or indecency, was admitted into his worship. Nay the great object of the whole system of the Hebrew religion was to form men to the perfection of moral character; and all the rites and ceremonies of it are constantly faid to be wholly infignificant without this. Be ye holy, fays Mofes (Lev. xix. 2), for the Lord your God is holy.

When the Pfalmift defcribes the character of the man who was acceptable to God, and fit to be admitted to his prefence, he fays (Pfalm xv. 1), Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle, who fhall dwell in thy holy bill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. On the other hand, vice and wickednefs is always reprefented as the great, and indeed the fole, object of his difpleasure. There is no peace, fays God, to the wicked, If. vi. 22.

The infignificance of all merely ritual obfervances,

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fervances, in which the whole of the heathen religion confifted, compared with moral virtue, is expressed in the most emphatical manner by several of the facred writers, as If. i. II. "To what purpose is the multitude of 66 your facrifices to me, faith the Lord? I "am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and "the fat of fed beafts, and I delight not in "the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of "he goats. When ye come to appear before 66 me, who hath required this at your hand, "to tread my courts? Bring no more vain. "oblations. Incenfe is an abomination unto 66 me. The new moons, and fabbaths, the "calling of affemblies, I cannot away with. "It is iniquity, even the folemn meeting. "Your new moons, and your appointed feasts, 66 my foul hateth. They are a trouble unto 66 me, I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you, yea, when ye make many

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Your hands are

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put away the evil of your doings from be"fore mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to "do well, feek judgment, relieve the oppreff"ed, judge the fatherless, plead for the wi

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"dow. Come now, and let us reafon toge “ther, faith the Lord, though your fins be as "fcarlet, they fhall be as white as fnow, though they be red like crimfon, they fhall "be as wool."

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"Wherewith," faith Micah, ch. vi. 6, "fhall I come before the Lord, and bow my"self before the high God? Shall I come be"fore him with burnt offerings, with calves "of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased "with thousands of rams, or ten thousands "of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born "for my tranfgreffion, the fruit of my body "for the fin of my foul? He hath fhewed "thee, O man, what is good; and what doth "the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, "to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy "God?" Paffages equally excellent, and as purely moral as these, abound in the scriptures of the Old Teftament.

6. The public festivals of the heathen gods were seasons of rioting and lewdness, but thofe of the Ifraelites were scenes of innocent rejoicing, joined with acts of devotion, which are by no means incompatible with it; and every thing relating to the fervice of the tabernacle and the temple, was conducted with

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the greatest regard to decency; while the utmost abhorrence is expreffed for the horrid cuftoms of the heathens. "Thou shalt not,"

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fays Mofes, Deut. xii. 29, "inquire after their gods, faying how did those nations ferve "their gods, even fo will I do likewife. Thou "shalt not do fo unto the Lord thy God. For

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every abomination to the Lord, that he "hateth, have they done unto their gods. "For even their fons and their daughters "have they burned in the fire to their gods." And yet this very thing which is here mentioned as the greatest enormity in the worship of the heathens, viz. human facrifices, Voltaire fays was practised in that of the Jews. Is it poffible for effrontery to go farther than this? (except indeed his maintaining that the Jews were cannibals, and fed on human flesh) while without any evidence, but his own, and contrary to every representation of the facts by heathen writers themselves, he fpeaks of the heathen festivals as mere seasons of perfectly innocent feftivity. But, juftly or unjustly, every thing not Jewish must be harmless, and their religion must be, as he calls it, a deteftable fuperftition.

7. While the religion of the Hebrews was

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free from every stain of impurity, it contained nothing of unneceffary aufterity. It had no painful rite, except that of circumcifion, which, being performed on children of eight days old, who can have no apprehenfion of the thing beforehand, and whose wounds foon heal, is a very trifling inconvenience. The Hebrews had only one faft, and that of no more than a single day in the year, but three festivals of fome continuance.

In the principal of the heathen feftivals there was first a folemn mourning, all the people performing whatever was customary at funerals, or in feafons of great calamity. They tore their hair, fhaved their heads, and mangled their flefh. But the Ifraelites were expressly forbidden to do any of those things, Deut. xiv. 1, "Ye are the children. "of the Lord your God. Ye fhall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between

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your eyes for the dead (that is for idolatrous

uses), for ye are an holy people to the Lord your God." Thefe directions had no view to private mournings, for on those occafions they always did these very things, but to the worship of God.

It was the custom of the heathens to im

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