print on their skin various indelible marks, being figures and characters expreffive of their devotedness to their gods, which must have been a painful operation. But this was alfo forbidden to the Hebrews, Lev. xix. 27, "Ye "fhall not make any cuttings in your flesh for "the dead, nor print any marks upon you, I "am the Lord."

8. If the extreme of aufterity was with fo much care avoided in the Hebrew inftitutions, that of fenfual indulgence was avoided with more. Every incentive to lewdnefs, which was encouraged, and openly practised, in the heathen temples, was far removed from the worship of Jehovah. The heathens were fond of worshipping on the tops of mountains, and in groves, in which every fpecies of abomination was committed; and for this reafon both were forbidden in the Hebrew worship, Deut. "Thou shalt not plant thee a grove near to the altar of the Lord thy God, which "thou fhalt make unto him."

vi. 21.

In the rites of fome of the heathen deities men were habited like women, and women like men. This was more especially the cafe in the worship of Venus. worship was also common among

This

manner of the Syrians,

and

and Africans, and thence it paffed into Europe, the Phoenicians having brought it to Cyprus. In a religious rite of the Argives, Plutarch says the women were clothed like men, and men like women. But in the laws of Mofes it is faid, Deut. xxii. 5, "The woman shall not "wear that which appertaineth unto man, "neither shall a man put on a woman's gar"ment. For all that do fo are an abomination "to the Lord thy God."

You have feen that the heathens had places adjoining to their temples,'in which both men and women prostituted themselves in honour of their deities, and to augment the revenues of the place. With a view, no doubt, to this abominable cuftom, the Hebrews were commanded to avoid thefe practices. Lev. xix. 9, "Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her "to be a whore, left the land fall into whore"dom, and the land become full of wicked"nefs. Ye fhall keep my fabbaths, and re"verence my fanctuary, I am the Lord your "God."

9. A fuperftitious refpect for the heathen temples and altars made them asylums for all kinds of criminals, and it was deemed the greatest act of impiety to take any person from

thence,

thence, whatever his guilt had been, and however clear the proof of it. But this was not the cafe in the religion of the Hebrews, which Voltaire reprefents as the extreme of the most detestable superstition. Ex. xxi. 12, "He that fmiteth a man fo that he die, fhall 66 furely be put to death. If a man lie not "in wait, but God deliver him into his hand, "then will I appoint thee a place whither he "fhall flee. But if a man come prefumptu

oufly upon his neighbour, and flay him "with guile, thou shalt take him from mine "altar, that he may die." Where then do we find the proper characters of fuperftition, and where are thofe of good policy and good fense?

DISCOURSE

Behold I have taught you ftatutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye fhould do fo in the land whither ye go to poffels it. Keep therefore and do them. For this is your wisdom and understanding, in the fight of the nations which shall hear all these ftatutes, and fay, Surely this great nation is a wife and understanding people. For what nation is there fo great, who hath God fo near unto them as the Lord your God is, in all things that ye call upon for; and what nation is there fo great that hath ftatutes and judgments fo righteous, as all this law which I fet before you this day?

DEUT. iv. 5-8.

IN my last Discourse I began to give you a general view of the religious institutions of Mofes, correfponding to that which, in two preceding Difcourfes, I gave you of the re

ligion of the heathens, to which they were opposed in order to enable you to judge whether it was probable that the former were devised by men, or were of divine origin. You have feen that, in a variety of important refpects, the religion of the Hebrews, faid by unbelievers to be a barbarous and fuperftitious people, had doctrines and rites infinitely fuperior to those of the heathens. I particularly mentioned the great doctrine of the scriptures concerning the unity of God, in oppofition to the multiplicity of heathen deities, his being represented as having no definite form, so as to be worshipped under any image, his attributes of creating and governing the world, his omniprefence, omnifcience, and infinite wisdom, the perfection of his moral character, and his making the ftricteft virtue the great end of his worship. I mentioned the decency of all the religious festivals of the Hebrews, as the reverse of the licentioufnefs encouraged in those of the heathens, and at the fame time their freedom from any unneceffary or painful aufterity, and the peculiar abhorrence in which human facrifices, and other rites of the heathen worship, were held by the Hebrews. I also observed that the Hebrew