ideas of modern statesman, moralists, and christians, that a close attention to the peculiar reasons of it is necessary to a full conviction of its propriety. We instantly perceive that no human magistrate can rightfully dictate or punish the religious creed and worship of his subjects, because he is equally fallible with them, and was appointed to superintend the body politic, not the spiritual state of individuals; and because the Deity alone is Lord and Judge of men's consciences. But these reasons do not apply to the antient Hebrew government, which was erected and administered by GOD HIMSELF, who is an infallible judge of religious truth and falsehood, who has a right to enjoin the belief and observance of those doctrines and institutions, which are evidently stamped with his authority, and who precisely knows the degree of criminality implied in every deviation from his requirements. Besides these general considerations, there were many special circumstances, which rendered temporal rewards and punishments the most proper sanctions of the Hebrew ritual.

It is to be remembered that this ritual was chiefly intended as a remedy against idolatry, to which the Israelites, as well as neighbouring nations, were extremely addicted. Now the assurance of worldly blessings or calamities annexed to the divine law was the most effectual ground against this evil. For it best suited the genius and taste of a gross and ignorant people. As the long servitude of the Hebrews in Egypt, and intercourse with its sottish inhabitants, had rendered their minds very abject and carnal; the Deity wisely accommodated his discipline to their low apprehensions and desires; he allured them to duty, and deterred them from transgression by such motives as they could understand and feel; that

M

is, by the promise of a pleasant and fertile country, of a numerous offspring, of a long and tranquil life, of splendid victory and honor, and by the threatening of famine, want, pestilence, defeat, and slaughter. Thus the divine Legislator condescended to reconcile them to his prescriptions, just as prudent parents and teachers stimulate young children to their appointed task by incitements fitted to their puerile state.

2. These temporal sanctions directly struck at the root of idolatry, and destroyed its principal support. For it was the leading sentiment of those early times that worldly prosperity was inseparably connected with a strict observance of their idolatrous rites, with a devout worship of the stars, of demons, of tutelar deities, and that a contempt of these gods, or a violation of their institutions would be punished with terrible calamities. Even the Israelites, as appears from their history, were deeply infected with this vain and pernicious idea; and this was the main source of their frequent relapses into idolatry. To eradicate this fatal error, it was necessary that their divine Lawgiver should denounce and inflict the same penalties on those, who deserted his worship, which were supposed to follow the neglect of the pagan deities; and that he should promise and conspicuously grant the opposite blessings to those, who, abjuring their former idolatry, acknowledged and obeyed him as their only Sovereign; in short, that he should hold up full evidence, that he was the sole Dispenser both of good and evil. This was to destroy idolatry with its own weapons; it was to tear away the grand props, on which it rested, and to transfer them to a directly opposite use, viz, to the support of that allegiance, which is exclusiyely due to Jehovah.

This observation will receive further light and strength if we add

3. That the religion, which universally prevailed in the antient world, was chiefly, if not wholly, limited in its views to the present life. Those only were worshipped as gods by the heathen nations, who were considered as having merited that honor by some great temporal benefits. On this ground the beneficent luminaries of heaven, the inventers of useful arts and laws, and other signal benefactors of mankind, were ranked among the gods. Hence the Egyptians worshipped the river Nile on account of the annual plenty, which its inundation poured over their country. The sacrifices too, which the Gentiles offered, were intended merely to procure or to acknowledge some temporal favor, that is, to appease the anger, to avert the judgments, or to requite the benefits of those divinities, to whom they were presented. Their religious festivities had much the same object; they were designed either to refresh and cheer the bodies and spirits of the worshippers, to render the gods propitious to their fields and vineyards, or to cele brate their benignity manifested in their worldly prosperity or success. In short, the titles and attributes, the prayers and other addresses, by which they honored their deities, were all confined to the good and evil things of this transitory state. Does not this survey of the early and general state of religion unfold the wisdom and beauty of the divine economy towards antient Israel? Was it not fit that God should adjust the rights and sanctions of his worship in some degree to the prevailing genius and sentiments of the age; that he should instruct his people to ascribe to him those political titles and temporal favors, which the rest of the world false

ly attributed to imaginary gods; that he should prescribe a system of pure, but in some measure carnal ordinances, suited to the complexion of the times, and encourage the observance of them, as the sure means of obtaining those blessings from him, which the pagans eagerly but vainly expected from their gross ceremonies and idols ?

The fitness of this conduct will strike us with greater force, if we consider how deeply and almost immovable this notion was rivetted in the human mind, that all worldly advantages depended on a sacred adherance to the ceremonies of pagan worship. Even the Jews, after they had enjoyed means of better instruction for many hundred years, made this reply to their prophet Jeremiah, who had been solemnly testifying against their idolatry, "as for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of Jehovah, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly go on to burn incense to the queen of heaven (that is, to Juno, to the Moon, or some great celestial luminary)and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we and our fathers have done; for then we had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine." The same opinion is zealously advocated by Celsus, a very learned heathen, and one of the most early and sagacious writers against the Jewish and Christian religion; speaking of corn and wine, of the fruit of the trees, and the benefits of water and air, he says, "men receive each of these from some one of the gods to whom the care of these things are assigned." We may add that the famous emperor Julian, who apostatized from christianity to paganism, reproves

the inhabitants of Alexandria for the respect they showed to the persons and doctrines of Christians-" You Alexandrians, says he, tamely endure and even minister to those who despise the religion of your fathers. You do not recollect the antient prosperity, the fullness of good things, which we then enjoyed, when all Egypt held a strict communion with the gods." This opinion had taken a deeper hold both of the Jewish and Gentile world, on account of the singular affluence and felicity, which for a long series of time were possessed by the Egyptians, who were uncommonly devoted to idolatrous worship. The fame of their unexampled prosperity, and of those religious rites which were supposed to procure it, drew to their country a vast confluence of foreigners, not only Hebrews, but Persians, Arabians Phenicians, Babylonians, and Greeks, who eagerly resorted thither to learn from their sacred mysteries the art of private and national happiness. In such a state of things how indispensible was it, that Jehovah the true God and King of Israel, should engage to his loyal subjects an abundance of earthly good, and threaten idolaters with the greatest temporal evils; that they and the whole surrounding world might experimentally know that obedience to Him was the best, yea the only road to happiness!

We might mention several other weighty reasons, why the Mosaic religion was chiefly enforced by political and worldly motives. The nature of that system required it. The institution itself was worldly, ceremonious, and temporary. The observance of it was therefore fitly entorced by temporal rewards. Whereas the gospel, being a more spiritual, refined, and durable religion, is properly accompanied with more sublime and durable sanctions, with motives which respect the soul and eternity. More