inhospitable rites, were not improperly converted into the tormentors of the damned.

The next grand deprivation of the human mind, with respect to religion, proceeded from confounding the names and characters of the early monarchs with those of the gods. Perhaps the first legislators might be ambitious of asserting the Divine origin of their institutions; perhaps they might assume to themselves a celestial character, and might find it no difficult matter to persuade their ignorant countrymen that the immortals had condescended to visit the earth in a human form. Or, perhaps, with more probability, they might only appropriate to themselves the appellations of the deities; and the mistakes of future ages may have fabricated a mythology from this confusion of names. The names of Isis and Osiris, which I have already noted as the first of the Egyptian divinities, were soon applied to the early monarchs of that mythologic region; and thus the original applications of these titles were soon forgotten. The history of these divinities is no longer that of the two heavenly bodies which they originally denoted, but that of a succession of princes, who assumed those high denominations, and whom the unfaithful records of tradition have strangely converted into two celestial potentates, who continued to direct the affairs of men, but who formerly condescended to visit that favoured people in a human form. Where there is no exact register of time, facts or histories traditionally preserved will naturally recede, and the distance of time be enormously increased. The tradition was, in the time of Herodotus, that no god in the form of man had reigned in Egypt for upward of 11,340 years—a period which the active genius of their priests had taken care to fill up with events suited to the capacity and the taste of their disciples. During that period of miracles, the sun had no less than four times altered his course; twice rising where he now sets, and twice setting where he now rises. When, according to the same tradition, the gods reigned in Egypt, they reigned by turns, nor were they all at once upon earth. Orus, the son of Osiris, was the last who reigned among them; and this Orus was the Grecian Apollo.

From these sources each nation, after the dispersion of mankind, came, in process of time, to have its peculiar gods; for after such concessions, the establishment of national and local deities seems no very difficult effort of the mind; and if a plurality of gods be once admitted, it is an easy method of accounting for the suggestions of our own minds, to assign the different passions and emotions of their tutelary deities; hence a god of love, a god of war, &c. The social genius of polytheism admitted to a free participation of celestial honours the gods of all nations, whether inimical or friendly. Hence, at the period of our Lord's appearance, almost the whole civilized world acknowledged the same divinities, and the religion of Greece and Rome composed a bulky system, which embraced all the false deities that human folly or mistake had ever invented.

Idolatry was the natural concomitant of such a system as this. The gods of the ancients were only men; their fabulous history was wholly fabricated from the transactions of men who had assumed the names and titles originally appropriated to the heavenly bodies: to exhibit them therefore, in a human form, or by an allegorical application, in the form of that animal to whose nature their peculiar functions were

supposed to bear the strictest analogy, was natural and easy. And if the idea of local deities be once generally admitted, it is no harsh supposition to imagine, that the spiritual being might occasionally visit the shrine which was dedicated to his glory; and thus adoration might easily be transferred from the Deity himself to his image or resemblance.

The

Whoever attentively and seriously considers the religion of the Hebrews will find it totally different in every circumstance from that which has been described. By successive revelations, the knowledge of the one true God was carefully preserved among them. abominations of paganism were frequently, indeed, introduced, but their progress was constantly retarded by some fresh interposition of miraculous power. The abstract and metaphysical notions of the Divine attributes, so repugnant to human reason in an uncultivated state, were always regarded with veneration by this singular people. He is represented as infinite, eternal, unchangeable, invisible; as omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent-characters which agree with none of the heathen deities. This was indeed the first revelation made to man; it was the foundation of the Jewish institutions, and appears to have been consistent with no other system of religion.

There is no part of the Hebrew theology which can be traced from the perversions or misapprehensions of the human imagination. No part of their theology can be resolved into a mistaken history, a corruption of names, or a puerile allegory.

That at a period when the rest of the world was immersed in barbarism and the grossest idolatry; at a period when even the Jewish nation themselves appear to have made but little progress in human science, the most refined theological notions should prevail among them, united with a milder and more spiritualized system of morals* than was to be found in any other nation, can only be accounted for from a superior and more recent revelation. In such a state of civilization, or rather of barbarism, the peculiar providence of God was indeed ever necessary to preserve them in the path of rectitude. The miraculous in

terpositions of the Deity were, therefore, frequent; and a number of inspired men appeared, from time to time, who served to recall the people to the knowledge of their God, and to invigorate the debilitated system with fresh portions of spiritual information.

But not only the general scheme of the Hebrew theology and ethics differed from those of the heathen, and were superior to them; but even those institutions which are accounted peculiar to the Israelites will admit of a rational and consistent intepretation. The rites and mysteries of paganism were either corrupt and absurd allusions to the patriarchal history, or they were profligate and unmeaning.

The religious institutions of the Hebrews may all of them be consistently explained upon two principles only. They had either a retrospect to the past, or a reference to the future. They were intended either to preserve in the memories of the people the religion of their ancestors, and to fortify them against the contagion of idolatry; or they bore so clear and decisive a reference to that great object of the whole * See the decalogue, the laws concerning slavery, the treatment of other animals, &c.

† See that incomparable treasury of ancient learning, Bryant's Mythology, passim.

Mosaical dispensation, the coming of the Messiah, that a considerable part of the Jewish ceremonies have been ever regarded by the learned of that nation as a great and standing prophecy; and the application of them to the circumstances of Jesus Christ, by himself and his apostles, was so striking and unanswerable, that it served to confound, to silence, and even to convert their most obstinate opponents.

Much might be added upon this subject; but it is more the business of the divine than of the historian. I shall, therefore, hasten to exhibit a short sketch of the state of the two prevailing systems of religion at the time of our Lord's appearance; from which I doubt not but it will evidently appear, that the period described by the Hebrew prophets as the fulness of time, was now arrived; in other words, that such a revelation as that by Christ Jesus was then absolutely necessary; and farther, that this was the only proper season which apparently had occurred since the patriarchal ages for the promulgation of such a dispensation.

The victorious arms of Rome had, at the time of our Lord's descent upon earth, subjected to its sway a considerable part of the known world. Distant nations had either silently submitted to a power too mighty to withstand, or had been compelled to acknowledge the strength and the authority of their triumphant conquerors; and governed either by Roman proconsuls, invested with temporary commissions, or indulged by the republic with the continuance of their own princes and laws, they were reduced to own its claims to supreme sovereignty, and all to enrol themselves in the number of its sons and subjects. The power, indeed, of the Roman people was at this time much abridged. The senate retained little of authority but the name, while the empire was in reality governed by the victorious, the crafty, the accomplished Augustus. This extensive empire, so extremely favourable to the civilization of barbarous and remote nations, together with the general diffusion of the Greek language, was particularly conducive to an easy propagation of the Gospel; while a cessation from all the calamities of discord and war* tranquillized the mind, and prepared it for the reception of the mild and rational doctrines of Christ.

United in error, those nations which acknowledged not the Roman power agreed with its professed subjects in idolatry and superstition. Every country, as was already intimated, had its peculiar gods; every people their particular manner of worshipping and propitiating their respective deities; and their religious homage, not confined to the natural world, to the memory of departed heroes, or the improvers of elegance or convenience, was extended to things inanimate, and to persons merely ideal. Mountains, groves, and rivers were the objects of religious adoration; and even those vices, or those maladies, which are the most destructive of human happiness, were honoured with temples, and served with trembling awe and devout terror. To avoid the imputation of worshipping inanimate beings, many of the heathens pretended, that the deity represented by the statue was really resident in it; and that every part of the visible creation was the residence of some superior being: but the generality, naturally more impressed with sensible than with invisible objects, easily transferred to the symbol

* Mosheim intimates his dissent from the opinion of general peace then prevailing in the world. The assertion of Orosius, that the temple of Janus was at this time shut, is confirmed by Horace in his 1st Ep. lib. ii.

that homage which should have been offered to the god. The knowledge of what were called mysteries was imparted only to a few, who, previous to their initiation, were compelled to exhibit undoubted proofs of their secrecy, fidelity, and patience, and to conceal, under no less a penalty than the probable deprivation even of life, every circumstance relating to those rites, which were generally subversive of good order, and even of external decorum. The teachers of error, and the base deluders of a wretched and ignorant multitude, the pontiffs or priests, represented the whole of religion as consisting in the performance of certain ceremonies, and the gods as superior to men only in their immortality and power.

Thus their deities, so far from being laudable objects of imitation, were rather examples of enormous but successful crimes; unjust, capricious, and partial, whose vengeance was in general appeased, or whose protection was ensured, by animal offerings, though some nations supposed these ends could only be attained by the horrible sacrifice of human victims. This absurd system of theology, unsupported by any decided belief of future rewards and punishments, their opinions of which were obscure, licentious, and often more calculated to administer indulgence to vice than incitements to virtue, was regarded by the more enlightened part of mankind as a subject of ridicule and contempt. Nor indeed could any, who were not totally bewildered in error, avoid discovering the absurdity of a religion which presented no discouragement to the most depraved propensities, and the perpetration of the most flagitious actions.

To those who have observed that intolerant spirit, which for a trifling difference in religious belief has persecuted wise and good men, and visited the earth with the calamities of war, it will appear extraordinary, that so great a variety of religious systems, and of objects of religious worship, should produce neither dissensions nor war. This general moderation is not, however, to be ascribed to any superiority in the temper or character, but to a circumstance which has been already intimated, to their considering the gods who presided over the earth as local deities, whose influence and jurisdiction extended only to certain countries, and their respective inhabitants; who, it would have been absurd to expect, should leave their tutelary divinities for the worship of those whom they considered as affording them neither regard nor protection. The Romans extended their religious moderation so far, as not only to tolerate foreign superstitions, but even to naturalize the gods of every conquered nation: but though they granted to their citizens the right of privately adopting those religious tenets of other nations which were not inimical to their own interests and laws, yet they permitted no innovations to take place in the religion publicly professed, and gently insinuated their own peculiar rites and institutions into the religious worship of those whom they had subdued. Policy, no less than religion, prompted them to a step which added to mutual interest the strong tie of mutual faith. Thus their religion, with their conquests, extended over a considerable portion of the globe, and incorporated with the sacred rites of every vanquished nation. A ray of light faintly illumined this dark and dreary night of ignorance and error. The northern nations had so far emerged from their state of barbarism, as to have made some progress in curious inventions and

useful arts; but in the polished states of Greece and Rome, philosophy and learning were eagerly sought and pursued by all who aspired to elegance and refinement. The Roman youth, however distinguished for his attainments in those arts which luxuriantly flourished in his own republic, could neither be esteemed an orator nor a rhetorician, without completing his studies in the Grecian schools, and imbibing, from the purest sources, attic grace and elegance. Hence, the philosophy of Greece found easy access into the Roman republic. Oratory, which was publicly taught in all the great cities by those who styled themselves philosophers, was a successful vehicle for conveying the peculiar opinions of its professors into the youthful and credulous heart: those, therefore, who visited Greece unbiased by the opinions of any philosophical sect, were not likely to continue insensible to arguments offered to them with every embellishment of eloquence, acuteness, and wit.

The doctrines of the Epicureans and Academics appear to have been eagerly received at Rome. They were, indeed, peculiarly calculated for that great and luxurious people. The followers of Epicurus asserted the fortuitous origin of the world; the inability and indifference of the gods respecting human affairs; the mortality of the soul; and that the life which was most conformable to nature consisted in pleasure, of which they constituted sense the judge. While this sect offered to its votaries a license for the most illicit pursuits, the Academics involved the most important doctrines in infidelity and skepticism, and questioned the existence of the gods, the immortality of the soul, and the superiority of virtue to vice.

Far from having attained to unpolluted knowledge, those sects, which boasted a superior purity of morals, were yet greatly defective, and involved in error. The Aristotelians represented the Supreme Being as indifferent to human affairs, and happy in the contemplation of his own excellence. The Stoics described him, indeed, as governing the world, and asserted, that the perfection of happiness consisted in the perfection of virtue; they peopled the world with gods, genii, and demons,* and supposed that every man had a tutelary genius assigned him, and that all virtue and happiness consisted in acting in concert with this genius, with reference to the will of the supreme director of the whole. But, however plausible and specious these doctrines may appear, several of their leading tenets were not less pernicious than erroneous. The Stoical belief, of the Deity being corporeal in his nature, was highly derogatory of his dignity, and destructive of their reverence; while their opinions of the mortality of the soul removed the strongest incentive to virtue, and the most powerful restraint upon vice. The exalted genius and profound penetration of Plato had enabled him to discover whatever the mere light of nature could reveal. He taught to his followers the pure doctrine of the unity of God, who is perfect, self-existent, and self-sufficient; that he is a being infinitely good, and desirous of rendering all his creatures happy; that the perfection of morality consists in living con

* The agency of genii, i. e., angels and demons, made an essential part of the Jewish popular creed; and every thing in the administration of their peculiar system, as well as of the whole mundane system, is represented in the sacred writings, and by Jesus Christ himself, as effected through the agency of such existences. It has often surprised me that divines have taken so little notice of this.