his virtuous friends once more, and rejoice with them through all eternity.

If we confider the principles of morals in the heathen world, we shall fee the manifeft advantage there is over it in the plan of revelation. The views of the heathens upon this fubject were exceedingly confined, and did not require that comprehenfion of mind, which is neceffary to the practice of those duties that were enjoined both in the Jewish and chriftian fyftems. The great duties of piety, confifting in the fear and love of God, and a chearful reliance on his providence, were, in a manner, unknown in ancient times beyond the boundaries of Judea. And what can more evidently tend to enlarge the comprehenfion and faculties of the human mind, than the regards which are due to the maker and governor of the world?

While the attention of the heathens was wholly engroffed by fenfible things, those who were favoured with divine revelation, even in its moft imperfect ftate, were en

gaged

gaged in the contemplation of their invifible author. They confidered the enjoyments of life as the effects of his bounty, and all the events of it as taking place according to the wife appointment of his providence. Thus was the power of affociation enabled to prefent to their minds the ideas of great and remote objects, by which their fentiments were influenced, and their conduct directed. By this means, limited as were the views of the ancient patriarchs, their conceptions were far more enlarged, and confequently their minds more intellectual, than thofe of the Gentile world.

Is is true, that all the heathens were prone to fuperftition, and that a great number of their actions were influenced by regards to invifible agents; but (not to fay, what is very probable, that their religion was, in this refpect, a corruption of the patriarchal) all the gods they had any idea of, at least all with whom they maintained any intercourfe, were local and territorial divinities, liable to the influence of low and vulgar paffions, and limited in their powers and operations.

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operations. It was not poffible, therefore, that their theology should fuggeft fuch fublime ideas, as must have been conceived by the Jews, from the perufal of the books of Moles; in which we find the idea of one God, the creator and lord of heaven and earth, who eftablished, and who controls the laws of nature, and who fuperintends the affairs of the whole world, giving the kingdoms of it to whomfoever he pleases; a being of unfpotted purity, and a friend and protector of all good men. So far were

the notions which the Gentiles entertained of their gods below the conceptions of the Jews, concerning their Jehovah, the lord of heaven and earth, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, deftroying their enemies in the Red Sea, and feeding them with bread from heaven for the space of forty years; that they could hardly have had any ideas to fome of the fineft expreffions which occur in the facred books of the Jews; as, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and many others, which exprefs fentiments of the most pure and exalted devotion.

If

If any people have exalted and fublime ideas, they are fure to be found in their poetry; but how poor and low is the facred poetry of the heathens in comparison with the Pfalms of David! The poems of Homer, of Hefiod, or of Callimachus, in honour of the Grecian gods, can hardly be read without laughter; but the book of Pfalms (the greatest part of which were written long before the works of any of thofe Grecian poets, and by perfons who had travelled and feen far lefs than they had done) cannot be read without the greatest seriousness, and are ftill capable of exciting fentiments of the warmest and most exalted, and yet the most perfectly rational devotion. They give us the most fublime ideas of the infinite power, wifdom, and goodness of God. This difference between the poetry of the Jews and the Greeks, in favour of the former, is fo great, that I think it cannot be accounted for without the fuppofition of divine communications. In point of genius, the Greeks feem to have been evidently fuperior, and they were certainly poffeffed of the art of compofition in much greater perfection. Whence,

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Whence, then, could arife fo manifeft an inferiority in this refpect? It must have been because the Jewish theology gave that nation ideas of a being infinitely fuperior to themselves, the contemplation of which, with that of his works, and of his providence, would tend to improve and exalt their faculties; whereas the heathen theology gave them no ideas of beings much fuperior to the race of man. In general the gods of the Greeks and Romans were fuppofed to have been mere men, beings of the fame rank and condition with themfelves; and though their powers were fupposed to be enlarged upon their deification, their paffions and morals were not at all improved, but continued juft the fame as before; fo that their greater powers were employed about the gratification of the lowest appetites. This theology, therefore, could not infufe that noble enthufiafm which was infpired by the Jewish religion, but muft rather have tended to debafe their faculties.

That extensive and perfect benevolence, which is fo ftrongly inculcated in the New Teftament, implies more enlarged fenti

ments,