bills in a balance. Who, fays he, has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor has taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who inftructed him, and taught him knowledge, and fhewed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as the drop of a bucket, and are counted as the fmall duft of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the ifles as a very little thing. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him as less than nothing, and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto him? Have ye not known, have heard, has it not been told you from the beginning? It is he that fitteth upon the circle of the heavens, and the inhabitants of the earth are as grafhoppers, who ftretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and Spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. Haft thou not known, haft thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no fearching of his understanding.

ye

not

What a fublime idea doth Solomon give of the attributes of God, on occafion of the dedication of the temple, 1 Kings viii. 27. But will God indeed dwell on earth? Behold

the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee. How much lefs this houfe which I have built? In the prophet Jeremiah, the divine Being is reprefented as faying, Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off? Can any perfon hide himself in fecret places that I cannot find him? faith the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? faith the Lord. The fecrets of the hearts of men are represented as known to God. Jer. xvii. 9, I the Lord fearch the heart, I try the reins, even to give to every man according to bis ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Where shall we find in any of the Greek or Latin poets fuch an idea of any of the heathen gods as David gives us of the God of the Hebrews in the cxxxix. Pfalm. O Lord, thou haft fearched me, and known me. knoweft my downfitting, and my uprising. underftandeft my thoughts afar off. Thou compalleft my path, and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue but lo, O Lord, thou knoweft it altogether. Thou haft befet me behind and before, and haft laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither fhall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy preJence?

8

Thou

Thou

fence? If 1 afcend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in the grave, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, or dwell in the uttermost parts of the fea, even there fhall thy

band fhall hold me.

ness shall cover me,

hand lead me, and thy right If I fay, furely the dark

even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the day are both alike to thee.

The abfurdity of the heathen worship, and the vain pretenfions of the heathen gods, are finely ridiculed by the Hebrew prophets. Ifaiah, foretelling the deftruction of Babylon, a city peculiarly devoted to the worship of idols, fays, chap. xlvi. 1, "Bel boweth down, "Nebo stoopeth. Their idols were upon the "beafts, and upon the cattle; your carriages "were heavy laden, they are a burden to the weary beaft. They ftoop, they bow down

66

66

together, they could not deliver the burden, "but themselves are gone into captivity." Jeremiah expreffes equal contempt of them, when he fays, chap. viii. 1, "Thus fays faith "the Lord, Learn not the ways of the hea"then, and be not difmayed at the figns of "heaven, for the heathen are difmayed at

"them. For the cuftoms of the people are "vain. For one cutteth a tree out of the "foreft (the work of the hand of the work"man) with the ax. They deck it with "filver and with gold, they faften it with "nails and with hammers, that it move not.

66

They are upright as the palm-tree, but

fpeak not. They must needs be borne, be"cause they cannot go. Be not afraid of "them, for they cannot do evil, neither is "it in them to do good. Forafmuch as there “is none like unto thee, O Lord. Thou art great, and thy name is great in might, "Who would not fear thee, O King of nations, for to thee doth it appertain."

66

66

4. Confidering the fhockingly cruel and abominable customs of the heathens, we do not wonder that fuch worship as theirs was most strictly forbidden to the Ifraelites. Indeed, to preferve in the world the knowledge and worship of the one true God, was the great object of the inftitutions of Mofes; and a greater and more worthy object cannot be conceived. In the directions that Mofes gives his countrymen, how they should conduct themselves in the land of Canaan, he says, Deut. xii. 2, "And ye shall utterly deftroy

" all

"all the places wherein the nations that ye "fhall poffefs ferved their gods, upon high "mountains, and upon hills, and under green "trees. And ye fhall overthrow their altars, "and break their pillars, and burn their groves "with fire. And ye fhall hew down the

graven images of their gods, and destroy the "names of them out of their places." No idolater was permitted to live in the country of the Hebrews, which was appropriated to the worship of the one true God; and every Jew conforming to the heathen worship was to be put to death without mercy. It is to be obferved, however, that the Ifraelites were not directed to propagate their religion by the fword, and compel, other nations to conform to their worship. Their conquefts, and the extirpation of idolatrous worship were confined to the boundary of the land of Canaan, the country promised by God to Abraham. Accordingly when David, who had more zeal for his religion than any of the kings of Ifrael, conquered all the neighbouring nations, he did not compel any of them to change their religion for his.

5. The characters of the principal of the heathen gods we have feen to have been ftain