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CHAPTER IV.

THE EVIDENCE OF THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN REVELATIONS, DERIVED FROM PRESENT APPEARANCES.

SECTION I.

Arguments from the existence, propagation, and good effects of the Jewish and Christian religions.

HAVING

AVING confidered the evidence of the Jewish and Chriftian revelations, as far as it depends upon the teftimony of those who received them, and especially of those who have written the history of them, I fhall now proceed to lay before my readers fome evidence of a different kind, the facts from which it arifes being either the subject of univerfal obfervation, or recorded in general hiftories, of univerfally allowed credit.

The very existence and reception of such systems of religion as the Jewish and christian, are remarkable facts of this kind. That other religions, fuch as the different fpecies of heathenifm, and that of Mohammed, fhould have been established, and gained credit, may be accounted for without fup

pofing them to be true; but the Jewish and chriftian religions were fo circumftanced, at their inftitution, that it feems impoffible to account either for their existence, or the credit which they are known to have obtained, without fuppofing them to be true and divine.

The faith of Jews and chriftians refpecting God, as one being, the maker, governor, and righteous judge of all; concerning moral duty, and a future ftate, are fo agreeable to reason, and yet fo much more just and sublime than the moral and religious fyftems of other nations, especially about the time when these two religions were feverally established (in which both the religion and morals of all their neighbouring nations were remarkably corrupt) that, confidering the fituation of the Jews and primitive chriftians, with refpect to study and inquiry, we cannot but conclude that they must have had fources of information which other nations had not. Indeed, the writings of the Jews and chriftians bear no traces of their religious knowledge being the deduction of any extraordinary fagacity or reasoning of their own; and men who attain to superior knowledge by their own reafoning, and fuperior powers, are generally ready enough to make a fhew of their reafon, and are willing to fecure to them felves whatever reputation can accrue from it. But here we find admirable systems of religious and moral knowledge

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published by perfons who difclaim all merit with refpect to them, and who do not pretend to have discovered them by their own powers.

The great object of these two religions, especially as fully revealed in the christian, which was the completion of the whole scheme, is fo fublime and excellent, that it could hardly have had any other fource than the universal parent of good. This object is no less than to teach universal impartial virtue, and a fuperiority of mind to this world, in a firm faith of another and a better after death; and this truly catholic religion is not calculated for the use of any one people only, or made fubfervient to any particular form of civil government, but is defigned to unite and bless all the nations of the world, under one spiritual head, Christ Jefus.

Thefe obfervations relate to the Jewish and christian religions jointly, I fhall now mention a few others which relate to them feverally.

The religious poems and other compofitions of the Jews, contain fentiments so admirably just and fublime, that the flighteft comparison of them with the religious hymns of other nations, even in the most enlightened ages, cannot but lead us to fufpect that the Jews were poffeffed of advantages for religious knowledge far fuperior to those of any other people.

While all the neighbouring nations were running faft into idolatry, and especially the worship of the fun, moon, and stars, parcelling out the world into a great number of principalities, and affigning a separate divinity for each, Mofes teaches a religion which begins with afferting that one God, by the word of his own power, and without the affiftance or inftrumentality of any inferior intelligent being, created the heavens and the earth, and even the fun, moon, and ftars themselves, and appointed the proper ufes of them all; which ftruck at the very foundation of the religious fyftems of all other nations. That great principle which was abandoned by all other nations, namely, the worship of one God, poffeffor of heaven and earth, and who fills both heaven and earth with his prefence, was even the fundamental maxim of the Jewish ftate, and the great foundation of their civil, as well as religious government.

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While the rest of the world were practifing the most abominable impure and cruel rites, as acts of religious worship, and thought to recommend themselves to the favour of their gods, by the most abfurd and unmeaning ceremonies, without ever having recourfe to moral virtue for that purpose, Mofes indeed inftituted a ceremonial worship; but both he and all the Jewish prophets, repeatedly, and in the strongest terms, affert the perfect moral character of the fupreme being, the infinitely

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greater importance of purity of heart, and integrity of life, and the utter infignificance of any rites, ceremonies, or offerings without them.

While other nations were addicted to the most wretched fuperftitions, having recourse to various divinations, and arts of witchcraft, whenever they wanted to get intelligence concerning future events, or the affiftance of fuperior powers, the Jewish people were taught to hold all these things in deserved contempt and abhorrence. They were inftructed to expect no information concerning future events, or affiftance in any undertaking, but from the one living and true God; and they were commanded to punish all thofe who pretended to the abominable arts of divination and witchcraft with death. It is to be obferved, alfo, that the Jewish prophets delivered themselves with gravity and seriousness, worthy of the majesty of him that fent them, and did not use thofe violent convulfions, foamings at the mouth, and extravagant geftures, which the heathen diviners had recourse to, in order to dazzle and impose upon those who confulted them.

So far is there from being any pretence for fay ing that the Jews were naturally more intelligent than their neighbours, and attained those just notions of religion and morality by their own reason and good fenfe, that their own history always reprefents them as stiff necked, and flow of understanding

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