of the confequence, except what he could learn by flow experience. The more we think upon this subject, the greater will this advantage appear to be. Mankind might, for ages, have been little more than brutes, without fome provifion and affiftance of this kind.

If the object of this trial, viz. the abstaining from the fruit of a tree, appear trifling, we fhould confider the infantile ftate of the firft man, and the only dangerous exceffes that, in his fituation, he could be guilty of; and we may see the greatest propriety in this very circumftance. Would it not have been much more abfurd to have forbidden him to fteal, to commit adultery, or, indeed, to have enjoined him the obfervance of any of the ten commandments of the moral law. What is more natural, or common with ourselves, than to forbid children to eat of certain kinds of food, or to meddle with things that are most in their way, by which they are liable to do harm to themselves or others. They are not capable of offending in any other refpects, or of understanding any higher precepts. We are not made acquainted with all the reftrictions under which our first parents were laid; but it cannot be doubted, but that they must have been of a falutary nature, whether they themselves might be aware of it or not. We do not always give our children the reason of the restrictions we lay them under, becaufe they are not always capa

ble

ble of understanding them. The prohibition to eat of a particular fruit is the only one that is mentioned by Mofes, because that was the cafe in which Adam tranfgreffed; but, for any thing we know, he might have been as exprefsly forbidden to jump from a precipice, or to plunge into a pit of water; and the forbidden fruit might have been as naturally hurtful to him as either of them.

It is by no means improbable, but that fomething of fable may have mixed with fo antient a history as that of the Fall; and the prefent condition of man was, no doubt, both forefeen and intended by our all-wife creator, as the best for us upon the whole; but I think we cannot reasonably object to the leading circumstances in Moses's account of the manner in which we came into it. And as it represents man as entering upon existence under a sense of moral government, it is far more agreeable to the ideas we conceive of the wifdom and goodnefs of God, more favourable to the human race, and more confonant to the natural provifion he has made for enlarging the comprehenfion of the human mind, and thereby perfecting our natures, and advancing our happinefs; and therefore far fuperior to the condition in which Lucretius, and the reft of the Epicureans, reprefent the introduction of man into the world, i. e. with no greater advantage for looking before him, enlarg

énlarging his views, and increafing his happiness, than the loweft of the animal creation.

In the fentence paffed upon man after the fall, we fee an opportunity is taken of carrying the views of the human mind to objects ftill more remote; and encouraging, though obfcure views are opened to him, in the promife, that the feed of the woman fhould bruife the ferpent's head.

In the patriarchal ages, the intercourfe between the divine being and the human race is continued ; but without his affuming a higher character than men in those times were capable of having intercourse with. Confequently, their apprehenfions of moral government would be growing more clear and determinate, and their ideas of duty and obligation (together with their expectation of confequences correfponding to their actions) more definite and certain; fo as to induce them to be lefs influenced by profpects of immediate pleasure or gain than before.

The fate of men's children and pofterity is always an interefting object to them, and muft have been peculiarly fo in the early ages of the world, when the whole earth was before them, and every man had the chance of being the founder of great and mighty nations. Thefe, therefore, were the views with which the divine being thought proper, at that time, to engage the attention of the patriarchs, and enforce the obligation of virtue.

Abra

Abraham had the promife of becoming the father of many nations, and that in his feed all the families of the earth fhould be blessed. With these profpects, we find his mind fo much enlarged, and his faith in futurity fo ftrong, that he leaves his native land; content and happy in being a fojourner in the country which his pofterity were to poffefs.

In the whole courfe of the Jewish hiftory, repeated miracles and prophecies would conftantly tend to keep up the views of that people to great and remote objects. And this, together with the diftinct ideas they had of the origin of the world, and the early history of it, their knowledge of the rife of their own nation, and of the frequent interpofitions of the divine being in their favour, would give a dignity to their conceptions, and a grandeur to their profpects, to which the heathen nations must have been ftrangers. There was a majefty and dignity in the Jewish ritual, in their temple, and the fervice of it, which far exceeded any thing in the heathen world; and being accompanied with just and fublime ideas of the one true God, it must have given a fublimity to their fentiments, and a warmth and fervour to their religious impreffions, to which other nations could not have attained. Accordingly, in all the compofitions of the heathen poets, in honour of their gods, there are no traces of any thing like that

fpirit of manly devotion, which animates the pfalms of David.

In the frequent relapfes of the Jews into idolatry, the prophets are continually fent of God, to remind them of the allegiance they owed to their maker, to hold out to them the expectation of his favour or resentment, and thereby preferve upor their minds the influence of great and remote objects.

When they were effectually cured of their pronenefs to idolatry, by the Babylonish captivity; and, therefore, fuch frequent interpofitions of the divine being were lefs neceffary, their minds were prepared for that long interruption of miracles which enfued, by the remarkably distinct prophecies of Ifaiah, Daniel, and Malachi, concerning future and glorious times under the Meffiah. The very year of his appearance was fixed by Daniel, and though it was not done in such a manner as to enable them to make it out with perfect exa&ness, yet it was fufficient to keep up their attention to it; and, in fact, they were not fo far out in their calculations, but that, at the time of our Saviour, and not long before, we find a general and most ardent expectation raised in the whole body of the Jewish nation of fome approaching deliverer.

In this interval, therefore, between the captivity and the birth of Chrift, far greater views and profpects were prefent to the mind of a Jew, than people